Marshmallow Dreams

by Halira

Rating: teen
Tags: Slice of Life, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, Alternate Universe, Human, Princess Luna, Drama, Original Character
Length: 371941

Rebecca Riddle seems to be your typical human-turned-pegasus in a world of both humans and ponies, but she has a secret double life, and there is nothing typical about her other life.

I'm Rebecca, Rebecca Riddle, though some people teasingly call me the Marshmallow-- because I'm kind of pleasantly plump. If you met me on the street, you wouldn't think too much about it. I'm just your ordinary college freshman human-turned-pegasus, in a world of both humans and ponies. I dance to music, love to draw, write stories, and play my kazoo, nothing out of the ordinary at all.

But I lead a double life that only a few know about. It is hard trying to keep the two parts of my life separated. By day I'm Rebecca Riddle, but when I sleep at night, I'm something much more, something beyond comprehension; but awake or asleep, I always try to keep smiling-- even when it is tough to smile.

Short universe background information is provided in the author's notes of the first chapter.

A solo title in Pandemic Series. Note, this AU existed before the actual real-life pandemic happened.

Art done by friend who has no art page to link.

Published 2020-03-30 03:30:01 UTC
Last updated 2023-02-17 02:25:57 UTC

Chapter 2: Ghosts, Ice Cream and Magic Trees

I remember vividly the first time I was genuinely terrified. It was my birthday, and I had just turned twelve.

We moved a few times when I was growing up, on account of my mom's work. My mom worked for PonyCo, the company that made things like the straps that ponies attached stuff to, and my mom was supposed to help set up new offices in different places. We'd be in a home for a year or two; then, her big boss would tell her that we needed to move someplace else. We were living in a little town in Nebraska at the time. It was the last place we lived before we finally moved to our forever home in Skytree, and had been there for just over a year-and-a-half.

My mom always took the day off for my birthday, no matter what else was going on with her work. That day she had held a party for me, and invited all my friends from school, along with her boyfriend David (who later became my stepdad), and some of her friends from work. This party was extra special, because just a week before I'd gotten my cutie mark-- a pair of smiling sunflowers crossed over one another with a smiling cloud just above them. A mark that reflected my desire to bring joy through art and creativity, along with reflecting my happy disposition-- and this was a double party celebrating both my birthday and the fact I had found my special thing.

The party lasted for several hours, and I got tons of presents; art supplies, notebooks to write or draw in, a new computer with art studio software, books about drawing techniques, and books about how to be a better writer. Someone even gave me a kazoo, which I happily blew into and danced to my horribly done silly song.

By the time everyone went home, it was full dark, and there had been plenty of laughter, as well as an enormous amount of cake and ice cream consumed. I still had plenty of energy at this point. I wasn't so heavy back then, so flew better, but my mom didn't like me flying unsupervised or in the dark. That left me having to explore other options for how to burn off my excess energy.

I tried helping my mom clean up, but she insisted on me not having to do anything on my birthday. I then decided to go to my room, and put on my pony-tailored headphones, so I could dance and party to music, while not disturbing my mom as she tried to straighten up. The music was enthralling, and I soon found myself getting lost in my own little world within it.

The next thing I knew, I was staring at myself.

My first thought was that I had somehow fallen asleep, and was having a weird dream, but the details around me were too exact to be a dream. Everything in a dream was always at least a little off, but nothing was off about this. I tried to reach out and touch my own body, but my hoof passed right through myself. It surprised me so much that I back-peddled straight through my bed, passing directly through it.

I had to be dreaming, but I couldn't wake myself up. Not knowing what to do, I ran to get my mom, but when I reached up to grab my door handle, my hoof passed right through it as well, leaving me completely unable to open the door. My body, my actual body that was stuck in its trance, started breathing more heavily as my anxiety rose. I yelled out to my mom, but no one came.

Forcing myself to try to calm down and think, I realized my mom must have stepped outside. My mom smoked, and she would always go outside to the far end of the backyard to do it so that she wouldn't have that around me. If she were at the far end of the backyard she wouldn't be able to hear me. I just needed to get to her, and have her help me fix this.

There was still the problem of not being able to open any doors. I stared at the barrier, and tried to think of how to get through. It seems obvious in hindsight that I could have just walked on through, but I was twelve at the time, so give a foal a break.

"Rebecca? How are you doing this?" Came a familiar voice. I jumped back as Miss Seapony appeared in front of me, looking concerned.

"I don't know," I cried. "I was just listening to music, and the next thing I know I'm a ghost."

"Calm down. Where is your body?" Miss Seapony asked.

I gave her a confused look, and pointed a leg behind me. "It's right there, can't you see it?"

"Turn around and look at it," Miss Seapony instructed. I did as I was told, and Ms. Seapony let off a relieved sigh as she flew over and looked at my body. "I see it now. I can only see what you can see. You don't look like you are in any danger."

"But I'm a ghost!" I whined.

My friend turned to me and shook her head. "No, there are only three ponies who can claim they're ghosts, and you aren't one of us. I'm going to put you back in your head, but I'm not experienced with these types of powers, and I'll have to send you additional help that is experienced to make sure this doesn't keep happening. Don't do whatever you did to make this happen until the help shows up, okay?"

"But how-" I stopped speaking as I realized that I was back in my body, and I looked around for my now missing friend. "Miss Seapony? Where'd you go?"

After I tested to make sure I was solid again I ran to go find my mom. She didn't believe me right away. No matter how much I tried to convince her. She thought I was just having a dream. Her opinion changed a few hours later.

It was late, and I was about to go to bed, when my mom screamed, and I heard something shatter against the wall.

"How'd you get in here! Get out!" My mom was yelling at someone.

I went out to the living room, and saw my mom throwing things at a night pony mare that was sitting in the middle of the room. That was surprising in itself, but what was really surprising was the things my mom was throwing were passing right through the night pony like she wasn't there. The night pony didn't look particularly bothered by objects passing through her head, but did seem really bothered by the yelling.

"Ma'am can you calm down? My name is Josie, and I'm here to help somepony named Rebecca."

And that's how I was scared I had turned into a ghost, and met the night pony that trained me on my powers. It is also how my mom had ended up breaking all our fine china.

I locked up the front door, and headed out to the driveway to meet Maggie as her car pulled up. Her passenger door opened upward and as soon as it did I hopped right in.

"Sorry again for being late," Maggie said, as she hit the button to order the door closed again.

I spent a second trying to determine which strap was the seat belt and which was the pony safety harness. They really should color code these things or something. "It's okay. No harm done."

Maggie checked her rear view camera as the door finished shutting, and slowly backed the car out of the driveway. "By the way, I found out that they are going to be opening signups for clubs and sororities early, starting around four."

One of my ears fell, but I picked it back up. "I can't today. My mom wants me home early to help make dinner. She said we have important guests coming over tonight."

We were on the road now, and Maggie's eyes were focused on traffic. "Maybe tomorrow?"

I slumped in my seat. "I have a doctor's appointment tomorrow morning. My mom wants me to get a prescription for birth control."

Maggie seemed to choke on a laugh, and did a brief glance over at me before turning her eyes back to the road. "Birth control? You? You're like the most dedicated virgin I've ever met."

I shrugged and laughed. "Whatever makes her happy." I got more somber. "My mom got pregnant with me her senior year of high school, and it kind of threw her life off course. I think she worries I will get pregnant in college and have to drop out. She's just showing she cares about me."

"It seems like not having faith in you to be responsible, but whatever," Maggie replied. "I could pick you up after your appointment is over, and then we could check the sororities out then."

My grin returned. "That'd be great! And I'll have you know I'm not a dedicated virgin. I just have never been asked out on a date or anything."

"Well, you could try being the one to step up and ask some guy out," Maggie said conspiratorially. "You're fun and energetic, a natural extrovert, you should be more forward."

I kept my smile on, but sat considering how to deflect this conversation. My comment about not being asked out had been true, but also bluster. The truth was, I didn't feel like I could afford to commit to a proper relationship. Relationships were built on trust, and there were secrets I kept from everyone. It occurred to me that if Miss Seapony was going to have bodyguards showing up at my family's house today they might be telling my parents why. My parents knew I spent a lot of time talking to Miss Seapony, but they didn't know why. What was I going to do if they told my parents why? How would my parents react?

I just kept smiling. I really wanted another piece of cake. Maybe the college had a shop that sold snacks. "Maybe I will ask someone out, if any guy ever measures up to my standards. I've got high expectations."

Maggie laughed. "Can't fault you there, Bec."

My parents weren't stupid. People didn't normally have such close friendships as I did with Miss Seapony, and that had to raise questions for them. Maybe they already knew what was going on, and just didn't say anything about it. Mom said in the note that these were the most important guests they ever had. She wouldn't say that just for inviting new neighbors over. Mom had to know something about why they were there.

"Hey!" I blurted out, as I spotted a shop. "Can we stop by the Baskin Robbins drive through? I could really use some ice cream right now."

"Bec, you know you're supposed to be on a diet," Maggie replied. "I'm going to help keep you honest. We're already running behind anyway."

Traitor! I didn't sulk though. I just laughed. "Oops, I forgot about my diet. Thanks for reminding me." I really wanted something sweet right now, a great big banana split with extra whip cream, sprinkles, and fudge sounded great or perhaps a chocolate-mocha milkshake. I should just try to put all this stuff out of my head. Whatever was going to happen tonight was going to happen whether or not I spent all day fretting about it. There were better things to focus on, like how exciting it was I was going to be moving into the dorms in just a few days and that I'd be meeting my new roommates in just a few hours. Happy thoughts, happy vibes, don't stress about things I can't control.

"I hope we get to have some classes together still, even though we have different majors," Maggie said hopefully. "I know I'll be meeting lots of new people, but it would be great to have a friend I already know in some of my classes."

I could tell Maggie was a little nervous about that. Meeting new people and making new friends came more naturally to me than for her. "We still have to take all the basic liberal arts stuff, and I'm sure at least some of the graphic design and architectural design stuff overlaps. I mean, I've got to work on my art techniques too, even if I'm designing buildings."

Maggie licked her lips. "Do you think I should change my major? You're going to be making a lot more money than me after you graduate."

I blinked and then smirked. "You haven't even had your first day of class yet and you're already second guessing your major? That's not good, Mags."

"My dad just keeps getting on me about how I won't be able to make a great living with my degree," Maggie griped in frustration. "He keeps going on and on about how the market is flooded with graphic designers, because of all the art focused ponies out there… um, no offense to you, Bec."

I tried to reflexively spread my wings a little, but the harness held them down. They made these things so uncomfortable. "You need to follow what you love. You wouldn't be happy with my major."

"We don't know that."

I mischievously narrowed my eyes. "You have to learn lots of math to be an architect."

That seemed to make her hesitate. "A lot?"

"There's like four or five courses, all higher level than geometry and trig," I replied in a casual way, as if it were nothing. Math wasn't my favorite thing either, but I was much better at it than Maggie.

"Uehhh," Maggie squeaked, huddling down in her seat a little. "Okay, maybe I shouldn't try what you're doing. I still worry my dad might be right, though."

"You've got to have faith in yourself and follow your passions," I insisted, trying to hop a little in my seat, but failing due to the stupid harness. "If you go into a job full of passion for it you're sure to be successful." That wasn't what Miss Seapony would always say, she'd probably agree with me here, but she sometimes warned about getting too caught up in passions. I think she meant more not letting your emotions lead you into doing something stupid. Miss Seapony was really big on that kind of thing; that and sex stuff, but I supposed sex stuff had a lot of concerns about not letting your emotions make you do stupid things, so it fit too.

I looked out my window and tensed up in anticipation. I could see Maggie had noticed my excitement and was now grinning. We were about to come up to a full view of literally the most awesome thing in the entire city, the Remembrance Monument. I saw it all the time, but every time I saw it I still had my breath taken away. The Skytree College of Art and Design was right across the street from it, so I'd be getting to see it every day going forward. It was another thing to be excited about.

We passed around a corner, and out from under the shadows of tall buildings, and suddenly we were there, under the shadow of the monument. I couldn't help myself, I gasped with joy.

The monument was not made of metal or stone. It covered a wide circular area in the center of town a mile in circumference. The outer edges of the monument were tall massive tree stumps, tree stumps as tall as my house. They were all pushed tight together, the way they had been grown, and the tops of the stumps had been flattened, polished, preserved with magic and other things, and looked like freshly cut wood that glistened in the light. Around the outer edge of the stumps there were steps cut into them so you could walk up on top, and it was like a continuous walking path from stump to stump once you did. Toward the center, at the four cardinal points, stood four still living skytrees, and their branches extended up above the entire Remembrance Monument. If you touched the trees you could feel the powerful magic in them, that sustained them as much or more than the nutrients in the soil. Even though there was no actual roof, the entire thing was like one massive building because of that dense canopy. Nets were hung along under the canopy, to catch falling leaves and the many apples that these trees produced year round. Skytree apples were expensive, compared to normal apples, but they were some of the best tasting fruits ever.

In the very center, right in the exact middle of where the four skytrees stood, was a large granite stone, inscribed with the names of everyone who lost their lives in the Cataclysm of Riverview (the name the city used to have). This was not only a memorial to that tragedy, the trees themselves were part of the story, the shield that had kept it from being worse. The day of magic and earthquakes like likes of which had never been seen before or since, and the day wood had beaten fire. It was no building in any traditional sense, but it was a wonder of magic, a wonder of the new world. I hadn't lived here yet when it happened, but when I first moved here the monument inspired me to be an architect, because I wanted to make places like this, where the fantastical became real.

"You can breathe now, Bec," Maggie laughed. "Is this what you're going to do every day you walk outside your dorm room? We might need to invest in an oxygen mask for you, so you don't suffocate yourself."

"Ha ha, very funny," I replied, still looking at the monument. I wouldn't doubt that I would do this every morning. My heart soared just looking at the wonder. "This is going to be great."

"We're about to arrive. Are you still wanting a snack?" Maggie asked.

I turned and looked at her, confused. "Why would I want a snack? I'm on a diet, remember?"

Maggie just laughed.

Chapter 3: Missing Perspectives

Back when I was really little, right after the ETS pandemic, the alicorn and Dreamwarden Luna came to Earth. Luna looked around and was scared; there were all these new night ponies that didn't understand how much they could hurt others dreamwalking, and there was a big evil thing slowly forming on its own in the dream realm that was going to hurt everyone. So Luna decided to make six ponies the new Dreamwardens of this realm. They would make sure the night ponies behaved, and their being there made the big evil thing go away.

What is a Dreamwarden? It is the most powerful thing in the dream realm, like a dream god. They've got all these rules they can't break that tell them when they can do things, so maybe dream god is a bad term, maybe dream genie instead? The original six took their jobs really seriously, like too seriously. They made all the night ponies really afraid of them all. There was one, a big meanie by the name of Sha'am Maut, that was scarier and meaner than all the other Dreamwardens put together. She was so mean that the other original Dreamwardens eventually turned on her, and forced her to retire from the job-- but that is a different story.

Another one of those Dreamwardens was a pony named Yinyu Wu Yan, but I've always called her Miss Seapony. Miss Seapony tried at first to act like a monster, to scare all the night ponies into being good-- kind of like how parents will tell you some monster will come gobble you up if you do something bad. Miss Seapony wasn't really mean, and the more bad things she saw happen, the less she could pretend to be a meanie; until one day she just stopped trying to pretend she was a monster. I was still a young foal the first time I met Miss Seapony in my dreams, but this still all happened before that.

As I said before, I remember my dreams from when I was a little foal much better than I do what happened in the waking world. My dream that night had a pastel colored world, like a cartoon, and everything had a smiling face; the sun, the flowers, the houses, the cars, everything. My dream was populated by humans and ponies of every size and shape. When I say every size and shape, I mean it. I had humans with antlers, ponies that were more giraffe than pony, people with one eye or three, people that were anthropomorphic birds or chipmunks. These may have been the dreams of a naive foal, but they are still to this day the ones I cherish most.

I was playing with my various made-up dream friends, and along came this big seapony, flying through the air. I knew right away she was different than anything else around me. I looked up at her with a big smile. "Hello! Who're you!"

The seapony gazed down at me and smiled. "Just a curious observer. My name is Yinyu. What's your name little dreamer?"

Young foals and children typically have no problem answering questions, it's just that the nature of the answer might not be what you were expecting. "I'm Rebecca. Do you want to have a tea party with me, Miss Yinyin? I'm six, and my mom's a ballerina!"

My visitor had simply rolled with what I had said. "Is she now? And six you say? My, I think that is even older than five. But my name is Yinyu, not Yinyin. Yinyin means something very different."

"Yanu?"

"Yin-yu." She replied back slowly and patiently.

I wasn't getting it. "Why are you yining me? What's yining?"

The seapony didn't get upset. She just laughed. "How about you just call me Miss Seapony, how does that sound?"

I nodded vigorously. "Okay, Miss Seapony. Are you going to have tea with me and my friends?"

Miss Seapony looked around at our surroundings, and the various smiling faces, before looking down at me again, showing her-- very out of place with my dream-- fangs. "I don't scare you?"

I shook my head. "No. You're pretty! I've never seen a person that looks like you."

Miss Seapony looked at all my crazy make-believe friends, then back at me again. She then drifted down to my tea party. "I'd love to have tea with you. What kind of tea are we having?"

I showed her my teapot. "Purple tea!"

"How about some proper green tea instead?"

"Only if it has orange spots. Orange spots make it taste better."

Miss Seapony laughed again. "I think you've made yourself a deal, Miss Rebecca-- who is six, and has a ballerina for a mom. We can sit and talk, and you can tell me all about yourself, and your wonderful friends."

And that is how I made friends with Miss Seapony. Or at least, that's how I remembered it for a long time after. Memories are funny things, they don't always tell us the whole truth. When you are with another person, you only remember your perspective, and only get half the story, or even less. It took me a long time to remember everything that happened that night, and to realize how much I had missed.

The Skytree College of Art and Design had triangular shapes to all their main buildings, and the administration building had painted murals displaying the Remembrance Monument, but also murals showing the massive church known as the Bastion that had once stood where the monument now covered.

I had to admit, based on the drawings, the Bastion must have been an impressive sight back in the day; part church, part fortress, and very very large. It had been built to impress, but I couldn't help feeling that there was a certain coldness to the design. A place that sacrificed beauty for the sake of strength. Looking at the opposing murals I saw the hearts of two different cities that occupied the same location.

"We'll never get anything done today if you stop to gape at everything, Bec," Maggie chidded.

I turned and looked at her. "But there's so much to see." I noticed more murals on some of the classroom buildings, and felt a strong urge to go look at them as well.

"Bec, you'll be here every day after we get moved in. You'll have plenty of time to look at everything as much as you want after that," Maggie replied impatiently. "Let's just go check in, get our class schedules, and find out our dorm information. You're the one that said we're on a tight schedule today."

That was true, and Maggie was right. I gave a quick longing glance back at the classroom buildings, and then nodded back to my friend.

Inside the main lobby of the administration building there were several tables set up where incoming freshmen could check in and get the information they needed. There were about ten different tables, some with lines, some without. We spotted the table that was taking care of students with last care of students with last names or pony names beginning with R or S. That covered both of us, and it didn't have a line right now.

I hurried towards the table at a partial gallop, and Maggie had to do a jog to try to keep up. I tried to slow down when I realized I was running indoors, but instead I ended up faceplanting on the ground and sliding along the tile floor.

The human lady and unicorn stallion that had been at the table tried to come around it to come check if I was okay, but I waved them off with a wing. "I'm okay. It happens all the time."

"Are you sure? We have a nurse on staff who can help if you're hurt," the human lady asked. She looked older, with lots of lines around her eyes, and short iron colored hair.

I stood back up and gave my best reassuring grin. "I'm fine. I've got a lot of extra padding on me, so when I fall down it is more of a SMOOSH-SPLAT instead of a CRASH-CRACK."

"Except for when you knock other things down," Maggie reminded me.

I spread my wings and then hopped from back and forth between my starboard and port sides. "That is more of a CRASH-BANG-CLANK; usually followed by me yelling I can pick that up or I'll pay for it."

The unicorn blinked a few times. "Such a-" he seemed to be looking for the right word. "-colorful way of describing things." I'd earned a small audience among those nearby, and a few nearby students were laughing. I was a klutz, and I'd rather own being a klutz than be embarrassed. People need to be willing to laugh at themselves to be happy.

The human lady looked bemused. "Try to avoid this becoming a habit. We don't want any crashes or cracks. I take it you're one of our new freshmen?"

I gave a broad grin. "Yes, I'm Rebecca Riddle." I gestured at Maggie. "This is my friend, Maggie Smith."

"Margaret Smith, technically, but I go by Maggie," Maggie corrected. Becoming suddenly much more shy, now that I wasn't the sole source of attention.

"Well, Miss Smith, I should have your information over here," the human lady said, as she walked back to her seat. She pointed me towards the unicorn. "Telly here will have your information Miss Riddle."

It took a few minutes to explain to us where the dorms were located, and how to match the codes on our schedules to the appropriate books in the bookstores. It never occurred to me that the exact same class taught by two different professors might have two entirely different requirements for books; not that I minded, it just meant each professor was a unique experience. Maggie and I spent another few minutes looking over our first semester schedules and comparing them. We did have two classes together, English 111 and Art 101. Those were really lucky, because those were both classes that every student had to take their first semester, and therefore there were a lot of different possible times and professors that we could have ended up with.

The dorms were towards the back of the campus. Both the male dorm building, and the female dorm building, were shaped like massive letter U's; with two separate wing towers and a central gathering area. Students from the opposite gender were allowed in the central gathering areas, but not into the tower wings. The left tower was reserved for primarily human dorms, and the right were primarily pony dorms (although there could be some occasional mixing of those, based on how many of each were enrolled at any given time).

We entered the female dorm building and looked around. Scattered around the common area were lots of couches, ping pong and air hockey tables, arcade cabinets, meeting tables, vending machines, public computers, and even a big swimming pool. There was also a security desk, where the guards on duty seemed to be carefully monitoring the few men and stallions that were hanging out with their female friends. On the entrance wall was a big sign listing off the building rules-- among those rules was no flying in the halls or common area, which wouldn't be an issue for me.

"So, I'm supposed to be going to FL 209. What's your room number?" Maggie asked me, as she looked on in interest at the swimming pool.

"My dorm number is FR 512, I'm guessing that's on the fifth floor," I replied. I hoped there was an elevator. I did not want to have to go up and down five flights of stairs every day.

Maggie started to shift back and forth from one foot to the other. "I guess we should go check them out, and meet our new roommates. Um, meet you back down here in an hour? After that we can go reserve our books and I'll take you back home."

"That works," I replied. "If I end up having to go up five flights of stairs on hoof I might need an ambulance, but here's hoping it won't come to that."

Maggie pointed at the far right wall, near some vending machines. "That looks like an elevator over there."

I breathed a sigh of relief. "Hooray! No need to resuscitate me today!" I noticed Maggie was still nervously dancing in place. "Don't worry. I'm sure you and your new roommates will get along fine, and I'll be right across the building from you."

Maggie took a deep breath, and smiled. "I've got it. Just a little jittery. I'll see you in an hour. Don't join any cults or get pregnant without me."

I laughed. "I'll try not to, but no promises."

As Maggie turned and headed to a stairwell to our left, I walked over to the elevator. It opened right away, and a pair of unicorns waved at me as they got off and I stepped on. I didn't even get a chance to hit the button to go up before I saw the light for it pop up. I guess that meant someone on the fifth floor had beat me to it. I just sat there, humming to myself, as the elevator started to ascend.

When it came to a halt, and opened, I was met by a green pegasus who immediately looked at my cutie mark with wide eyes. "Are you Sunflower Smiles? You weren't supposed to be here until tomorrow."

"Um, that's not me," I said apologetically, stepping around the pegasus. "My name is Rebecca."

The other mare looked relieved. "That's good, I was worried my new roommate was showing up a day early, and was going to freak out because our room is kind of a wreck right now." She looked me over. "You said your name is Rebecca? I'm pretty sure you're in the room next to mine. Nightscape and Julie are both there waiting on their new roommate, and I think they said their new freshman was named Rebecca. I'm Meadow Leaf by the way, but just call me Meadow."

I looked left and right trying to decide where to go. Meadow must have figured out what I was doing. "Oh! Sorry! Down the hallway to the right. It's like five doors down. Most the ponies on this floor are pegasi, except for Nightscape, and Greta down at the end of the hall. Greta is a griffon exchange student, and the RA for our floor. Don't be too scared of her; she's normally really friendly-- unless she catches you trying to sneak a stallion in, or smells alcohol or drugs on you."

I giggled. "That shouldn't be a problem. Thanks for the help. I'll be seeing you around."

The room was easy enough to find. I gave myself a little shake, made sure I didn't have any feathers out of place, then gave the door a knock. It opened right away to show a yellow pegasus mare with a straight white mane and tail-- white as my fur. She gave me a big smile and pulled me into a wing hug. "You must be Rebecca! I'm Julie. Come on in; me and Nighty have been waiting for you."

Julie was really strong for a pegasus, because she all but dragged me into the room with just one wing. The room was simple looking. It had three small desks, lined up in a row along one wall. It had a huge glass door with curtains over it that looked like it let out onto a balcony, and there was a bunk bed stacked three beds high in a corner. On the middle bunk there was a grey-blue night pony with a red mane looking at me.

"Eyes on you, Rebecca Riddle," the night pony greeted.

I blinked, that was a kind of a weird greeting. "Hi! Um, eyes on you too. Nightscape, right?"

"Nighty! What kind of way is that to greet our new roommate?" Julie asked in consternation.

Nightscape grinned. "It's kind of a private thing. She'll know what I meant by it. If not now, then soon enough." Okay, that just got weirder. Nightscape looked me up and down. "I didn't expect you to be so... round. Well, do you know how to fight? Like any martial art? Anything at all?"

"I can sit on someone, that would probably do the trick in a fight," I said, jiggling my flank. Night ponies were known to be aggressive, so her asking about me being able to fight didn't really put me off. I noticed that she didn't have any tattoos on her leathery wings. Night pony mares tattooed their wings if they were lesbians; I'm not sure why, it was just a weird night pony thing. Her not having any tattoos meant she wasn't hitting on me, or anything like that.

Nightscape blinked. "Ohhh dear."

I tilted my head. "What? Did I do something wrong?"

Julie stepped forward. "Yeah! What's up with you? You're acting strange all of the sudden."

The night pony shook her wings briefly. "It's nothing, just not what I expected." She then smiled at me. "I apologize if I came off as disrespectful. I didn't mean to be. What are you majoring in?"

My mood brightened up. "I'm in the architectural design and engineering program."

Nightscape's eyes seemed to light up. "Really? Me too. Most of the people in that program are humans, earth ponies, and unicorns. This whole past two years I've been the only pony with wings with that major."

"That's great! Maybe you can help me out with things." I turned to my new pegasus friend. "What are you majoring in?"

Julie lifted her wings high. She had a really impressive wingspan, and looked really muscular. "I'm an athlete, here on a flight team scholarship, but my major is in cloud design. I'm hoping to get drafted out onto a professional speed flying team, but after my sports career eventually dries up I'll probably go into the business of making custom shaped clouds. There's a growing market for it."

"Custom shaped clouds?"

She nodded. "Yeah. People order them made for special events, or for movies, or all kinds of things. Rich people will pay a lot of money to have every cloud in their event to look just right, and ponies that know what they are doing with detail cloud shaping can make a lot of money. Any pegasus can make a cloud, but it takes an artist to make a perfect cloud for the mood."

"I've never heard of that. I also didn't know we had a speed flying team, since this is an art school," I said in astonishment.

Julie hopped back. "Are you kidding? This place has one of the best speed flying teams in the country. I guess you aren't a local. Back when the city blew up Sapphire Skies did a lot of really high power pegasus magic stuff, and it inspired every little pegasus filly and colt around here it seemed. This school is packed with flying athletes."

I gave a birdlike tilt of my head. "Who's Sapphire Skies?"

Julie went wide eyed with shock. "You don't know who Sapphire Skies is?! She's like the best pegasus ever!"

"Now you've done it," Nightscape said in a lamenting voice. "We're about to be presented with the monologue of praise of Julie's hero."

Julie gave Nightscape the stink-eye. "I'm not that bad!"

Nightscape snorted. "You've got your bed surrounded with posters of her, like some sort of shrine. I'm surprised you don't pray to her at night, with how much hero worship you have."

"Well, you've got your weird Dreamwarden worship thing going," Julie shot back. Dreamwarden worship? That could make this arrangement kind of uncomfortable.

Nightscape laughed again. "My fiancé has Phobia Remedy for a sort-of-godmother. Which kind of makes her almost like my future mother-in-law. Trust me, I don't worship my future pseudo-mother-in-law, but I do listen when she tells me to do something."

I didn't know how to feel about that. Phobia Remedy was like Miss Seapony, a Dreamwarden. She was said to be the only Dreamwarden that the meanie Dreamwarden Sha'am had been afraid of. Phobia Remedy lived in Skytree, but I had never met her. Miss Seapony didn't talk a lot about the other Dreamwardens, so I really didn't know what they were all like. I just knew that anyone that Sha'am Maut had been afraid of had to be really scary.

"Is Phobia Remedy really scary?" I asked, unable to withhold speaking my mind out loud. I wanted to take a break and go see what was in the vending machines.

Nightscape seemed taken aback by my question, then shrugged. "What's more scary than me making my future mother-in-law, or pseudo-mother-in-law, angry with me? I can't think of anything."

"You've never told me how you get along with his actual family," Julie cut in.

Nightscape flapped her wings, and flew down from the bed. "I've never really met them. His little sister is supposed to be arriving in town later today, and she is going to be going to the clinic with me and him tomorrow. I'll let you know what she's like after that. I'm going to meet his actual parents and little brother over Thanksgiving Break."

"You got engaged without meeting your fiancé's parents?" I asked, gaping in amazement.

Nightscape shrugged. "I'm a night pony. We try to get that engagement promise ASAP. There's a night pony saying; those that hesitate, don't get a wedding date."

"But, is the rest of his family night ponies?" I asked.

The mare shook her head. "No, but I'm sure his actual family will understand, if they know anything at all about night ponies, which they obviously should. I'm actually being very conservative with him, any other night pony mare would have made sure he had them pregnant by now. But I agreed to hold off on that until after we graduate, hence the visit to the clinic tomorrow to discuss birth control options."

I perked up. "I'm actually going by the doctor tomorrow for birth control."

Nightscape gave a mischievous smirk. "Ohhh, are you going to be going on some midnight rendezvous off campus?"

"No, I-"

The night pony went wide-eyed. "Oh! In that case, I can try to help cover for you sneaking a stallion in here, but I'm not sure how Julie feels about that."

"No!" Julie shouted. "No stallions! You aren't getting me in trouble. I'd lose my scholarship."

"I'm not going to be having any sex!" I shouted. "I'm a committed virgin. My mom just insists I get on birth control, and I'm humoring her to make her feel more at ease."

Julie let off a sigh of relief. "Oh, thank Yinyu! I thought we were about to have some drama in here before you even got moved in."

Nightscape just looked even more confused. "You aren't at all what I was expecting. Not that there's anything wrong with that."

The fact that Nightscape seemed to have had a lot of expectations still felt strange.

"Anyway," Nightscape continued, before covering a yawn. "Maybe I'll run into you tomorrow at the clinic. If I do, you can meet my fiancé. He's a great guy, and he attends here as well. I'm sure you'll be as surprising to him as you were to me. I'm getting some much needed sleep now. I was only staying awake this long to meet you. Have a good day, and I look forward to helping you move in later on."

Nightscape then pulled a curtain around her section of the bunk bed. Still leaving me feeling as if I was missing half the conversation somehow. I could only smile and wonder.

Chapter 4: Things We Just Don't Talk About

When I was eleven years old, someone important to me died.

I was in my friend Mandy's dream. Mandy and I had lived next door from one another in Virginia, one of the many places my mom's big boss had made us live, and then later move away from. We did get to eventually settle for good in Skytree, but there were a lot of places in between where we had started and Skytree. Each one of those came with more friends that I had to say goodbye to. Mom told me that we were going to be getting our forever home eventually, but sometimes dreams took some time to come completely true. I could accept that. I accepted a lot of things, but I always hated saying goodbye.

It was a normal sort of night. Miss Seapony hadn't been around when I first fell asleep, but that wasn't unusual; Miss Seapony didn't always show up. Because my family moved around so much she had taught me two years before how to dreamwalk, so I could visit all my old friends still after I moved. There had been a lot of time teaching me how to find each of my friends' dreams, and I had been told that I wasn't to go visiting other people's dreams without her there, or the angel lady would show up and send me back to my own dreams. I kind of wanted to meet the angel lady, but I didn't want to be sent back to my own dreams either. That was like being sent to my room without dinner, which was just about the most awful thing I could think of.

Mandy was my age, and had just gotten her cutie mark, a needle and thread over an outspread wing. Mandy had learned how to sew using her wings, and was telling me all about it. I was listening with joy and enthusiasm, telling her how happy I was for her, and daydreaming about the day I might get my own cutie mark, when Miss Seapony came.

I didn't notice Miss Seapony at first, Mandy did. Mandy jumped away and screamed, and I turned to see my best friend. Miss Seapony looked faded, tired, not her normal self at all. I could tell that there was something wrong. First I had to take care of Mandy.

I went over to Mandy and rubbed a wing against her, while she stared in horror at my other friend. "Don't worry, Mandy. This is Miss Seapony, she's my friend. She's the one that taught me how to talk to you in dreams."

"She's big, and she has s-sharp teeth," Mandy whimpered, pointing a wing at Miss Seapony accusingly. "That's not a pony, that's a monster!"

Miss Seapony actually flinched at what Mandy said, which is something I couldn't imagine her doing. She then shrank her size down, so she was no bigger than me or Mandy. That seemed to calm Mandy down a little, but not completely.

The fact Miss Seapony looked so sad was getting too much for me. Mandy seemed calm enough, for the moment. I hurried over to Miss Seapony. Mandy would understand that Miss Seapony wasn't a monster when she saw me talking to her.

"Miss Seapony, what's wrong? You look sad, or hurt. You don't look right."

Miss Seapony stared at me, and I could see tears in her eyes. "I've had a very bad day today, Rebecca. I can say with perfect honesty that it was the worst day of my life, and there will never be another day of my life that will be worse."

I went up to my oldest friend and gave her a big hug. Miss Seapony seemed surprised, but embraced me as well. She laid her head on my shoulder, and did something that she'd never done before and has never done since, she started sobbing. She sobbed so hard that her whole body shook, and I could feel her tears on my fur. It was just a dream, but it was as real as anything in the waking world.

"What's wrong with her?" Mandy asked. She crept forward, concern outweighing fear. It was hard to be afraid of a monster that was sobbing like that.

"I don't know," I replied, then hugged my friend tighter. "What's wrong?"

Miss Seapony drifted out of my grip. By drifting out of my grip I mean she became immaterial and there simply wasn't any way of gripping her. She sat back and looked at me, wiping her eyes with a fin. "I think we should go see your mother before I tell you. This is not going to be an easy thing, and I think she should be there when I tell you."

I had never dreamwalked to my mom before. I understood that I probably wasn't going to be the one dreamwalking her tonight; Miss Seapony was going to be taking me into her dreams.

"Say goodbye to your friend, Rebecca," Miss Seapony instructed. "You can see her again tomorrow."

I looked over at my still wary friend. "Sorry, Mandy, I've got to go. I'll see you again soon."

Mandy crept a little closer, but came sort of the distance she needed to hug me. "Just don't get eaten!"

I didn't get time to reply back, as Miss Seapony whisked us away. We were suddenly in a different dream, that felt a little funny. It's hard to say what felt funny about it. It was like a constant sound just outside my ability to hear, or a breeze on my feathers that wasn't there, or like something was always right outside my field of vision.

Miss Seapony caught onto my discomfort. "This is a human dream. Human dreams operate on a different, let's say frequency, than pony dreams do. You can feel that difference while in it. The magic attached to this dream is very weak, and you won't be able to find this dream again without me. Until today, I wouldn't have been able to find this dream either."

The dream didn't seem to be anything. I just saw fog. "Where's my mom?"

"We are on the edge of the dream. I am waiting for a friend to explain things to your mom before I take you to see her."

"Oh," that was all the reply I could think of. Miss Seapony's depressed mood had me really worried about her. She was never like this, and she was my friend. I wanted her to be happy.

The fog suddenly dissipated, showing what looked like the front door of my house. "We can go forward now. She should be waiting. Arbiter has alerted her of our arrival."

"Who's Arbiter?" I asked, as we approached the door.

"The angel lady," Miss Seapony replied. "She's my younger sister Dreamwarden, and she has tended more to dreams like this one since joining our ranks, dreams that don't have much magic."

"Is she going to be there?" I had never met the angel lady.

"She is always around, as I am now, but she is going to be keeping out of sight. This is a personal conversation, that she has no desire to intrude upon. She likes to be in the background, giving aid unseen, unless something requires her to speak directly to a dreamer."

"Oh," I replied again.

We went through the door into what looked like our living room, except with just the tiny bit off being off that said this was a dream; light that came from nowhere, none of the little imperfections the room normally had, and some details missing or different. My mom was there sitting on the couch, and she turned and looked at us as we entered.

"Hello, Miss Riddle, you know who I am," Miss Seapony stated, not making it a question.

My mom squeezed her hands tightly together. "You're Yinyu Wu Yan. I guess it's nice to meet our benefactor at last."

I looked up at my friend, ears flattened. "What's she mean, benefactor?"

Miss Seapony looked down at me and brushed a fin against my mane. "Years ago, I saw the situation you and your mother were in, when you were homeless. I had to obtain your permission to seek help for it, you might not recall me doing so, since you were so small. Once I had it, I asked one of my sisters to request the aid of Wild Growth, as a personal favor. She was the one that gave your mother her job."

"Oh," I said yet again. I smiled up at her. "That was really nice of you! You must help lots of people like that."

To my shock, Miss Seapony shook her head. "Unfortunately, the world is far too big, with too much suffering, to help everyone so much. And you're so very special Rebecca, that I need to admit, I had an ulterior motive for helping you at the time, but it no longer seems to have any meaning."

"What were you trying to get out of my daughter?" My mom said, her voice was harsh, like she was angry. I was confused, why was my mom angry?

"An heir," Miss Seapony said quietly. "I saw in your daughter all the qualities that I wanted in whoever succeeded me. She could be trained and prepared for years, so she could be more ready than any who came before to step into the job. A smooth transition to a better, kinder Dreamwarden, when I chose to move on to Equestria. She would have to accept it, of course, but I had such high hopes."

My mom's tone didn't lighten. "You say that in the past tense. Has she displeased you? Are you just going to cast her aside as useless now?"

"No, she has only continued to verify what I first saw in her," Miss Seapony replied. She then sank low to the floor. "What has changed is I am no longer going to be able to move onto Equestria. It will no doubt be on the news when you awaken. I have brought Rebecca here because I need to tell her what has happened to me, and it's a very hard subject, one that you should be present for. I am trapped in the dream realm forever now. Do you understand why that kind of thing happens, Miss Riddle?"

My mom looked confused for a moment, then brought her hand up to her mouth with a gasp. "Oh my! I…I don't know what to say."

Miss Seapony gazed forlornly at my mother. "So you do understand. I am many things, Miss Riddle, but one of those things is that I am your daughter's friend, her oldest friend, other than you. I need your help, to explain what has happened."

"I don't know if we should have this conversation with her," my mom said, looking more and more concerned.

I cowered down on the floor, not likely that both my mom and Miss Seapony were so upset. Had I done something wrong? "What's wrong? I don't like this."

Miss Seapony kept staring at my mom. "She will hear of it one way or another soon enough. It is better that she heard it directly from me, and better that you are right here to help her understand and comfort her. I care deeply about your daughter, as if she was one my own foals. I am even now trying to comfort them as well, and the experience has been far more traumatic for them. Help me make this less so for her."

"What's going on?" I whimpered.

My mom came over to me and pulled me into a hug. "My little sunshine, we need to talk. We need to talk about what happens sometimes when bad things happen."

And that's when I learned that Miss Seapony had died, and was now a ghost… you'll need to excuse me; I don't want to focus on this memory any longer.

I spent a little while talking to Julie. In addition to getting to know one another, we discussed what I would be bringing in, my actual move in date, and went over some basic 'house rules'. Nightscape slept through the entire time, as was typical for a nocturnal pony, and operated on a schedule very different than either me or Julie.

Some interesting things I learned were that most pegasus students tended to just fly in and out of the balconies when coming and going from class. They typically only used the elevator or stairs when visiting someone elsewhere in the building, when going down to the gathering area below, or when carrying around a delicate project that they wanted no risk of falling from a five story height. Julie was more than a little shocked when I told her that I would probably use the elevator most of the time, at least when carrying my stuff for class.

"But, what pegasus doesn't want to fly as much as they can?!" Julie exclaimed, spreading her wings as if to remind me we had them. "I know you're a little…"

"Fat," I supplied.

Julie looked embarrassed. "I was looking for a nicer word. But, being that shouldn't interfere with you being able to fly that much."

I flapped my wings a few times to get into a small hover. The rules forbid flying in the halls or common area, it didn't forbid flying inside of rooms. Julie wouldn't even be able to reach her bed without flying. I took to the air and kind of dipped up and down, while wavering left and right, before finally settling back down.

Julie blinked. "Your weight actually causes you to have that much trouble flying steady? I don't understand. You're not the only heavy-set pegasus I've ever seen, and those other ones didn't have that much trouble."

"My pegasus magic is kind of weak all around," I explained, as I gave my wings an extra flap or two before settling them back to my sides. "I've got next to no weather magic, and I feel like I'm walking on a waterbed when I cloudwalk."

"Oh, you're one of those ponies with lower magic, like PREQUES two or whatever," Julie said sympathetically. "Sorry, I didn't realize."

I shook my head, then grinned. "I'm actually a four-point-one. My magic just mostly got put into other things. I can dreamwalk as well, or better, than most night ponies, and I'm licensed by the OMMR."

Julie gave a worried shuffle of her wings. "So you can do, like mind magic, and stuff?"

I shook my head again. "No, no mind magic, at least, not like you are thinking. I'm not allowed to actually say what I can do. I can show you my license, if you want."

I opened up my travel pouch and pulled the small card out from it with my mouth, and transferred it to the cup of my wing. I then passed it to Julie's outstretched wing and waited for her to read it.

"One ability licensed, ability classified, assessed one-two-nine, personally monitored by the Dreamwardens, refer all requests for information regarding ability to the Dreamwardens," Julie read aloud. "What does that number mean?"

I took the card back from her and placed it back in my pouch. "Each number is ranked one to ten, one the lowest, and ten the highest. The first number says how much direct damage or harm my ability can do. The second number says how prevalent the ability is in the general population; two means exceedingly rare, in this case there are like a dozen ponies who can do it. The third number says how strong I am at the ability out of those who can use the ability."

Julie gave a partial frown. "And you can't say what it is?"

I shook my head a third time. "Nope, Dreamwardens say no can do. I can say that if I ever look completely zoned out, and staring off at nothing, I might be doing it, so don't freak out. I'm not sick or anything. If you really need me when I'm doing that, you can get my attention by giving me a little shake."

"And the Dreamwardens themselves keep track of you?" Julie asked, mulling things over.

"Yep," I said with a nod. "They're immediately aware of every time I use it, and watch me the whole time."

"So, it's some dream realm thing then," Julie concluded.

"I can't really say, sorry," I apologized. "I can't accidently hurt you or anything with it. You don't need to worry about it."

Julie gave a flick of her tail. "Just weird having a roommate that has some super-classified magic ability she can't talk about. I guess It's no problem, but I think you should keep that to yourself. I feel like I'd rather not have known about it."

I looked down. "I understand, I just felt like if we were going to be roommates you should know, in case you ever caught me using it and got confused or worried."

"When you're zoned out, right?"

"Right."

Julie smiled at last. "Okay, that I can understand, because I might have worried. I can understand now why you told me. Can I tell Nighty about it later, or do you want to be the one to tell her? I won't tell anyone else."

I thought about it. "You can tell her. Just make sure it doesn't get spread around. I really did tell you just because we'll be living together, and you might see me doing it. Even my best friend doesn't know about this, since she'd never be in a position she'd see me doing it. I only do it when I'm in private."

"Understood, just as long as it isn't hurting anything, it will be fine," Julie said, fully releasing her tension. "Did you want a tour around campus? Do you have time today?"

My eyes went wide as I checked the time. Luckily a full hour hadn't passed yet, but it was getting close. "Um, can we do that tomorrow? I've got to run and meet my best friend. I told her I'd only be an hour. She and I were going to come back tomorrow afternoon to check out the sororities and clubs."

Julie looked at the time, and gasped when she saw it. "You'd better run then. Yeah, I'll be here tomorrow afternoon, and you can introduce me to your friend. I'll have your key for the room then. I was supposed to have that today, but they were running behind. Go on, hurry so you don't keep her waiting."

Author's Note

Art of Miss Seapony (Yinyu Wu Yan).

Chapter 5: People are Never What they Seem

My friend Josie taught me everything I know about how to use my powers. She visited me at least once a week, if not more, from the entire time after I learned that I had weird powers, up until the point we moved to Skytree. She was always kind of sad though. I hated anyone being sad, especially a friend.

One day, I tried to do something about it.

I had been expecting her. Because we had a rough schedule. It wouldn't do for her to show up in the house unexpectedly when we had guests, or I wasn't there. My mom accepted her presence, because she understood I needed to learn how to control my abilities. I'm not sure my mom ever really liked Josie though. It took a lot of effort to convince my mom to go along with my plan, but my mom eventually caved in, mainly because she couldn't deny me trying to make someone happy.

When Josie appeared she gaped at the room in open mouthed shock. My mom and I had party streamers hanging from the ceiling, balloons scattered around, a big cake, along with a big banner that said 'A Very Merry Unbirthday, Josie!'. Alice in Wonderland was my favorite book, and I loved the idea of an unbirthday party. You could have an unbirthday party every day of the year, except for your birthday, and that was better than just one birthday party a year.

"Happy unbirthday, Josie!" I shouted with joy. I then paused. "It isn't your birthday today, is it? This would be really badly planned if it was."

Josie gave me a flat look. "It actually is my birthday."

"Oh…," I mouthed, unsure what I was supposed to do now.

Josie stared at me with one eyebrow raised. "No, it isn't my birthday. What's this all about?"

I brightened up again, and laughed. "You got me good! I just wanted to have a party for you. You're always really nice to me, but you always seem unhappy. I want to turn your frown upside down!"

Josie blinked, then looked suspiciously at my mom. "And you helped her with this?"

My mom seemed unsure how to reply. "I- I am willing to indulge whatever helps bring my daughter joy. I couldn't deny her a chance to throw you a party if that was what was going to make her happy."

I put my kazoo in my mouth and started playing the unbirthday song as best I could (not very well at all). Josie just continued to stare, and after a few seconds I stopped, and dropped my kazoo. "What's wrong? Is it the cake? I know you can't eat it here, since you aren't really here, but we could mail some to you."

Josie sighed, and ran a hoof across her muzzle. "It isn't the cake."

I looked around, trying to determine why this wasn't going right. "Is it too bright? I know you don't like bright light, but I didn't think it was that bright in here. Maybe too colorful?"

Josie gave me an even sadder look than normal. "Rebecca… I know your heart is in the right place, and I really appreciate the gesture-- I do, but I don't think this was a good idea."

"Should I do something else?" I asked, looking for something to cheer my friend up.

Josie bit her lip, and seemed to be calming herself. "I don't deserve this. Just let it go. We have lessons to do."

"Now wait one moment!" My mom yelled. "My daughter has gone out of her way to do something nice for you, and you refuse to even try to pretend to be happy about it? I don't know what kind of problem you have, but it better not be with my daughter."

Josie's eyes narrowed. "I don't pretend to be happy about it because I don't want to put on some fake persona for her, and lie to her. I'm here because there was a scared filly, dealing with things she didn't understand, and I can't leave a filly like that when there is something I can do about it."

My mom was about to fire back some angry retort, but I asked a question first. "Why? Why don't you think you deserve it? Did you do something wrong? I don't think you did anything wrong."

Josie took a step back. She seemed to be really struggling with something. She gave me a final sorrowful look, and then vanished.

My eyes started to sting, and my vision got blurry. Before I knew what was happening, my chest was tightening and I started to cry. My mom hurried over to me and grabbed me up into her arms. I wrapped my wings around my mom and cried onto her shoulder while she cradled me in her arms.

"What did I do wrong? I wanted to make her happy."

My mom rocked me back and forth, still holding me tight against her shoulder. "I know you did, that's who you are, but sometimes you just can't make someone happy."

"Why?" I sniffled. "Doesn't everybody want to be happy?"

"Some people don't," my mom replied quietly. "Some people get it in their head that they can't be happy, that they shouldn't be happy. Some people just wallow in their own self loathing. You can try to help, but you have to understand you can't always help them."

"Why is Josie like that?"

My mom just continued to try to soothe me. "I don't know, sunshine, I don't know."

"I'm like this because I've done a lot wrong. It wasn't my fault, but I didn't have a choice."

I picked my head up from my mom's shoulder and looked back to try to see Josie. I saw nothing. The room seemed to be empty.

"Josie?" I called out, looking for the source of the voice.

"When I was little, I had such terrible nightmares," the voice continued, still unseen. "I would wake up, and it would still feel like I was in the nightmare. Night terrors are what people call that. I could never remember what I was afraid of after, just the terror."

"What does that have to do with anything?" My mom demanded.

"Because my nightmares weren't nightmares, my nightmares were real," Josie replied. "There was always this little girl in my room, a little girl who didn't belong there, and was gone by the time my parents came running to me, just vanished. I could never remember her after, but she was always there."

"A ghost?" I asked.

"No, not a ghost. That girl was all too real. A red-headed girl in tattered clothes, she never aged, from when I was six up until when I was ten. She… she did things to me. Then, one day, she came and told me she was done, that she was sorry it had to be this way, but that I would do a good job when the time came."

"And no one ever caught her?" My mom asked, seeming to doubt the story.

"My parents put up cameras in my room, to see what was happening at night. The cameras never saw anything."

"It sounds like you were just dreaming," my mom said. "I'm guessing this was back before ETS, judging by your age, so that rules magic out."

"Oh, but that's the thing. I'm from Lazy Pines. Where ETS first broke out. My life was decided for me, and I had no choice in the matter. When I fully transformed I was not only the first night pony on earth, I was the strongest that there would be, by design. When her voice came to me again after my transformation, I didn't remember it, but I did as it said… just like she had intended."

"And what did it tell you to do?" I asked in a low voice.

"It told me how to craft a vision. The vision was my craftsmanship. The greatest mind magic crime in history was started by me, the mass brainwashing of millions. I may have been conditioned to do it, but it was still me."

Josie now appeared in front of us, crying. "I wouldn't stop trying to craft visions, and the Dreamwardens grew angry. They put me on trial, and I was unrepentant, prepared to die for what I thought was right. I wasn't so lucky. I had Phobia Remedy for a judge. It would have been so much better to have Sha'am Maut, and just died, but Phobia Remedy forced me to face my fears-- all the fears that had been suppressed and hidden from me for years. She made me remember, she made me realize the truth."

Josie stared at us with a look of horror. "Nothing in my life was ever my choice. I can't even say for sure that me being here now is my choice, or if it is just how I've been programmed to think. That's why I don't deserve parties or gratitude. I've done bad things, and I'm not a person of my own making. I'm just a tool, here to do a job."

I don't know how I managed it, but I put myself right into astral projection right then and there and sent my projected form over to Josie. Then I hugged her. It caught her completely off guard, and my mom as well; who almost dropped my body in shock, before she realized what I'd just done.

"Rebecca, please, I'm not a good person. I'm not even a person, just some thing that was made," Josie wept, trying to gently free herself from my astral grip.

"You care about scared foals."

We both turned and looked at my mom, who was watching us intently, still holding my half-asleep body. "You care about scared foals," my mom said again.

"So? Of course I do," Josie replied. "After everything that happened to me as a kid, I can't bear to watch them go through terrors."

"And that's all you," my mom said quietly. "If what you say is true, you weren't made to care about scared foals. The real you that went through all that stuff is the one that cares."

"I-" Josie began, but my mom wasn't done.

"You said you are here because my daughter was a scared filly dealing with things she didn't understand. You don't just help her, you empathize with her. You've made it so she isn't scared anymore, because of your care and empathy, not because that was what you were made to do. Please, accept my daughter wanting to celebrate you for it."

"Please, Josie," I begged, gripping her tighter.

Josie sat still, and sniffled. "Okay kid, you can mail me some cake, and play your song for me. If that is what you want to do. I do appreciate it. I just can't promise that it will make me happy."

"Will it make you less sad?"

Josie chuckled dryly. "I guess it will."

"Then that's a start."

That's when I learned how much hurt a person could be hiding, and that sometimes bringing someone joy was a process.

Maggie ended up being the one late getting back down from her new dorm, though only by about four minutes. She was very apologetic, and I told her that it wasn't a big deal. It had given me time to raid the vending machines for some snack cakes.

We got to the bookstore and reserved and paid for all our books. I thought we were supposed to take them home with us today, but they said they'd hold them there until our move-in day. That made things much easier, because there were a lot of books, and I wasn't looking forward to carrying them all at once. After that we took a brief walk around campus, just to see where everything was at, before hopping back in Maggie's car and heading home.

Unfortunately, about five minutes into the drive, the car got a flat tire. Maggie had a spare tire, but she didn't actually know how to change a tire. I of course was absolutely no help in this, other than try to be moral support. It took a few minutes, but a nice human man eventually pulled over and helped us change the tire. He took an extra few minutes looking over the other tires, and explaining that Maggie needed to replace not only the one that went flat, but a second one as well, or it would be going flat as well soon. It really was nice of him, but it took extra time, and I was starting to fret about getting home late.

While he was still explaining things to Maggie about tire wear, and how often she should get her tires changed, I called my stepdad. "Hey Dad."

"Rebecca, where are you? Are you on your way home?" My stepdad answered back. He normally called me Bec or Becky, when he used my full first name it usually meant something serious.

"I'll be home soon. We got a flat tire, but it is fixed now. We've been running behind all day," I explained. "Is everything okay? Did you need something from the store?"

"We don't need anything, but thanks for asking," my step dad replied. He paused, and lowered his voice. "Becky, have you been doing anything you shouldn't? Things involving your you-know-what?"

I shook my head. "No, I've been a good girl. Why do you ask?"

"It's nothing," Dad replied quickly. I could tell he was very worried still. "Our guests were just very insistent that you be here." His voice dropped lower still. "Two of them are OMMR agents, Bec. Are you sure that you haven't done anything? You can be honest with me, we'll protect you."

"Oh, that," I said, forcing a laugh and grin. I did my best to put my smile into my voice. "Don't worry about that. I know why they're coming, bit who's the other guest?"

"Someone important. Your mom said you met her a long time ago, your mom's old boss," Dad replied.

"Oh." Mom's old big boss was Wild Growth, who was now a senator and a national hero. She was a very important pony, and she didn't typically just make social house calls. Saying Wild Growth was showing up for dinner was like saying the president was showing up for dinner 'just because'. It just didn't happen without a reason. She didn't run my mom's work anymore either, some other person ran that company for her; so she wouldn't be visiting to talk about that.

Of course, I already knew this was all because of me, but why would a senator be showing up? The only reason some big important government person would show up was… It couldn't be that. Miss Seapony would have told me… Wouldn't she?

I wanted to astral project right then and there to ask her, but I was in public, and with Maggie. There was no way I could do that right now without drawing attention to myself. It would have to wait till I got home.

"Hey, Bec! We're ready to go. Come on!" Maggie called out to me.

I turned my attention back to my phone. "I'll be home soon, Dad. I'll ask her about it when I get back. Love you."

"Love you, too. Just stay out of trouble, and get here soon. Your mom is on her way."

I ended the call and bounded back to the car.

Maggie gave me a curious look when I got back inside. "Everything okay? Do we need to stop at the ice cream place?"

Ice cream sounded so good right now. "No time. Need to get back home to be ready for the guests."

Maggie frowned. "What's wrong?"

I turned and looked at her, giving her a big smile. "Nothing's wrong. Why do you think something's wrong?"

Maggie narrowed her eyes. "I just offered you ice cream and you didn't protest that you are on a diet. That means you want ice cream; which means you're nervous or upset about something. The fact you refused, despite the fact you really want it, means whatever is going on is urgent."

I stared at her blankly.

"Bec, I'm your friend. I know you. You might smile all the time, but you get easy to read after a while. Tell me what's going on."

I didn't have a good out for this, and no white lie available. I just lowered my head. "I'm sorry, I can't talk about it. I'll be alright, I promise. Tomorrow, when you pick me up, I'll be perfectly fine."

Maggie didn't seem happy with that answer at all. She just put the car in drive and started driving. We drove back to my house in complete silence.

Author's Note

Going to be going back to work, starting tomorrow, so unsure what that will do to the speed of updates.

Chapter 6: More than Meets the Eye

I once knew someone in school who had a tri-colored mane and tail. Most ponies have just a single straight color for those, or two shades of the same color, or two colors, but three colors was really rare. They were really proud of their fancy mane and tail, and they also spent a lot of time reminding me how plain my colors were. I felt the need to correct her.

"I have stripes and spots," I asserted, with complete and utter confidence.

She looked at me like I didn't know what I was talking about. "No you don't. I'm looking right at you. You're plain white."

I grinned, and turned my body to put it more on display. "You aren't looking hard enough."

She squinted her eyes, trying to see what I was seeing. She then shook her head. "It's just straight boring white, and your mane and tail are just straight boring yellow."

I pointed a hoof at my body. "I have white spots and white stripes, can't you see them?"

She stomped a hoof. "You can't have white stripes and spots on top of white fur!"

"Yes I can, and I do," I replied, pointing again.

"You're crazy!" She yelled, and turned her back to me, gave me a strong flick of her tail, and strutted off.

"Or maybe I just see things a little differently," I said quietly.

Tell me, do you see my stripes and my spots? I think my stripes have always looked good on me.

Maggie pulled the car up behind my step dad's car and parked. "I'm sorry I got mad at you, Bec. I just don't like that you're clearly upset about something and you don't seem to trust me to tell me what it is."

I sat and considered what to say.

"It hurts my feelings," Maggie continued. "But more than that, it leaves me worrying about you. I caught that you were nervous when we were heading up to the college, but figured it was just the same stuff that I was feeling. You were talking on the phone with your dad, is something going on here?"

I tried to think of how to respond without lying to her. I hated lying to anyone, much less a friend. It just wasn't a nice thing to do. "These guests that're showing up later are really important. They could really impact my family in big ways. I might just be overreacting. I can't talk about who they are or what they're here for. I'm not entirely sure what they're here for, to tell the truth." The last part was a partial lie. I knew what they were here for. What I didn't know was why they were being put in place now. I had my suspicions, but couldn't be certain, yet.

Maggie was quiet for a moment, before sighing. "Well, that's more than I knew earlier. Is this going to change our plans for tomorrow?"

I brightened up. "Oh, definitely not! I'm ready to sign up for some clubs and maybe a sorority. I don't think my mom will cancel me going to the doctor tomorrow, even if the end of the world was coming."

That seemed to improve my friend's mood. "Okay then, I guess I'll see you tomorrow. If you want me to pick you up at the clinic make sure to send my car your GPS coordinates. Hopefully traffic isn't going to be too bad."

I giggled. "Yeah, wish cars could fly, and just avoid all that."

Maggie slapped her steering wheel. "I know, right! It's 2037, where's all our flying cars? We've got teleporting, if you're rich enough to be teleported everywhere, but we don't have flying cars yet."

"Yep, we got it all out of order," I agreed. Maggie hit the button for my door and it began to rise open.

Maggie gave me one more concerned look before I left her car. "Hey, give me a call if you need anything. Give me a call anyway later on, just to tell me if everything turned out okay with your guests, okay?"

I nodded with a friendly smile. "I can do that. Thanks, Mags. See ya tomorrow."

I watched as Maggie exited the driveway and drove off. My attention then turned to the house across the street, the one I had been nosey about earlier. The movers were all gone, and now there was a human lady standing out on the front porch. She was clearly watching me.

One thing I am bad at is containing my curiosity. I just can't help myself. There's so many interesting things to see. This time my curiosity had nothing to do with my normal reasons. I wanted to know more about our neighbors.

I did a little jog, while beating my wings, and took to the air. I was just going to fly across the street and say hello. Find out the lady's name, and be friendly. The lady watched me as I did my short flight, and then watched as I tumbled across her grass when trying to land.

"If you fly that badly, I think you might want to just walk over in the future," she called over to me. "You didn't hurt yourself, did you?"

I pulled myself back to my hooves, and spit out some grass. "I'm fine. I'm sorry about messing up your grass, I can pay for it."

"The movers made far more of a mess of it, don't worry about it," the lady replied with a dismissive flick of her hand, and leaned against her porch banister. She had red hair and golden eyes. "Eyes on you, Rebecca Riddle. How can I help you?"

Okay, that was the second time I'd heard that weird greeting. "What's that mean? Eyes on you?"

The lady kept blank faced, but looked around, before turning back to me. "Turn your phone off."

"Huh?" That didn't make much sense. "Eyes on you means turn my phone off?"

"No," the lady replied, shaking her head. "I'm telling you to turn your phone off by saying turn your phone off. I'll tell you after that."

I didn't understand what was going on, but did as she said. She watched me, and then added. "Do you have any other device that connects to the internet on you? If you do, turn that off as well."

I flapped my wings. "No, why do I need my phone off?"

She seemed to relax a bit. "Because you never know who else can be listening through the internet. Phones, computers, tablets, televisions, even some kitchen appliances can all be used to listen in on conversations. When you go home you need to turn as many of those things off as you can before we arrive, better yet, unplug them."

"Don't you think that's a little paranoid?" I asked.

The first sign of emotion appeared on her face, sympathy. "The goal is to keep you and your family safe, and any information getting out will make that harder. We need to make sure these conversations really are private, even if the chances of someone listening in are slim. If it weren't for the fact your stepfather can't be brought into a shared dream we'd be having this meeting that way, since that is the most secure."

It still seemed pretty paranoid to me. "Well, my phone is off, so can you tell me what eyes on you means? What's your name?"

"It means I'm a bodyguard for you and your family, and I'm aware of what you might become," the lady answered. "And my name is Melissa Rivers, or you can call me Daylight Mirage-- in the dream realm."

My eyes widened. "Anyone who says that to me is a bodyguard?"

Melissa nodded. "That's our code. We'll only say it to you once, just so you know us. So pay attention to anyone that says it."

That meant Nightscape was a bodyguard. That also meant someone had probably pulled strings to make sure I ended up with her as a roommate. "How many of you are there?"

"About a dozen, right now, that number may change," Melissa replied, standing up straight. "You might not even meet all of them. Most will keep low key, and may never speak to you. Some are placed near you, some near your parents. It's possible some may be placed near your close friends as well. There are also a number of other bodyguards that don't know why they are guarding who they are guarding, and won't do anything to give themselves away or have that code phrase."

I gulped, the scale of it made my suspicions seem more and more likely. "So, when should we expect you to come over?"

Melissa gestured at my house. "I'm just keeping an eye out for your mother, now that you're here. When she arrives I'll signal our other friend, and go wake my husband up. It won't take long after that."

I put on my best smile. "I better get going. I need to help get ready. Nice meeting you, Melissa."

"You as well, Rebecca. You aren't quite what I expected-- not that I had any idea what to expect. I suppose that's a good thing. If you aren't what anyone expects then that's more chance you'll remain anonymous."

I turned and walked back to the house. My thoughts were racing though. How quick were things going to happen? I wasn't expecting this to happen for years yet. Would it interfere with my college? Heck, how much was this going to interfere with my life all around? How were my parents going to take it? I could always say no. Were my parents going to pressure me to say no?

I wondered if there was any cake left over.

I walked into my house and saw my step dad putting away some things in the refrigerator. I remembered what Melissa said about appliances, and tried to think about what hooked up to the internet.

My step dad spotted me coming in and hurried out of the kitchen. "Your mom couldn't find her phone this morning, but she called me a little while ago from her work to let me know she is on her way. I heard Maggie's car out in the driveway, but what took you so long to come in?"

I gestured towards the front door. "Sorry about that. I was talking to the new neighbor, one of the ones that is coming over later."

His eyes went wide. "You just went straight over and…" He put a hand up to his face."Of course you did."

"She says we need to turn the power off or unplug everything that hooks up to the internet," I explained, looking around the living room for what those things might be.

He looked baffled. "Why?"

Telling him would only worry him more. "Um, it's kind of complicated. It seems important. It's just for the visit."

He looked around. "I really don't see the point. Everything that hooks up to the internet?"

"Everything," I confirmed. "Phones, computers, appliances, everything."

He sighed. "It seems like overkill. What the heck did you do, Becky?"

"Um, I haven't done anything, yet. They'll talk about it later."

"Not yet," he repeated. He looked around the living room, and sighed again. "Okay, you go unplug the computers in the bedrooms, along with the television in my room and your radio. I'll take care of everything out here."

I did as instructed, and just as I was finishing, I heard the front door open. "Why are you unplugging the TV?"

My step dad was explaining things to my mom as I got back out into the living room. She turned her attention to me right away, and hurried over to me and sat down beside me. "How was your day today?"

I gave her a big smile. "It was good. I met my new roommates, one of them is in the same program as me. The dorm building is really nice. It even has an indoor swimming pool!" I didn't swim, so much as float. I tended to be like a big fat duck going along the surface of the water, pony paddling to move along.

She looked me in the eyes, and smiled. I liked my mom's eyes. She had one eye that was blue, and the other eye was lilac colored-- the only visible evidence that she'd ever been a pegasus herself for a short while. "I'm glad to hear it."

"Are we just going to not talk about the people who are about to show up, and why?" Dad asked, seeming flustered.

"I have a pretty good idea what this is about," my mom said calmly. "I'm pretty sure Rebecca does too. It isn't bad, dear. It's something we should be proud of her for."

"If it is so good, why do they have to be so secretive about everything?" Dad asked, checking the time on an old digital clock on the wall.

"It's-" My mom was cut off from answering by a knock on the door. They really were ready to come over right as soon as she got home.

"I'll get it!" I announced, and ran over to the door. Our front door had a doorknob up high and a handle down low. Both turned together if you turned one or the other. They had separate keyholes as well, which also locked or open together.

I opened the door and was met by a different human lady than Melissa standing at the doorway. Melissa and a night pony stallion were standing right behind the woman. The woman herself didn't look too much older than me, had an olive color to her skin, and short black hair. She was wearing a business suit, and had a slight frown on her face. Where was Wild Growth, and who was this lady?

"Rebecca Riddle, I presume?" The lady asked, raising an eyebrow.

I smiled, like I typically did when meeting someone new, even though I was nervous. "That's me! What's your name?"

"Can we come in? You should be expecting us," the lady replied, ignoring my question. That was rude!

"Come right in!" My mom called out, hurrying over to the door. She looked around, and seemed as confused as I was about the lady. "We were expecting someone else, I think."

The lady briskly walked in and did a brief glance around the room. Melissa followed after her, but stopped when the stallion let off a curse. "Mel! Can you give me a hand? Back leg is jamming again."

I noticed then that one of his front legs and one of his back legs were completely metal and robotic. He was also wearing some strange contraption over his regular forehoof that looked like a gauntlet. Melissa stooped down and picked him up, and carried him inside. She looked around for a second before looking at my mom. "Do you mind if I set him on the couch? His back leg has a loose ball bearing that we really need to get fixed, and he needs to sit and adjust it, otherwise he can't walk."

Mom gestured at the couch. "Go right ahead."

Melissa hurried him over to the couch while the other lady just stood and watched. After Melissa set him down she closed her eyes for a second and cocked her head like she was listening for something. She then reached her hand in between the couch cushions and a second later she pulled up my mom's phone. She turned it off and set it on a nearby end-table, before turning back to the other lady. "That was the only thing I could detect. Everything else is off from what I can tell."

The olive skinned lady seemed to relax a little, and nodded back. Then looked at my mom. "Susan, do you mind if I use your bathroom for a second?"

"Um, yes," my mom replied. "Have we met before?"

"We'll get to that. Where's the bathroom?"

My mom pointed. "Right down the hall, second door on the left." The lady hurried off towards it immediately. Maybe that's why she was frowning and being so short, she just really needed to tinkle.

I closed the door, and watched in fascination as the stallion extended little mechanical fingers out of his gauntlet and started doing something to his back leg. That was really cool! I wish I had a thing that let me do that.

Melissa kept quiet, and just looked around the living room. On and off she would cock her head and seem to be listening for something, but it only lasted a second or two each time.

"Can we get you anything to drink?" My step dad asked.

Melissa turned to the stallion. "Want anything, hun?"

"Milk or juice would be great," the stallion replied. He then punched his leg, letting off a big clanging sound. He then stretched and shifted his robotic back leg around, as if testing its flexibility. "Aw, that's better. I really should have rehumanized years ago. These legs are too much damn trouble."

"No point complaining about it at this stage, hun," Melissa replied. She then turned to my dad. "Thank you, I'll just have some water for now, and juice for my husband. I think your other guest will want some water too, when she gets back out here. She should be quick."

"I need to get one of those thingies that she has," the stallion grumbled.

"That would be a nightmare trying to work with your prosthetics," Melissa replied. "I wouldn't mind one for me either, but you know how tight they hold onto those things, and you and I aren't important enough to be allowed one."

"What things?" I asked, they already seemed to have pretty cool things, with that gauntlet.

"That's so much better!" Came the lady's voice from the hall.

We all turned to face her, but I did a double take when I did. It was no longer the lady from before. It was a very muscular green earth pony mare with purple mane and tail, Wild Growth.

Wild Growth trotted cheerfully into the room. "I don't know how Sunset can stand being under those effects for days at a time sometimes. It just throws my whole perspective off, and I feel like my ears are clogged the entire time."

She looked around the room. "So when is dinner going to be ready? I'm starving."

Dinner sounded really good right around now.

Chapter 7: Family Chats

I don't remember my mom being a pony. I know she had been, for a little while, but my memories that weren't dreams from that far back aren't that good. It wasn't long after my mom started working for Wild Growth that I actually got to see what she had looked like as a pony.

My mom had just bought a new phone. It had been a long time since she had a phone. She just couldn't afford one up until that point. When her choices were between making sure she could feed me and keep me warm each night, and having a phone, she didn't have to think about which was more important to her.

Me, being the curious pony that I am, looked at her doing things on her phone with interest. "Mom, what are you doing?"

"I'm accessing my old cloud files," my mom replied, still entering things on her phone.

I looked at the phone. "You have clouds in your phone?"

"Not that type of cloud, sunshine."

"Oh, because those would be really tiny clouds if you did."

My mom gave an excited little bounce. "I found my old photos. Do you want to see what I looked like when I was a pony?"

I gave her a confused look. "You were a pony? Why aren't you a pony now? Do ponies grow up to be humans?"

That took away some of my mom's excitement. "No, I was human, both of us were, and we became ponies. I had to change back to human, and you were just not a good age to change back-- not enough sense of self, is what they told me. I have pictures of you as a little girl, if you want to see them."

"Why'd you have to change back?"

My mom set her phone down. "We were all by ourselves, barely any other ponies around. I needed to be able to get things for you, and I couldn't do that as a pony. If we had lived somewhere out west, or in the south, or almost anywhere else, it might have gone differently. Being a mom means I have to think about what's best for you."

This was a lot for my young mind to try to process. "Did you want to be a pony? Did you want me to be a human?"

My mom made a lap, and pulled me into it. She started brushing my mane. "I wanted us to be the same, but it just didn't work out that way. Initially, I wanted us both to stay as ponies, but people convinced me I couldn't provide for your needs that way-- not isolated as we were from other ponies. So I took you with me to the rehumanization clinic. The councillor there talked to you for a little while, and then he told me you couldn't safely be rehumanized. I'd have to rehumanize by myself. That devastated me, and I almost backed out of it, but I did what I thought I had to do."

I smiled a little. "So, things were better then?"

Mom sighed, and looked down. "I-I don't know. Things are better now, and I'm not sure if we could have gotten here without me turning back to a human. I can't say for certain if I made the right choice or not back then or not. I prefer not to second guess myself. I don't see how things could have gone better if I stayed a pony, but I am unsure if they could have gone worse."

"I don't understand."

My mom hugged me. "I'll explain it to you when you're older. Right now you are too young to understand things about rent, and bills, and unemployment, and debt, and economic depressions. Just know things are going to get better now, okay?"

"Okay."

She ruffled my mane, which made me giggle, and then picked up her phone again. "Now, let's look at some pictures. Here's one of you and me right after we became ponies."

I looked at the phone. I recognized my mom right away as my mom, though I couldn't say how. She was a light purple pegasus with a dark purple mane, and she was laying on the ground while I climbed all over her. I looked like I was happy, and my mom was smiling at whoever was taking the picture.

"I was really little," I said, as I looked at the picture.

That got another hug from her. "You still are, my scrawny little stork. When we get our own place I'm going to have to feed you a lot to get some meat on those bones. Then I can gobble you up for dinner!"

I gasped in mock fear. "Oh no! Don't gobble me up!"

My mom turned me on my back and bent her head down, pushing her face against my exposed tummy and made 'maw-maw-maw' sounds, before blowing hard on my fur. I squirmed and laughed as she did it, not really putting up any real struggle.

She showed me more photos. Pictures of when I was first born, pictures of me as a little girl wearing a dress and a big hat, lots of pictures of both me and her. In all the pictures we were together my mom always looked so happy, and I did too.

"As long as you have someone there to love, there is always something to smile about," she whispered in my ear.

And I never forgot that.

Our dining table was set really low to the floor, with no chairs. My mom and step dad called it Japanese style. Everyone took seats around the table, as my step dad set out salads for each of us, as well as a selection of dressings. I scrunched up my nose when he deliberately set the low-fat raspberry vinaigrette next to my salad.

"You're on a diet, sunshine," my mom reminded me. She then added a blue cheese dressing to her own salad. I wouldn't mind some blue cheese dressing, ranch would be better, but I'd take blue cheese over any vinaigrette.

The stallion with the robotic legs, used the mechanical fingers on his gauntlet thing to pick up his fork like a human would. Well, kind of like a human, it was an odd looking grip. My parents and Melissa all gripped their forks like humans normally do, and seemed to try to ignore Wild Growth's uncivilized manner of eating. Wild Growth didn't bring a pony strap to use silverware with, but the legendary earth pony didn't let that deter her from digging right in. The mare just stuck her face right down into the food and started eating it like that. She didn't bother with dressing, but that was probably a good thing, considering her lack of table manners. It was rude to comment on the table manners of a senator and living legend. I attached my own fork to my pony strap, as I typically did, and greedily dug into my own food. It soon became a bit of a race between me and Wild Growth to see who would finish first.

Wild Growth and I finished around the same time. The earth pony excused herself to the bathroom in order to clean her face. I was left watching other people eat in the meantime, even though I really wanted seconds, or dessert. I didn't ask for any. Mom or Dad would scold me that I was on a diet if I did. I wished I hadn't eaten so fast now, because watching other people eat was depressing.

When the mighty earth pony returned she sat down and gazed at me purposefully. "So, you're little Rebecca. Do you remember me? We've met before, briefly, but you were really young when we did."

"You came to our hotel room when I was a foal, and took us away from there," I slowly replied. "You look the same, except you had a sweater on before."

Wild Growth raised an eyebrow. "I probably was wearing a sweater. I can't stand the snow. I was born and bred in South Carolina, and snow and me don't get along much. I find the weather in D.C to be miserable." She brought a hoof up to her mouth and cleared her throat. "As for me looking the same, I age slowly, slower than most other ponies. I'm no immortal, despite the rumors, but I should be long lived. You'll probably have a fully grey mane by the time my first wrinkle appears."

"You were really nice to us; giving my mom a new job," I cautiously continued. Wild Growth was a really important pony. She was the one that grew the skytrees, and saved all the people in the city.

Wild Growth waved it off. "It was nothing. I found it a little odd that the Dreamwardens had taken such a direct interest in you and your mother, but I'm always willing to help those that need it. Helping you actually inspired me to start a program to help others in the situation you were in. Every year there are at least a dozen families I extend the same treatment to, and I have yet to have one where I felt I wasted my time and money."

"Oh, well, you're a very nice pony then," I said with a grin.

"I can only try my best," Wild said with a tired sigh. She looked around the table and noted that everyone else had finished eating. "I guess we can now discuss the meaning of this visit."

Everyone focused their undivided attention on the earth pony, and she turned her gaze back to me. "It is not public knowledge yet, but Psychic Calm has informed the government that he is intending to retire to Equestria this coming November. The announcement should be happening in October sometime. That means we are in line to be getting a new Dreamwarden. Things have changed in the past few years, and the Dreamwardens have become more open with sharing their lists of candidates with high ranking government officials. This is, of course, highly classified information, not to be released to the public-- or even most officials for that matter. You're on the top of the list of candidates."

"I knew it!" My mom blurted out. Wild Growth raised an eyebrow at her, and my mom gave her a sheepish look. "Sorry, just excited for my daughter."

"A Dreamwarden?" My step dad asked in amazement. "Becky, a Dreamwarden?"

"It is not confirmed she will be one yet, she is just at the top of the Dreamwardens' list of candidates," Wild Growth replied. "Things could change on that. One of the other candidates might suddenly distinguish themselves to rise above her, she might object to becoming Dreamwarden, or there might be sufficient number of governments that object to her becoming one."

"Governments can block a person from becoming a Dreamwarden?" My mom asked in confusion.

"Yes and no," Wild Growth answered. "We can express our concerns and displeasure with a candidate, and the Dreamwardens have promised to take those under consideration. In the end, they choose who they want, but they do listen to our feedback. The last Dreamwarden they chose they had several close candidates, and they dismissed several of those based on feedback from different governments."

"So what does Becky do now?" Dad asked.

Wild Growth shrugged her shoulders. "She really doesn't need to do much, other than take the time to decide if she actually wants to be a Dreamwarden. What I'm here for, today, is to get a first impression of her and report my feelings about her. That way the president and other members of the UN can have some idea what type of person your daughter is, and whether we feel safe letting her have that kind of power. I will continue on as a liaison after that, as we move closer to the date things will happen. She lives in my district, I'm very familiar with Dreamwardens, and I will be assisting with arranging for world leaders to discreetly meet her."

"And we're moving in across the street because the families of Dreamwardens must be protected," Melissa added in. "If she becomes a Dreamwarden she'll remain anonymous, other than her title, but we still keep guard over families, just in case. It won't be as impressively guarding you like they do Phobia Remedy's family, but that is because no one should know that Rebecca is even a Dreamwarden, just like no one but a few know who the Warden of Order is."

"I'm on half-a-dozen different Senate subcommittees, the head of one of them, and I don't even know the identity of the Warden of Order. I'm unsure who other than the President in our country knows, although someone else must," Wild Growth added in. "Keeping a lid on the incoming Dreamwardens' identities has gone well so far. After this switch, Phobia will be the last of the living Dreamwardens that has their identity known to the public."

"We won't let history repeat itself again," Melissa said quietly. "No more tragedies like Ghadab or Yinyu."

My parents both looked uneasy at the reminder of what being related to a Dreamwarden meant. If you killed a Dreamwarden the Dreamwarden just became a permanent resident of the dream realm, and more powerful. No one in their right mind kills a Dreamwarden (though crazy people still exist). What the bad guys would do instead is go after a Dreamwarden's family; that was how you hurt a Dreamwarden if you really wanted to hurt a Dreamwarden. Miss Seapony had died making sure her family couldn't be hurt.

Wild Growth looked me in the eyes. "The most important question I have for right now is, do you intend to accept if the position is offered to you?"

I squirmed where I was sitting. "This is a little high pressure. I knew this was coming, but I didn't think it was coming this soon. Psychic Calm isn't that old."

Wild Growth shrugged again. "Not my call on when the guy feels like kicking off his retirement. Maybe he just wants to have enough years left to actually enjoy it. Have they discussed it with you?"

I shook my head. "No. I kind of knew, because Miss Seapony had originally wanted me to replace her, and she stayed just as active with me after she died. I've never even met any of the others."

"Miss Seapony?" Wild Growth asked in confusion.

Melissa burst out laughing. "I love that. Do you have other names like that for the rest?"

I smiled. "Yes, the angel lady and Miss Nightmares."

"Cute," Wild Growth said dryly. "I'll be sure to tell Phobia she is hereby Miss Nightmares from now on. Phobia has a strange sense of humor, and might get a kick out of it… But you're telling me that you live in the same city as she does and have never met her?"

"No, never," I said, shaking my head. "Is she scary? I asked my roommate that earlier, but she didn't really answer."

"Most of the time, no," the stallion answered. "Except for when she is pissed off. If she is pissed off you're in deep trouble. Mel and I saw her pissed off once, and only once; it was the scariest damn thing I ever saw-- and I help treat nightmares for a living."

"She tends to be very reserved, and is a bit of a priss. I've never seen her that angry, a little angry, but not to the point she is going to do something. She can be quietly intimidating, all the same," Wild Growth said.

"Lucky you, never seeing her at her worst," Melissa muttered.

I cringed. "Was it really that bad?"

"She ripped our best friend's limbs off slowly, one at a time, all while forcing our friend to confront nightmare versions of us that seemed to take glee in her suffering. She also personally withstrained us, and who knows how many thousand night ponies, all at once, from coming to our friend's aid, and forced us all to watch," the stallion growled. "Yes, it was that bad."

"She has only done that once, as far as I'm aware, and she said she went too far, but I'll never forget it. I'll never forget what a Dreamwarden is capable of doing," Melissa said quietly.

I whimpered.

"I take it you aren't partial to doing anything like that?" Wild Growth asked.

"No! That's horrible! How could she do something like that?" Had Miss Seapony tried to stop her? I needed to know. I couldn't imagine Miss Seapony letting anyone do that kind of thing.

"You'll have to ask her yourself," Wild Growth replied. "She was the one that helped lay down the rules that stopped the Dreamwardens from doing that, but I don't ask questions about their early activities before those rules were put in place. I don't want to know."

"Sha'am was worse, much worse from what I heard," Melissa said. "Took Phobia putting her in her place to finally get her to stop. I have no idea what Phobia threatened Sha'am with, but it worked. I'm glad that old monster is gone."

Miss Seapony never told me much about Miss Nightmares. Just that Sha'am Maut was the most horrible and mean Dreamwarden, but even Sha'am Maut feared Miss Nightmares. I wasn't sure I wanted to meet Miss Nightmares. She sounded scary and mean on a level that could only be found in storybooks.

Wild Growth just watched me for a moment, then nodded. "I think I have some idea of your character. We do have one other small matter that needs attending to." She turned to my step dad. "We prefer meetings to discuss Rebecca to be held in the dream realm, with the aid of Yinyu, Arbiter, and Ghadab. As her stepfather, you should be present. Right now that isn't possible, because you don't have a drop of magic in you. We need to remedy that, but we require your consent to do that."

I perked my head up. They could do that?

My step dad blinked. "How? How are you going to do that? How much magic are you talking about giving me?"

"I honestly can't say how much magic you'll end up with," Wild Growth replied. "The method we have has been rather erratic in how much magic individuals end up with. You could end up like your wife, and have a small unusable amount, or it could grow into unique magical abilities in time. I really can't tell you how it will turn out, in that regard. I can say the method is safe to use."

Dad didn't seem sure what to do. "So, do you like zap me or something? Give me an injection?"

Wild Growth shook her head. "No, I temporarily, perhaps for five minutes, turn you into a pony. I have a talisman that will do it. That's how I was able to walk in her as a temporary human. If I can put up with an hour or more of being human, you should be able to stand five minutes of ponydom."

My mom gasped. "I thought that temporary transformations were still in medical trials."

Wild Growth snorted "That's the story, and they are, but that's mainly because we don't want widespread public access to this at the moment. Especially since we haven't narrowed down how to control the amount of magic humans end up with as a side effect, or how pony magic works while in human form. Believe me, the Blessingists really want to have us push this out soon, but we've been resisting. The magic for the transformations themselves has been perfected for some time now."

"And me getting magic is the only side effect?" Dad asked while rubbing his arms. "I'm not going to have leftover pony parts when I turn back, or have it mess with the way I think?"

"It does do a small amount of mind magic while under effect so you can actually use your body, but it doesn't have any lasting effect after you turn back," Wild Growth explained.

"You're lucky. I'd kill to have access to one of those talismans. If only for a few minutes," Melissa said wistfully. "I'm rehumanized, but I had the temp spell done to me before. It didn't leave any side effects on me."

Wild Growth flicked her tail. "Five minutes is what he's getting, these talismans are government property, and classified that they even exist."

"Can I try it too?" I asked. I wanted to know what it was like to be a human.

The earth pony flattened her ears. "No, it isn't a toy for everyone to play with. Five minutes for him, then I take it off. I'll use it when I'm exiting here, because I need to come and go from here incognito. People seeing me show up at your house raises questions. Melissa and Teddy Bear are your new neighbors, so they don't raise questions. Me showing up is a whole other story."

I looked at the stallion's flank. I hadn't really paid attention to It because I was so caught up looking at his robot parts. It really did have a big teddy bear on it. That was so cute! It was a cyborg night pony with a teddy bear cutie mark!

Wild Growth paused in her discussion. "Something wrong, Rebecca?"

I could barely contain myself as I looked at the stallion. "Can I call you Cyber Pooky?"

Melissa snorted, trying to hold back a laugh.

He flattened his ears. "What? No!"

I was undeterred. "How about Locutus of Bear?"

Melissa burst out laughing.

He gave me a dirty look. "Only if I get to call you Marshmallow."

"Okay, Locutus of Bear."

Chapter 8: Disclosures

My step dad and I don't have any of that weird stepparent-stepdaughter drama between us. When my mom married David, I was all onboard for having a new dad. He made my mom happy, and he loved me too. I did go through a small adjustment period, where I had trouble calling him Dad instead of David. I also still, to this day, think of him as my stepfather instead of my father, but that doesn't diminish the love I have for him. If you're looking for stories of me angrily yelling "You're not my real dad!" Then you have come to the wrong place, because I never did that.

However, my mom getting engaged did bring up some questions I had never asked. Yes, I did wonder why I didn't have a dad long before that point, but I had just never asked why. I had my mom, and that seemed enough. The impending addition to our family made it so I could no longer contain my curiosity.

"Mom, what happened to my original dad?"

My mom had been cutting up carrots for our dinner, and my question startled her so much that she accidently dropped the knife. It hit the floor and bounced, and I had to scuttle avoid it.

Her first concern was making sure the knife hadn't cut me, but quickly realized I'd successfully dodged it. She sighed, and picked the knife off the floor and put it by the sink, before bending down next to me. "When I got pregnant with you, I didn't want your actual father to know."

I tilted my head. "Why?"

My mom nervously ran a hand through her hair. "He was a complete jackass. I dated him for a while in high school, but dumped him not too long after… after we did what mommies and daddies do to make babies."

I snorted. "I'm thirteen, Mom. I know where babies come from. You gave me the talk a year ago when I had my first time of month. I'm wearing deodorant for that right now, and I masturbated in the shower this morning."

My mom's face twisted up into a stern look. "Rebecca Penelope Riddle! That last part falls under T-M-I, too much information!"

My ears dropped. "Sorry."

She looked upwards for a second and fluttered her lips. "Actually no, you're fine. It's good that you feel safe and secure telling me about things like that, and I shouldn't discourage you being open with me. Just try not to broadcast things like that to other people, okay?"

"Okay."

My mom's eyes narrowed. "How do you even-" She shook her head. "Never mind, not important. You were asking about why your biological father isn't part of your life, right?"

I nodded my head, and sat down to wait for her response.

She chewed on her lip for a moment before continuing. "Anyway, we had sex, and then I found out the next day that he bragged about it to all his friends and the whole school knew about it. Not only that, I found out he had been with a string of girls, and had been treating getting them to have sex with him as some sort of game, with a score. I was very attractive back then, one of, if not the most attractive girls in school-- and that isn't me just being vain. The fact that he managed to bag me, had earned him bonus points."

She gripped her hands into fists at the anger the memory brought her. "So I dumped him right on the spot. I wasn't about to be treated that way. He retaliated by spreading around rumors that I was basically a slut, who slept with anyone with enough prompting. People actually believed him, and I had all kinds of creeps come out of the woodwork trying to get me in bed with them. The girls at my school weren't much better, because they sat there and slut shamed me. It wasn't every guy and girl at school doing that stuff to me, but it was enough to make my school year a nightmare. I honestly considered dropping out at one point."

I came over to her and nuzzled her. "But you stuck it out, right?"

She laid a hand on my side and nodded. "Yeah, but it was rough. You have no idea how ashamed I was years later when I had no choice but take a job as a sex worker so we could eat. I cried so hard because I heard all those old taunts in my head, but the economy had been in a deep depression after ETS. We had to have food, and there weren't any other jobs at the time."

I nuzzled closer to my mom, but kept quiet.

My mom started to cry. "I wanted nothing to do with him. When I missed a period I took a pregnancy test, and was horrified to learn I was pregnant. I wouldn't tell anyone, even my parents, who the father was. I let them think I really was just some promiscuous girl who slept around, rather than have any chance he would be involved in your life. My parents were furious, and they wanted me to get an abortion. Despite how you came about, I didn't want that. After I graduated my parents paid a year's rent on a cheap apartment, and gave me a few thousand dollars, and they said not to ask for any more, because I wasn't getting anything else out of them."

"Did they ever make up with you?" I asked. I knew the answer, because I had never met my grandparents.

She shook her head. "No. I sometimes wonder if things would have gone differently if I had just been open and honest with them. If I told them about the mistake I made, and if I told them how I didn't want to have any more involvement with the guy who I had slept with. I don't know, it's hard to say."

I was pulled into a tight hug. "Just know that I support you no matter what. I'll always be here for you, no matter what happens."

And my mom always has.

Me and my two new neighbors sat around the table while my parents and Wild Growth went to the bedroom. My stepdad had to strip off all his clothes for this, and he wasn't going to do that out in front of guests. We sat quietly while we listened to what went on in the bedroom.

"Oh, you're adorable!" I heard my mom gush.

"I'm pink!" Dad shouted.

"It's a really nice pink, and it goes well with your blue mane." My mom assured him.

"Why'd I have to be pink?"

"I have no idea," Wild Growth answered. "The talisman works with what it has and replicates what ETS would have done. Just bear with it for another four minutes."

"Does this horn actually work?" Dad asked.

"It should," Wild Growth answered.

There was the sound of crashing in the room. Melissa started whistling beside me.

"That didn't go right," Dad said warily. "Maybe I should try again."

"It's your stuff you're destroying. Knock yourself out." Wild Growth said in answer.

More crashing ensued. I looked down and slowly started tapping out a beat on the table. Everyone in the living room was looking in any direction but the hallway.

"Honey, maybe something smaller?" Mom said.

"Alright." Dad said in agreement.

Melissa altered her whistle to join in with my beat on the table. Locutus of Bear started doing some 'bum-bum' sounds, and we had a little band going in the living room.

Wild Growth screamed. "Ahh! I don't qualify as something smaller! Put me down, right now!"

We paused our concert when we heard another big crash. It went silent for a moment after that.

"Do you think we should check on them?" I asked.

"I'm sure they're fine," Melissa answered. She then resumed whistling, and I resumed my beat on the table.

"This isn't so bad." I heard my dad announce.

"You make such a cute pink unicorn, hun."

"One more minute!" Wild Growth announced.

I partially stood up. Shaking my rear end in rhythm to our song. I kind of wanted to go find my kazoo, but I didn't want to break up what we were doing in order to find it. Melissa added a steady clap, and the stallion beat a wing against his metal leg.

"I'm naked!" Dad yelled out.

"Of course you're naked. You were naked before I put the talisman on you!"

"You weren't looking in my direction then!"

"I'm a married pony, attracted to ponies. Do you really think I care if I see your man bits?"

"Just turn around!"

Our music slowly winded down out, having gone a few minutes. Now we waited for everyone to come back out. I looked over at Melissa, and flicked an ear. "Hey, how did you know my mom's phone was in the couch?"

Melissa glanced over the phone in question. "I have human magic. I know where everything is around us, at least in a small confined area like your house. I just have to focus and feel it out. Electronic things around me tend to feel a little different than other things, light hot spots."

"Oh, that's cool," I said cheerfully. "I don't know much about human magic."

She laughed. "No one is an expert on human magic. It doesn't seem to follow any consistent pattern from person to person that has it. I can detect objects around me, but that doesn't mean the next human that has magic can do anything like that. Most humans with magic can't do anything at all."

I smiled. "I understand. My mom has magic, at least that's what she told me. She says she can't do anything with it, that it is too weak. She said she's a PREQUES zero-point-six."

"I'm a two-point-eight," Melissa replied. "I have my detection ability, and the Dreamwardens gave me the power to dreamwalk. I know of a human that can make massive illusions, and force everyone around to behave like characters in her fantasy. I know another human that can bend light, and another that sucks out the heat from anything he touches. There's no rhyme or reason to what human magic powers might be. Many of us have leftover pony magic too, though many of us don't. I don't have any, but I know several really strong humans that used to be earth ponies, and other humans that can detect subtle changes in the weather-- just like they could when they were pegasi. We're living in a world where X-Men mutants are real, only our powers are all magic."

I wasn't sure what an X-man mutant was, but couldn't help continuing to be nosy. "What kind of pony were you?"

Melissa laid a hand on her husband's back. "A night pony, like Teddy here. We both got hurt really badly early on. I still take a night pony form when dreamwalking, and consider myself part night pony."

The stallion held up a robotic leg. "I know I'm not all there, but Mel was much worse off. We spent a lot of time together in the hospital, it's where we started our relationship. She was one of the first people to rehumanize. They told her that it would heal her. It did just that, which I'm grateful for. I hated seeing her in constant pain."

I looked at his legs again. Yeah, they were cool, but I think I'd rather have real legs. "Why didn't you rehumanize?"

He shook his head. "It's a long story, Marshmallow. I'd probably have rehumanized if I could go back and do it again, but I was dealing with more problems than missing limbs back then."

I wanted to ask more, but my parents returned to the room right then. My mom looked amused, and my step dad's clothes were a ruffled mess.

"Your zipper's down," I informed him.

He hastily reached down and pulled it up. "Thanks. I got dressed in a hurry. That was a very unique experience. It was interesting seeing things more from your perspective."

"I wish I could have tried," my mom lamented. "I never got to do much flying when I was a pony. It would have been nice to feel that feeling again."

"I can relate," Melissa said, looking back towards the hall. "I take it our senator is putting her human suit back on."

"Yeah, she seems to want to get moving," my mom confirmed. She then walked into the kitchen. "Water or juice, hun?"

"Just water," Dad said breathlessly.

I walked over to him and gave his legs a hug. "Are you okay?"

He brushed me off his leg and then sat heavily down on the couch. "Sorry Becky, I just needed to sit down. That was… that was something else." He looked over at Melissa. "How long does it take for the magic to show?"

Melissa shrugged. "There is definitely magic in you now. How much is the question. The Dreamwardens can work with any amount. You might not know if you are going to gain any powers for weeks, months, or even a year or more; if you gain any at all. It took well over a year after rehumanization before my powers started to show."

My mom looked at her in interest. "You have powers?"

"Your daughter can tell you about it later. Wild Growth is done dressing," Melissa replied. We immediately heard the bathroom door open up.

Wild Growth walked in, and once again looked like an olive skinned lady. She really didn't look much older than me, like someone about to start college. I knew she was in her thirties at least, and I wondered if this was how she had looked before she turned into a pony.

The false human looked at Melissa. "I heard your little performance while We were in the bedroom. Didn't take you for the musical type.

Melissa blushed. "I'm not really sure where that came from."

"When Becky is involved it is easy to get caught up in whatever she is doing. It is kind of infectious," Dad explained.

Wild Growth raised an eyebrow. "Mind magic?"

"Just charisma," Mom answered.

I got another considering look from the senator. "I actually do have one other order of business before we leave. I was told you had some sort of classified power with the OMMR. OMMR classified records are typically something I don't have access to, unless putting in a good legal reason. Considering I need to report any potential threats you present, I need to know exactly what your classified ability is." She looked over to Melissa. "I'm sure the Dreamwardens will understand me inquiring about it."

"I think they will," Melissa agreed.

That made me uneasy. My parents knew what I could do, but Miss Seapony had said I wasn't supposed to tell anyone. This was Wild Growth, a United States senator, and a pony that had been the most powerful magic user on the planet-- before she burnt her powers out. This wasn't a normal someone asking. She needed to get Miss Seapony's permission, but to talk to Miss Seapony she had to actually use her powers-- or go to sleep, but she wasn't tired.

"I need to ask Miss Seapony if it is okay," I replied.

Wild Growth sighed. "Are you one of those ponies that are able to fall asleep quickly? I'd rather get this done today."

"I can ask her without falling asleep," I said slowly. I could be invisible and soundless right away. I was good enough with my powers to do that. I could have a full conversation with Miss Seapony right here without them seeing or hearing a thing. "I need to turn my phone on to do it."

Wild Growth raised an eyebrow again. She then looked at our other two guests. "Keep quiet while she has her phone on. No one discusses anything about the Dreamwardens while the phone is on." Everyone nodded, and she turned back to me with her arms crossed. "Go ahead."

I turned my phone back on and pulled up my music playlist. I flipped through the options, trying to decide on something relaxing. I eventually settled on Vanilla Twilight by Owl City. I turned the song on, closed my eyes, and let the music become my world.

It didn't take long at all to find myself staring at my swaying body once again. No one gave any gasps or signs of shock at another me appearing, or looked at anything but my swaying body. Teddy Bear even shuffled a yawn, as the mellow tones seemed to make him sleepy.

"Miss Seapony! I need to talk to you," I called out.

She appeared in front of me, and seemed to quickly access the situation. I turned and looked at each person in the room so she could see them. She swam in front of me while I was looking at Melissa and Teddy Bear. "I know these two well. I'm guessing the human is Wild Growth, using that abominable magic. How can I help you, Rebecca?"

"I need your permission to tell them what I can do," I answered.

Miss Seapony dipped and somersaulted in the air. "You have my permission to tell and show them. Is your meeting going well? Did they give your stepfather magic?"

"They did, and everything seems to be alright," I replied. I remembered something else. "Miss Seapony… they told me something bad that Miss Nightmares did, a long time ago. Did you try to stop her?"

My oldest friend looked sad. "We can discuss that later. Now is not the time. I promise to give you the answer tonight, and not hold any information from you." She looked at the others in my field of vision again. "Go ahead and make yourself visible and with sound. I will keep watching. You can even let them know I am watching through you."

I nodded. I hoped Miss Seapony would tell me tonight that what they had said about Miss Nightmares was somehow not true, or that Miss Seapony had tried to stop it. For right now I just let myself become visible.

Melissa gasped and covered her mouth when I suddenly appeared. Teddy Bear looked back and forth between the two versions of me in confusion. Wild Growth didn't seem particularly concerned about it. My parents, who'd seen me use my powers many times, gave our guests worried glances.

"That's a cool trick," Teddy Bear said. "Some sort of illusion?"

I pointed at my phone around my leg. "Can someone turn that off? I can't really do it right now." Mom hurried over to the me who was still swaying with the music, and turned my phone off, and I smiled at her. "Thanks, Mom."

"So, you can make an illusion of yourself when in a trance?" Wild Growth asked.

I shifted hoof to hoof. "Kinda-sorta. It's more than just an illusion, it's me. It's called astral projecting. I can't touch anything, but I can change my shape, or go invisible, or make it so you can't hear me, but I'm still here."

"Can you change your shape for me?" Wild Growth asked.

I blinked. "Okay, what do you want me to change into?"

"Surprise me."

Miss Seapony swam back into view. "How about a duplicate of her, down to the voice?"

"Okay," I replied. I think Wild Growth thought I was talking to her, since she couldn't see or hear Miss Seapony like I could.

I looked her over and a second later I was her mirror image, right down to the suit. "How's this?" I asked, mimicking her voice.

She walked over and placed her hand straight through me, and waved it around, before pulling it back. "Completely incorporeal, as you said. Do you have size restrictions on what you can turn into?"

I shrugged my shoulders. "Not that I know of, I never really tried to see how big or small I can get. I have to be able to imagine how whatever I look like moves, or it won't look right when I move around."

"You have limitations," Miss Seapony told me.

"Miss Seapony just told me I have limitations," I informed the others. "She can see and hear what I see and hear right now. I can see and hear her too."

Wild Growth smirked. "So, you're like a telephone call into the dream realm."

"I guess so," I admitted. "I never thought about it that way."

"How far from your body can you send this projection?" Wild Growth continued, still not seeming that concerned. Melissa and Teddy Bear looked impressed, but not Wild Growth. I supposed when you were a legend like her, nothing could surprise you anymore.

"A few miles," I replied, and shifted back to my normal shape and voice. "And it doesn't matter what shape I'm in, or if I'm invisible or visible."

Wild Growth continued to examine me. "And the Dreamwardens dubbed this ability non-threatening?" She snorted. "I think they have a different definition of the word than I do, because this ability seems to have plenty of room to be abused. Not so much for directly harming someone, but for spying on others or trying to fool others. Can a crystal pony detect you?"

I nodded. "Yeah, they can feel it if I get near, even if I'm invisible. Some night ponies can too."

She nodded. "At least that's some sort of defense against this. Are there others who can do this?"

"You can give her a yes, but don't reveal names or clues about who," Miss Seapony instructed.

"I can't say who, but there are others," I answered the senator.

Wild Growth could be seen thinking. "I need to talk to the president and see if we can come up with some additional security measures for classified meetings then. That's going to be fun trying to get in place without saying what we're guarding against."

I shook my head. "The rules for the dream realm about not using secrets we learn still apply. It's treated like we're dreaming. If anyone tries that they're breaking a rule."

Wild Growth nodded. "That's good to know. If there's one thing you can count in a Dreamwarden to do, it's to be no-nonsense when it comes to the rules. I'll let the president know that the rules still apply. That should reduce some worry." She absently scratched her arm, and then let out a long breath. "That's enough demonstration. You can stop doing that now."

I opened my eyes back in my regular body and didn't see or hear Miss Seapony anymore.

Wild Growth walked towards the front door, and Melissa and Teddy Bear quickly followed. "I have enough information for my report. Expect Arbiter to be setting up a shared dream in a few days so I can follow up with you. I'm going to get going. I need to get back to Washington, and I want some time back at home before I go. It was nice seeing you all again."

The three of them promptly left. Leaving me and my parents alone.

"Well, that went well," my mom said with relief. She turned to me. "I always suspected this was coming, but never said anything about it. I do want you to know I'm very proud of you, and support you no matter what."

Dad shook his head. "I'm still kind of shell-shocked about it. I'm not even sure how I'm supposed to react. I've heard the stories about the things the Dreamwardens used to do, and you spending so much time with a Dreamwarden always worried me because of that, but I kept my mouth closed. I need some time to process this."

My mom headed to the kitchen. "Does anyone want some cake?"

"Yes, please!" I happily answered.

My parents seemed to be taking this alright, but what my step dad said about the old stories and what Melissa and Teddy Bear said about Miss Nightmares really worried me. I hoped Miss Seapony had some way of reassuring me that things weren't that bad.

Maybe I could convince Dad to make some more cake.

Chapter 9: Meeting the Undead

My mom had managed to keep me in school, even while we were homeless. Social services was iffy about ponies being required to attend school back then, they were iffy about everything involving ponies, so I technically wasn't required to go. She later told me that she was always terrified that some teacher was going to try to make her lose custody of me, but she had to risk it. It wasn't just important to get me an education; it was also important because it came with guaranteed meals for me, along with having a place she was sure I was safe when she was working.

I don't remember too much about my first school. I remember little things. I remember that I was always the only pony in my class. I think there were two or three other ponies at the school (depending on the year), but they were always in different grades. I remember that I sat off in a corner, separated from all the other kids in class. I remember that I always had to sit by the teacher at lunch, and I had to stay with her during recess, rather than play. It was lonely, that was what I remember.

The first place we moved, after my mom started working for PonyCo, was Frackville, in Pennsylvania. It was an almost all human town, but PonyCo was setting up a factory there to make accessories for their straps. It seemed strange that a town full of humans would be getting a factory to make pony tools, but my mom said that it meant a lot of jobs for the people in town. This particular factory did a lot of the smelting for the metal tools, and ponies didn't like being around all the smoke that came from this type of factory.

We moved there in the middle of the school year, and that meant that my first day of school had certain ceremonies that all new students had to go through. This time I really was the only pony in the entire school.

I remember the principal walking me through the halls on my first day of school there. I remember how my hooves seemed to make more noise than normal as I walked through the halls, and the janitors and rare students on a bathroom break all stared at me as I passed. They all kept their distance from me, backing up against walls as the principal and I passed. It was like I had a contagious disease or something.

The principal led me into a classroom. All the kids in class stared and whispered among themselves as he led me up in front of the class.

"Good morning!" He said loudly. Like he was in a big auditorium, instead of a classroom. "Today you're being joined by a new student. This young lady is Rebecca Riddle. I know she is a little different than all the other students at this school, but I hope that you make her feel welcome."

A few muted hi's and hellos came from the class.

He got a serious expression on his face. "I feel bad having to say this next part, but feel that it needs to be said up front. Rebecca may not be human, but she's not an animal. She's just another student, here to learn. Also, nothing she can do can turn you into a pony. There will be harsh disciplinary action taken to anyone that treats her as an animal or infected, do I make myself clear?"

The class gave a mixture of yeses, okays, and yes sirs, not quite in chorus. I didn't know before that anyone would actually feel that way about me, so his defense of me didn't make me feel better. I had already been nervous after all the looks I'd gotten in the hall, and now my anxiety was peaking.

He turned to me with a smile. "How about you introduce yourself, and tell us a little about yourself."

I normally was thrilled to meet new people, but the principal just implied that these kids might not like me because I was a pony. I know humans get nightmares about having to stand naked in front of a classroom. Well, I'm a pony, so I'm almost always naked, and I'd just been put on the spot to talk to all these human kids about myself. The nakedness didn't bother me, but my younger self in that moment could easily empathize with that kind of anxiety. I wanted to duck behind the teacher's desk so they wouldn't see me.

I just stood as tall as my tiny legs would let me and waved to the class with a wing. "Hi, I'm Rebecca. I just moved here."

Silence greeted me, and I struggled to figure out what else to say. "Um, I like our new house, because we never had a house before."

Some of the kids snickered, and I thought that must be good. Laughter was always good, right?

My confidence picked up. "I like to draw, and have lots of crayons. I don't have other toys, only my teddy bear, but my mom says that I'm going to be getting lots of toys, because we moved here."

No real reaction greeted this, and I tried to think of anything else to say. "My best friend is Miss Seapony. She comes and has tea parties with me in my dreams. She has another name, but I never get it right. Yinny? Yanny?"

The teacher let off a gasp, which confused me. The principal suddenly looked much whiter than before. "Yinyu Wu Yan? Is that the name?" He asked me.

I nodded enthusiastically. "Oh yeah, that's right! I just call her Miss Seapony. She likes green tea with orange spots."

That seemed to distress both the adults a great deal, but they didn't say anything angry to me. "Thank you for sharing, Rebecca. I think that's enough for now. Miss Narrowski will show you where you can sit."

The kids in my school never seemed to understand who Miss Seapony was. Some of them tried to make fun of me for having an imaginary friend, but the adults always hushed any discussion of her right away. I knew that the adults knew that she was real, but it took me many years to learn why they reacted like they did.

We had the remainder of the chocolate cake, but even Mom being super proud of me wouldn't encourage her into helping me convince Dad to make more. They said I was breaking my diet plenty as it was. A possible promotion to one of the most powerful beings in the universe should have earned extra cake in my mind, but I didn't pout… much.

Okay, I actually gave my stepdad my biggest, most sad looking puppy dog eyes-- but it didn't work.

We did sit down and talk. There were the expected questions. They asked if I knew that I was possibly getting an offer to become a Dreamwarden. The truthful answer was no. I had no idea if they had still wanted me after Miss Seapony wasn't going to be able to retire. They asked what I would do as Dreamwarden-- and that was a tough one to answer. I just want to help bring joy and inspire creativity, like I got my cutie mark for wanting. I was unsure how I was going to do that as a Dreamwarden, but I was sure that I could figure it out. They asked why the Dreamwardens wanted me, and not someone else. That I was unsure of, and would have to ask.

There were also much harder questions. How was this going to impact my personality? I had no idea. I didn't believe it would. How was this going to impact my safety, and the safety of my parents? That was another hard one. Only a few people should know what I was after it was done, so no one should know who to threaten, but it was still uncertain how well that system was going to work. I really didn't want anyone trying to hurt my parents.

Then there was the biggest question of all-- would I say yes or no? If you asked me with the prospect of it being years away I would definitely say yes, but the suddenness of this made me second guess that. There was also the issue of Miss Nightmares, and the terrible thing she had done. I didn't want to believe it, but I needed to find out.

I went to bed early. I even told my parents that I really needed to talk to Miss Seapony. It took me a while to fall asleep, because my mind was racing, but sleep eventually came.

Over the years I have gotten very good at controlling the settings of my dreams. It is just something that comes with having been a dreamwalker for most of my life. This setting I made someplace secure, my room. I sat on my dream bed, and waited. I didn't have to wait long.

"You're here early, Rebecca," Miss Seapony's disembodied voice quietly said. "But I can understand why."

I didn't look around for the source of the voice, I knew Miss Seapony would appear when she was ready. She did this sometimes when she was sad, or embarrassed. "Why didn't you just tell me that you were wanting me to become a Dreamwarden, and become one now?" I asked. I couldn't keep the anxiety I had been holding back all day from getting into my voice.

"Psychy Wikey just told us two days ago that he was going to call it quits. That was when the decision was made," Miss Seapony replied. "We felt it was best to break the news to your entire family at once, so that they had no doubt this was a serious offer."

I pouted. "You could have told me first."

Miss Seapony finally appeared in front of me, curled up on herself like a coiled up snake. "It was a group decision, heavily influenced by Psychy Wikey's opinions. You can take that up with him." Miss Seapony uncoiled herself, and gave me a sad look. "But that's not what we agreed to discuss tonight, is it? You want to know about that trial."

I gave a stiff nod. I was terrified of the answers that might be coming, but I needed to know.

My friend sighed, and lowered herself to the floor, laying on it. "Come lay next to me, and let me tell you some uncomfortable truths."

I hopped down from the bed and did as I was asked. Miss Seapony wrapped a fin over me and looked down at me like my mom would when telling me something sad. "Rebecca, we all screwed up. It wasn't just Phobia, although her round of torture on that poor mare was well beyond what any of us, but Sha'am, had ever done. We were all so scared, and overwhelmed, back in those days, and Sha'am convinced us that we had to be harsh and cruel-- tyrants-- in order to get all the night ponies in line."

She looked so sad, I couldn't bear it. "You said you pretended to be a monster back then," I said, comfortingly.

She shook her head. "There is a fine line between pretending to be something and becoming the thing you are pretending to be. I didn't try to stop her. I actually defended her actions."

I flattened my ears. It couldn't be true! She continued on. "I was secretly horrified by what was going on, but did everything I could not to show it. As it kept going on and on, with no end in sight, I couldn't keep that act up. I started praying for the pony to end it. That's the thing about Miss Nightmare's powers, they're about making you confront truths, and forcing you to face your fears. Once you do those things her powers have no more hold on you. The poor mare finally did it, although it felt like it took an eternity for it to happen. Miss Nightmares even kept telling her what to do, over and over again."

Miss Seapony closed her eyes, and bowed her head. "I still defended her after that. I didn't want to. I knew it had gone too far. All of us, except for Sha' am, knew it had gone too far, but we were afraid to back down once something was in progress, because it would make us look weak in front of the night ponies. Miss Nightmares was just as disgusted and sickened by it, she cried onto her spouse's shoulder immediately when she woke up. Poor Kriky spent an hour straight vomiting after he woke up-- he never could take violence, and I had to spend a long time helping him cry it out. Mr. Potty-Mouth called us all… some not nice names for letting it happen, and Sha'am called us all weak for getting so upset."

I felt like crying, knowing that it had happened. I didn't want to think about this anymore. I liked happy things, but I had to know more. "Did it happen any more?"

She shook her head. "We still tried to intimidate some, for a while, but only Sha'am did horrific things like that from then on. We eventually got her to stop, after it became clear she was causing far more harm than anything else, but it took Miss Nightmares threatening her. It has been almost fourteen years, but I still don't know what Miss Nightmares threatened Sha'am with that intimidated Sha'am that much."

"So she really is more terrible than Sha'am?" I asked, still scared of when the time would eventually come I had to meet her.

Miss Seapony hugged me closer. "Miss Nightmares might look thin and delicate, slow to anger, and she might even cry more than the rest of us too, but she's the last Dreamwarden you want to get on the bad side of-- if she feels like she is forced to take action. She is not a bad pony. She was the one that pushed reforms, reforms that even I didn't think we could possibly do, but somehow she managed to make happen. I think she has more of Luna in her than the rest of us, at least when it comes to determination to make things happen…" Miss Seapony looked around the room, then leaned her head in close to me to whisper. "Don't tell her I said that. We don't want her getting a big head."

I nervously squirmed underneath her fin. "When am I going to meet her?"

Miss Seapony smiled. "She says she is going to make arrangements so you can meet her, without drawing any attention to you. I'm not sure how yet, but she says you'll find out about it tomorrow. She isn't asleep right now."

"But you can meet us," a new voice said.

Two new figures appeared in the room. The first was one that it was hard to tell was a pony, because he was on fire. He didn't seem to particularly care that he was on fire, nor did anyone else, so I didn't ask about it. The second was a tall lady with wings, purple hair, and pony ears. She was wearing an orange robe, and holding a long bronze staff.

Miss Seapony gestured at them. "Meet Mister Potty-Mouth, better known as Ghadab, and the Angel Lady, better known as Arbiter."

Arbiter gave a little bow. "Pleased to finally meet you face to face."

Ghadab just stared for a moment before finally giving his greeting. "You're fat."

The tall lady reached a hand out and swatted Ghadab on the head. "Can't you make it thirty seconds into a conversation before insulting someone?"

"But she is fat," Ghadab grumbled.

"I prefer, pleasantly plump," I said with a grin.

Ghadab pointed at me while looking up at Arbiter. "See! She is not insulted! That is good. Ones such as us shouldn't have thin hides."

I stood up, and wiggled my belly under me. "Mine's definitely not thin."

That caused Ghadab to laugh. "I like this one! You should take lessons from her and the whore, you insufferable retainer! You attempted murderer! You tone deaf songstress!"

"Take that last one back! I am not tone deaf!" Arbiter yelled. "You wouldn't know the difference between a baritone and a tenor!"

"If I didn't know the difference before I certainly wouldn't be able to learn it from you," Ghadab yelled back.

Arbiter put her staff under Ghadab's chin. "Take it back, or I'll show them a vision of how badly you sing songs from The Hobbit."

Ghadab stepped back. "You wouldn't dare!"

Arbiter narrowed her eyes. "Try me."

Ghadab flicked his tail, or at least, I thought he did. It was hard to tell through the flames. "Alright, but you are still an insufferable retainer and attempted murderer."

Arbiter seemed to settle down, and crossed her arms, still holding that bronze staff. "That's fair."

"Miss Arbiter? What's the staff for?" I asked, wondering what super magical powers it had.

The angelic looking lady lifted her staff. "It makes me look important. Everyone looks more important if they are holding a staff. People will ignore you sometimes, but when you walk in holding a staff they'll listen to you."

I considered this advice. "But I have hooves, I can't hold a staff like that."

Arbiter frowned. "Well, you'll just have to come up with some other way of looking important. This way was taken by me anyway."

Miss Seapony floated up. "So, now you've met the three actual ghosts; me, Mister Potty Mouth, and the Angel Lady." She turned to Ghadab. "Can you please turn off that fire? I'm the one who burned to death, and I'm not fond of seeing that imagery."

Ghadab's flames immediately ceased, revealing a night pony with sand colored fur and a vibrant red mane. "My apologies, you cum drunk whore. I wasn't thinking. We rarely make avatars together anymore. Please forgive me, sister."

Miss Seapony swam over to him, and wrapped him up in a big hug. He just kind of accepted this with a flat look on his face, hanging limply in her embrace. "Apologies accepted, brother."

When they released their hug, Arbiter bonked Ghadab on the head again with her staff. He put a hoof up to his head. "Hey! What was that for!"

Arbiter pointed at Miss Seapony. "For calling Yinyu a whore."

"She is a whore!" Ghadab protested, and then got bonked on the head again.

"Be nice!" Arbiter hissed.

Ghadab flapped his wings. "She was a very talented member of an escort service. Does that satisfy you, little sister?"

Arbiter smiled. "That's better. I'm going to teach you manners yet."

As I watched all this, I couldn't help but smile. Sure, they weren't what anyone would expect out of some of the most powerful beings in the universe, but there was a sense of family between them. I could imagine myself being part of this. This might not be so stressful… depending on how the meeting with Miss Nightmares went.

Chapter 10: Aches and Pains

Moving to new places always left me with mixed emotions. I loved meeting new people, seeing new things, and having new experiences. I also ended up feeling sad about the people, places, and things that I was leaving behind. The move to Skytree had been no different.

My mom had actually moved to Skytree a full two weeks before me and my step dad. Miss Seapony had helped me dreamwalk to my mom every night she had been gone, but I was still anxious to see her in person again. Some night ponies felt like seeing people in their dreams was just as good as seeing them in person, but I wasn't a night pony, and I felt a keen difference between hugging someone in a dream and hugging a person while awake. I needed that actual physical comfort.

I still thought of my step dad as David at the time, even though he had been married to my mom for several months by that point. The two weeks we spent without my mom had been time he had really tried to focus on bonding with me-- really trying to build that father-daughter bond.

Unfortunately for him, I was feeling down because of the impending move and the fact that my mom wasn't there. That mood was further worsened by the fact my time of month had started. I feel very like some stereotype saying that, but when I was a younger teen I would intermittently get really bad cramps when that was going on. They have since stopped happening, now that I'm older, and the doctor said it had been a side effect of the fact I was still growing. I'm not sure how that works, but that's what the doctor said. However, this was one of those times I was cramping, and me cramping has a side effect of making me a grumpy goose. So even though it was rare for me; I was in a prolonged bad mood.

David stuck his head into my room. "Hey, Becky, I'm going to be packing up the old Atari tonight. I was wondering if you wanted to do a round of pong with me before I put it away."

My room, like most of the house, was filled with half filled plastic bins, as we worked to get everything packed and ready to move. I had just finished putting away a lot of things that reminded me of my friends, and I was still dealing with my cramps. Still, I tried not to show how miserable I was. "I'm not really up to it, sorry."

Disappointment briefly flashed on his face. "That's alright. Also, we have a lot of food that we should use up before the move, and I was wondering if you wanted to help me make some cookies in a little while. If we time it right they can be ready to eat right after dinner."

A small war broke out between my stomach and my nether regions over this proposal. On the stomach's end-- cookies, enough said. However, there were also the parts nearby that just registered 'don't even think of putting extra pressure on us back here!' In addition to 'do you know how much moving around that will take? Why are you punishing us?' This was also right around the time I was starting to put on some pounds, and it was also becoming increasingly obvious my flying was well below average for my age-- and I didn't know yet that it wasn't the fault of my weight. Back then, those two things were causing me to be self-conscious about what I was eating-- hard as that may be to believe now.

"I think I'll pass on the cookies tonight," I finally replied, and then flopped on my shag carpet. The flop turned out to be ill advised, and I suppressed a whimper as my cramps gave me a sharp jab of pain.

David walked up to me and knelt down. "Are you feeling alright?"

I gave an irritable flap of my wings when he tried to reach out to touch me. "I'm fine! Just leave me alone!" I snapped, and started to cry. I clutched my legs around myself as my pain intensified. Crying was just making the cramps hurt worse. Everything I did seemed to make the cramps hurt worse.

David gave me a deeply distressed look, then got up and hurried out of the room. A moment later I could hear him talking on the phone, but couldn't really focus on what he was saying, or who he was talking to. I just focused on the pain, it had never been this bad.

I'm not sure how much time passed, but he came back into the room and knelt back down next to me. He held out something in front of my mouth. "Here, this is a pain killer. I have some water here to wash it down. I need you to take it."

I opened my mouth and let him place it in, it tasted really bitter, but if it would help I wasn't going to complain. A second later he held a cup with a straw up to my mouth in turn. I sipped water from it, and then curled up tightly where I was laying.

"I'm sorry if this ends up hurting, but I'm going to have to pick you up," he said quickly. "I'm going to carry you out to the car and then drive you to the hospital."

"I don't need to go to the hospital," I croaked. Why I said that was a mystery. I wasn't really thinking straight is all I can say in my defense.

"Yes, you do," he said sternly. "Whatever this is, it isn't normal."

"It's just cramps," I whimpered. "I get them sometimes… time of month." I hadn't had a flare up of them in the few months since he had moved in.

He sighed. "I didn't know you got menstrual cramps, but I doubt they normally have you curled up in a ball on the floor, crying like a baby." That was true. They hurt, but not like this.

He lifted me up when I didn't put up any further objections. I did whimper and squirm when he did, but he just tightened his hold on me so he wouldn't drop me. By the time he got me to the back seat of the car I was openly sobbing, which again, made everything hurt worse.

I'm unsure how long the car ride took. Normally the car rides felt perfectly smooth, but this time every little bump or turn we made I could feel, and made me groan. David kept trying to say soothing things to me, but I couldn't pay attention. I just wanted this hurt to go away. He was right, it had never even been close to this bad, and I didn't understand why it was hurting so much now.

We signed in at the emergency room, and they took me away on a stretcher to get some tests. I was pricked with needles to get my blood, someone stuck a long swab up my marehood to get a sample of something, they listened to my breathing, a crystal pony checked my magic, and a human doctor applied pressure to different spots asking me where it hurt and if it hurt more here or there. A nurse gave me a shot of something with a long name that I couldn't pronounce, it sounded like gobbledygook. David spent this time near me, on the phone, talking to my mom about what was going on. I wanted to talk to her too, or better yet, have her here with me, but medical people kept doing things to me.

They rolled an X-ray machine in to take pictures of the backside of my body. David had to hang up and turn off his phone for some reason, but don't know why; I don't understand how medical stuff works-- now or then. Whatever the stuff the shot me with must have kicked in around then, because the pain gradually faded then stopped.

David, very gently, put a hand on my side. "Feeling better?"

I nodded. My body felt really weak. "Yeah, I'm sorry."

He shook his head. "Don't be sorry. This isn't your fault."

"I must have done something. It has never been this bad," I whined. My thoughts went out to my weight, or the fact I was far less athletic than many other pegasi, or maybe I consumed too much sugar.

David sighed. "It could be an anxiety related issue. Maybe it was just me pestering you when you clearly weren't wanting to spend time with me."

It was my turn to shake my head. "You aren't stressing me. I just miss Mom, and I've been cramping. On top of that we are moving again." I gave an irritated flap of my wings. "I get used to a place, and have friends, and places there I like to go, and then her big boss tells her that we need to move again. Why does her boss keep doing that?"

"She actually has a new boss," David explained. "This new boss is saying that her new promotion is going to mean no more moves. She might need to personally go out of town for a few days, once or twice a year, but we shouldn't have to move ever again. This is the main corporate office that she's going to be working at. That's why we're moving to Skytree."

My ill feelings just deepened. "Oh! So now I get to be without her a couple times a year. That's so much better!"

David shook his head in disbelief. "I've never seen you in such a foul mood, or ever heard you use biting sarcasm." He came and sat on the bed next to me. "I get it. You're in physical pain and you're dealing with a lot of anxiety about this move. Your mom has worked very hard to get to this point. She's risen from homeless on the streets a few years ago to an assistant vice president in a major international corporation. She's gone from the two of you living in a car to being able to provide the nicest possible things for you. Do you have any idea how amazing that is?"

I sniffled. "I don't care about the things she can get me. I just want her to be there, and for us to just stay in one place."

"Becky, she's going to be gone two weeks at most out of the year. You're going to have plenty of time with her. We aren't moving anymore either. Your mom and I had several long talks before we got married, and this job isn't just about providing for you. It is just as much something she needs to do for herself."

"She doesn't need lots of money," I replied in a low growl. "We did perfectly fine without lots of money."

David sighed. "It isn't about the money. It's about feeling accomplishment. I know that this might be hard to understand, and don't take this wrong, because you're the most important person in the world to your mother, and she loves you with all her heart; but your mom felt like she'd lost out on all her opportunities to do big things when she got pregnant with you."

I looked up at him and blinked in confusion. Was he saying I ruined my mom's life?

He laid his arm on my back. "Your mom had dreams when she was in high school. Yes, she dreamed of having a family, and I'm sure she dreamed of having a daughter just like you-- well, there were no ponies back then, but you get the idea. She also had dreams of making a name for herself. The fact that she had to turn her attention completely to taking care of you made her abandon those other dreams. Now she's at a point she feels like she can fulfill both sets of dreams; having a wonderful family, as well as showing the world what she can do. We're a part of her dreams, the bigger parts, but we aren't everything."

My ears flattened. "We should be enough."

He shook his head. "This isn't her having to choose between one set of dreams and the other. This is her having the opportunity to accomplish both. In a few short years you'll be all grown up, and leaving the nest. You can't hang on to having your mom around all the time. Do you really want her not to accomplish what she wants to do because you want her fifty-two weeks out of the year instead of fifty?"

Shame flooded over me, and I bowed my head. "I guess… when you put it that way… I guess it sounds pretty selfish."

He lifted my head up and smiled at me. "Hey, I know how you feel. I'm not thrilled about the fact she'll be gone two weeks a year-- and I can't even dreamwalk her like you can. We need to be supportive of her; just like she's always been supportive of you."

I sniffled again. "I'll try to be."

I was then pulled against his chest, and into a hug. "And we have each other when she's gone those two weeks each year. Hopefully things will go smoother in our time together than they've gone today. You were part of the package deal when I married your mom, and if I can get you to feel half as strongly about me as you do your mom, then I know I'd be doing something right."

Someone cleared their throat nearby, and we turned to look at a human doctor that had just walked in the room. The doctor smiled at us. "Sorry for interrupting your moment, but I have a diagnosis for what had caused the pain earlier."

David released me and we both turned our absolute attention to the doctor.

The doctor cleared his throat and looked at a file. "Miss Riddle, what we found is you have fibroids; those are non-cancerous growths on your uterus. They can be painful at times during your ovulation period. While they don't happen to Equestrian native ponies, they do happen to some ponies here on Earth."

"Are they dangerous? Am I going to die?" I asked worriedly.

The doctor shook his head. "They aren't dangerous, but can cause a great deal of pain, as well as bleeding. The bleeding in ponies can cause complications, if untreated, since ponies don't typically bleed during menstrual periods. The most effective treatment for fibroids in ponies is typically surgical removal, since they tend to stay gone-- in ponies at least-- after surgical removal. It is a perfectly safe procedure that shouldn't damage your uterus in any way."

Surgery?! They were going to cut me open? I didn't want to be cut open.

David gave the doctor a look almost as wide-eyed as mine. "Are you intending to do this now?"

The doctor chuckled, and shook his head. "Oh, definitely not. She will need an appointment to an expert on this type of surgery. I can prescribe her some pain medication while you are waiting for a surgery date, if you choose to go the surgical route. I do advise surgery, since fibroids in ponies have been resistant to the types of medications we prescribe humans."

David still seemed dazed. "We're moving to Skytree in a few days, we can't really schedule anything, and we need to talk with her mother about this first."

This seemed to make the doctor happy for some reason. "Well then, the hospital in Skytree is one of the top few locations on our world for pony medicine. I can write up a recommendation letter to give to their staff. You are in no better hands or hooves than the Skytree doctors."

My nerves were completely frayed, but I put on a brave face. I tried to think about what David had told me about my mom, just to distract myself. I had been really selfish, and I took to heart what he said to me. People could have many dreams, and they didn't always have to choose between them.

I awoke to my radio. "Good morning! Today calls for blue skies. The titled song then started to play. I threw off my blankets, went through my normal stretches, and then I looked out the window and greeted the sun. Immediately after I hopped down from the bed and started doing my normal morning dance.

However, when I was whipping my head and rump back and forth I caught a whiff of something musky. I paused my dance and then sniffed under my tail-- mare stench, that time of month had come again. Oh well, maybe that would make things easier for the birth control doctor. At least it had been years since I'd had my surgery for my growth-thingies, and this time of month didn't hurt anymore. Life was good, and I was ready to meet the new day with enthusiasm. I wondered if my stepdad had made any breakfast.

Chapter 11: The Siblings

I once asked Miss Seapony if everything had meaning and purpose that we could understand. This was quite the deep question for a young foal like myself to ask, but Miss Seapony was smarter than anyone else I knew or could think of, so surely she could give an answer to that question. She looked at me, and told me a story, not much of a story, really, but more an example of why that question was not one she could answer. I will now tell you what she told me.

There is a place, so unfathomably old, that not even immortal minds can truly understand its age. Some had said that it predates the universe itself, some relic of the past universe, or perhaps even a universe before that. It lies deep in space, untouched by time, and defiant against all elements. Just floating out in the void, all by itself. If it has any hidden consciousness it must be really lonely.

It covers what we would measure as several thousand kilometers, sitting on a massive flat plain of stone. It is filled with unadorned buildings, lofty towers, and bridges that seem so paper thin and fragile that you would doubt that they could support the weight of a small mouse-- yet they can hold the weight of the world, if you were to try. It once sat on a planet, and even longer before that it was encased in the rock of that world. That planet is now long gone, and not even gravel remains. As I said, really lonely, it doesn't even have a planet to sit on. How lonely would someone be if they were just floating out in space, and didn't even have ground to lay on?

In Triss's younger days she lived on the long forgotten planet. Her people were scavengers, and that primordial place gave them treasures that were highly valued, and they hawked for them for the food and supplies they needed to live. There was no telling when and how a treasure would be found. A building could be searched a million times over, and be found empty each time, only for someone to walk in the next time and find an item in plain sight. The items themselves were useless, oddly shaped rocks and crystals that none could determine a purpose for, nor break down. Despite their seeming invincibility, all those items are long gone. Perhaps their original owners somehow took them back, and they're hidden even now in the shadows of those seemingly empty rooms and towers. Triss's people had many superstitions about the place, some that have proven to be just superstitions, and others the jury is still out on.

This place of legend endured the destruction brought by the Devourers, the explosion of stars, and Triss has said that it has more than once been taken in by the event horizon of a nearby black hole (which had once been that was at the heart of that place's solar system), only to emerge again eons later, untouched.

For a million years straight, Triss studied that place (she must really have a lot of free time). Yet, despite all that study, she understood it no better than when she first took breath. It has given up no answers to its secrets, it has not revealed the identities, forms, or intents of its builders. It only exists, defiant against every cataclysm, ignoring the rise, fall, and rise and fall again of life. It seems certain that when our universe ceases to be that it will still somehow stand, unbroken, unchanged, and still as untouched by time and wear as it has always been.

Triss's people called it Jeg'galla'gamb'i, though its true name will forever be unknown. Jeg'galla'gamb'i means 'the first and last place', and no more appropriate name could be given. There is nothing of use in Jeg'galla'gamp'i, just questions that shall never have an answer. Sometimes there are things in life that are that way, things we'll just never be able to understand, no matter how hard we try.

I had been happily singing along with the car radio when my mom suddenly paused the music. "I have a question; are you going to end up moving to Equestria when you get older?"

I blinked. Why was she asking that? What would even bring that up? The only thing that had happened lately was… oh… okay, that's why she was asking. "Um, our phones are on, and the car has a connection to the internet. We aren't supposed to talk about that stuff when those things are on around us."

"I didn't actually say why you might move to Equestria. I just asked if you would be," Mom replied, eyes still focused on the road.

I shrugged. "If I do the thing, I suppose that I'll someday move to Equestria. The alternative is eventually ending up as a ghost for real, and I really don't want to be a ghost for real."

My mom gave me a worried glance. "Any idea when you would be doing that?"

I gave my best encouraging grin. "Mom, I don't even know a hundred-percent sure I'm doing the thing yet. I haven't thought about that stuff. It would be a long time from now if I did move to Equestria. I think that's why they picked me young, so I'd be around longer. You're asking me about stuff I don't need to think about until I'm way older than you."

She gave me a mock offended look. "You say that like I'm old!"

"Mom, you are old."

"I'm exactly twice your age, young lady. Thirty-six is not old!"

I stuck my tongue out at her, and she made a forced sniff. "Fine! We'll see how much I try to comfort you that you aren't old whenever you start your mid-life crisis. I will be old by then."

I raised my muzzle up high. "I'll stay young forever."

All the playfulness dropped from my mom. "Don't say that! There's only one way you stay young forever. I don't want to think about that."

I realized what was implied; Miss Seapony was young forever, so was Angel Lady. I guess Mister Potty-Mouth was too.

Mom groaned as she parked the car in front of the clinic. "Sorry, I just can't help thinking of everything that could happen. Good and bad; it's a lot to take in. I'm proud to death of you, and worried sick at the same time."

"Do you want me to turn them down?"

The question seemed to take my mom off guard. "What I want you to do doesn't matter. This is completely your decision. I'm not even sure what I would want you to do, if the choice were mine to make. I'm going to back whatever you choose to do. That's what good parents do, they support their children's decisions."

I unbuckled my harness. "That doesn't mean you can't give me your honest opinions. I know you'll be proud of me, no matter what, but I also know any advice you give me is based on love."

She sighed. "You're such a sweet filly… young mare. I don't have any concrete advice for you. This isn't exactly a situation parents have to deal with. This isn't something that ninty-nine-point-nine-nine-repeating-nine percent of people have to deal with. If I ever have any advice, I'll let you know. Let's just put this conversation aside and focus on your appointment."

We got out of the car and walked up to the clinic. It was a simple, unpainted, square shaped, concrete building that was about the size of a larger grocery store. I wasn't a big fan of extremely utilitarian building designs. The fact that such a plain building was a clinic was even worse in my mind. An average person going to a clinic might be worried, and it would be nice if the clinic had a more welcoming design in that case. This design just felt cold, unconcerned about the feelings of its visitors.

The lobby and waiting area inside was fairly large, with plenty of seating to both the left and right as we walked in. Immediately in front of the doors was the station where everyone checked in, which had four glass panels with clerks on the other side. Each of those panels had small openings in them up high and down low where either humans or ponies could comfortably pass things back and forth through. A keypad with an attached pen was attached to each window. One of these windows had a human woman checking in at it, and we went to the next available one. The clerk on the other side of the glass was a tan colored unicorn mare with a mane similarly colored to mine.

The mare smiled at us. "Hello, if you would just sign in using the keypad, that would be great. Do you already have an appointment, or is this just a walk-in?"

My mom entered our names on the keypad while answering. "There should be an appointment at nine for my daughter, Rebecca Riddle."

The mare nodded, still smiling. "No problem, let me check our records, and will see if we need any forms filled out." She then started checking the screen on her legband. She did a few taps on it, and then looked back at us. "Found her. We do have a few forms that need to be completed. I have just sent them to your email on file. We have several kiosks on your right where the forms can be completed, or you can complete them on your phone. Please complete those forms quickly, and submit them. A nurse will come for you a few minutes after you submit the forms."

My mom thanked the mare and directed us to the area off to the left. She pulled out her cell phone as we walked and checked for the email. In the meantime, I picked out what looked like the most comfortable looking couch for us to wait on.

Mom sat there and asked me a series of questions, and entered my answers in. A few of them were embarrassing. "You know I'm not sexually active, Mom!"

"I have to ask. Just make sure all your answers are honest."

Some of the questions she filled in for me, without consulting me, things about family medical history. She gave me a raised eyebrow after I gave my answers for whether I had ever smoked or vaped, and I told her that I'd gone to a hookah bar one time earlier that year, right after turning eighteen. It had just been that one time, and it was like some right of passage thing to do when you turned eighteen in Skytree. I'm not sure why it was, but all my friends insisted that I needed to do it, so I did. It wasn't like they were asking me to jump off a cliff or anything. I never understood why jumping off a cliff is a bad thing, since I can fly, but that was the expression my mom always used whenever I did anything that resembled giving into peer pressure.

The forms were submitted, and it immediately displayed an approximate wait time before I would be brought back, which was ten to fifteen minutes. That meant I had time to check out our surroundings.

The lighting was dim, and it seemed to be dim on purpose. There were a few potted plants, a small table filled with magazines, an even smaller table filled with childrens' books, a few pictures of abstract art done in watercolors, and the other people waiting around.

Most of the other people were in groups, a lot of them clearly mothers and daughters, just like me and my mom. There were a few mares sitting around by themselves, looking anxious, and a lone night pony stallion who was watching me for some reason. After what happened yesterday, having this out of place night pony stallion watching me raised some suspicions. I decided to go talk to him.

My mom didn't object to me walking right over to a stranger to strike up a conversation. She just focused on reading something on her phone. Ponies were naturally social, and I tended to be extra social. The stallion gave me a grin as I approached him. "Eyes on you."

I felt smug for guessing what was going on. "Eyes on you. I'm Rebecca, what's your name?"

He made room for me on his couch. "Name's Robby. It's nice to meet you. My fiancée, Nightscape, mentioned you might be here today. I believe you two are roommates this coming year."

I tried to remember the stuff Nightscape had said about the pony she was getting married to. "Is Nightscape here?"

Robby gestured towards a door with a wing. "She's in the back. Normally she'd take care of this herself, but my little sister is here getting checked out for something else. My sister is a minor, so she needs me around to sign off on some forms."

I hopped up next to him. "Oh, is your sister a night pony too?"

He shook his head. "No, she's a human… well, mostly human. If she comes out while you're still here, don't call her a partial; she hates being called a partial. She's human as far as anyone needs to be concerned "

"Oh," I replied. I'd never seen a partial before. Most partials in the world had either rehumanized or went to Equestria to finish being transformed into ponies. And more than half of those never returned to Earth, choosing to remain on the other world. There were some humans that rehumanized with some lingering pony traits, like my mom's one eye, but being called partial implied something much more than just some odd eye, hair color, or random patch of fur. I decided not to ask too much about it, just in case it was rude, even if my curiosity was burning. "You seem really young to be getting married."

He laughed. "I might be considered old by night pony standards. Our mares like to grab us up as soon as we're legal. Night pony mares are… competitive when trying to fight for a night pony stallion's affections. The only way we're getting away with it, without having mares trying to beat Nightscape down, is Phobia Remedy has given Nightscape her blessing to marry me, and no one is going to cross Phobia."

That's what I needed to remember! Robby had Miss Nightmares for a godmother or something. "What's she like, Miss Nightm- Phobia Remedy? You live with her, and I want to know all about her."

That got a chuckle. "You spend a lot of time with Yinyu, don't you? She calls Phobia that. Phobia's nice. I can tell you all about her. She spends most of her time either baking or in her office. Only time I really see her angry is when she’s on the phone with government officials that have their heads up their asses. She has three foals of her own, all younger teens. She's married to another mare named Rosetta, and Rosetta is the one who tends to make the big family decisions."

"Oh, that doesn't seem so bad," I replied, feeling a little more at ease at the prospect of meeting Miss Nightmares. "Why is everyone afraid of her?"

Robby frowned. "Well, she did rip a mare limb from limb one time, right in front of half the night ponies in the world. That kind of thing isn't something they're likely to forget, no matter how much time has passed or how much she has shown she won't do that anymore. She also tends to visit nightmares, which isn't the happiest time to be meeting someone. She rarely stops a nightmare, but will verbally walk you through why you might be having it. She won't tell you why; she makes you figure it out yourself. Face your fears, that's what she always says."

"She's a regular slave driver who is constantly asking about my progress on her projects," a new voice said.

Robby and I turned to the new voice. There was a human lady, who looked maybe around my age, or Robby's age. The first thing that stood out was she had pony ears instead of human ears. Her hair was blue, which I knew was definitely not a normal human hair color. I thought it reached all the way down her back to the floor, but a second glance showed that it only went halfway down her back and that she had an equally blue tail. She was wearing a pair of jean shorts and a pink tank top, and I could see her legs were covered in yellow fur while the rest of her body was fur free. She was tall, taller than either of my parents, maybe six feet tall. She also looked very unhappy.

Robby puffed himself up. "Phobia has done a lot for you, Jess."

Jess sat down, or more like dropped herself down, in a chair next to her brother. "I know, and I'm grateful for all she has done, but that doesn't mean she isn't demanding. Have you gotten a chance to run those numbers yet, Jess? Jess, I need you to calculate this for me. Hi, Jess. I have some more work for you to do. Jess, when is what I asked for going to be ready? Almost every damn time I shut my eyes. It's like she's waiting for me. I have my own projects I want to be doing too!"

Robby rolled his eyes and pointed a hoof at his sister. "Let me introduce my sister, Jessica-"

His sister put a fist up to her mouth, and coughed in it. Robby rolled his eyes again. "Excuse me, my sister, Doctor Jessica Middleton."

"Thank you," Jess said with a smile.

"Who is also an extremely moody teenager. She is also one of the smartest people on either world, and has way too much ego about that fact," Robby continued.

Her smile dropped as she glared down at him. "You just lost all your goodwill points, bat brain."

He matched her glare, then smiled. "Nerd."

Jess was one of the coolest looking people I'd ever seen, right up there with Locutus of Bear. I was meeting all kinds of cool looking people lately. I wanted to ask about all her pony parts, but remembered Robby's warning. There were other cool things to ask about though. "You're really a doctor?"

She looked over to me. "Nice to meet you, Rebecca. Yes, I have a doctorate in astrophysics. I'm currently working on a second doctorate in electrical engineering."

I blinked. "Hey, I didn't tell you my name yet. How do you know it?" Was she another bodyguard? She didn't give the code phrase.

Robby growled. "You've been eavesdropping again!"

She shrugged. "I was bored while waiting on the doctor to come back."

That confused me. "But she wasn't even out here? How could she eavesdrop?"

Robby pointed at his sister again. "She's got human magic that lets her eavesdrop anywhere she pleases within a certain circumference of her." He glared up at his partial sister. "We're in a doctor's office! There's too much confidential information being said for you to be doing that."
More human magic? That was exciting!

She waved a hand dismissively at him. "Don't get your tail in a twist. I was only eavesdropping on your conversation, nobody else's. I'm also suppressing the sound around us right now, so no one can hear you yelling about it."

I looked around, and while a few people were staring at Jess, it seemed to be more staring about the fact she was a partial than the noise. Mom was still reading things on her phone, while only occasionally glancing up to check on me.

Jess gave us both a considering look. "And what's with that odd greeting you two had when you started talking together? I've never heard you greet someone with that phrase before. Is that some special thing for your college?"

"Yeah, let's go with that," Robby answered quickly.

Jess narrowed her eyes. "You're lying. I don't even need to monitor your breathing and heart rate to tell that you're lying."

"Yinyu's tits, Jess!" Robby shouted in outrage. "Don't try to use your powers as a lie detector on me. That only works in the comic books."

She shrugged her shoulders again. "It's not a perfect science, but it does have strong correlations. I didn't need that to tell you're lying, anyway." Human lie detector! That was awesome! However, the fact she was digging into the details that Robby was one of my many bodyguards was not so awesome.

Robby shook his head. "Just drop it. How did your appointment go? Did you get a better answer than last time?"

Jess pulled away from her brother slightly, and looked down. "I'd rather not talk about it," she said in a low voice.

I could tell right away that something was wrong. Her night pony brother clearly could as well, and his expression softened as he touched a wing to his younger sister's arm. "Second opinion was the same as the first then," he said quietly. "I'm sorry, Jess."

She turned her face away from us. "It's no big deal. I don't know why everyone thinks it's such a big deal. It- it doesn't matter. I'm fine with it. It changes nothing about my life." I could hear the tears in her voice.

Robby leaned over the armrest and hugged her. "I'll be the one to call Mom and Dad and let them know. That way you don't have to talk about it with them. Any of us are here for you if you decide you do want to talk about it, but that will be on your terms."

She nodded stiffly. "Thanks, Robby."

I wondered what was wrong. Seeing her so sad made me sad. If I knew what was wrong then maybe I could try to cheer her up, but this sounded like something deeply private. Hearing what little I had made me feel like I was intruding.

Robby finished his embrace of his sister, and then looked back at me. "Before I forget, and before I lose the chance to tell you. I have some stuff at Phobia's house that needs to be moved to the dorms with Nightscape, just a few boxes. Phobia suggested asking you to come help move them tomorrow, since you'll have a key to the dorm by then. Nightscape and I will be busy, and your other roommate we were told would be doing some pre-season athletic stuff around that time, making us all unavailable. You're being given an invitation to pass by her guards. Do you want to help come pick the items up?"

And there was my invitation to come meet Miss Nightmares. I doubted that there was even anything to move, it was just an excuse to get me over there. I was nervous, but this was something that needed to be done. I put on my best grin. "Sure, I can help."

He nodded. "Good. I'll let Phobia know. She'll send her driver out to pick you up tomorrow morning." He didn't ask for my address, but we both knew the driver probably already knew it.

"Rebecca Riddle?" A nurse called out from the doorway leading to the rest of the building. I yelled back that I was here, but she didn't seem to hear me. Jess's magic must have been still blocking my sound.

"She's here!" My mom answered as she stood up and looked at me. "Do you want me to come back there with you, sweetie?"

I gave my mom a smile. "Yeah, I'd like the company." Jess must have dropped the sound suppression, since Mom clearly heard me. I turned briefly back to the siblings. "It was nice meeting both of you. Maybe we'll talk again sometime." I looked at Jess specifically after that, and lowered my ears. "I hope whatever's wrong gets better."

She just silently nodded. Robby smiled at me and replied for the two of them. "I'm sure she appreciates you caring. It was nice meeting you too. Don't let Nighty ruffle your feathers, once you move into the dorms. She only bites me."

I laughed, and then hurried off to the nurse, with my mom.

Author's Note

Jess, a few years later with her younger brother Dusk and her niece Eve.

Chapter 12: Loss of Appetite

I highly dislike dull, uninspired buildings. Anything that is going to be seen by many and be around for a long time should project feeling, not just be there. Dislike is not the same as hate. There are only three things that I actually hate. I hate mean people that take pleasure in causing others misery. I also hate things having a predetermined destiny, although it took time for me to find I hated that one. When I was younger I believed that having a destiny must be great. I'm not ready to say how I came to believe differently, but I can give a memory of me dealing with the third thing I hate, something so vile I would feel like if I was able to rid the world of it I would have done enough good to last a hundred lifetimes.

This was back in that same time period my step dad and I were getting things ready for our move to Skytree. All the way up to the final week I had regular visits from a flying coach, to try to help me with my flying. This day was a little different, this time my teacher brought along a crystal pony mare to watch me as I flew.

"Okay, Rebecca, we'll start today with a simple hover, maybe four or five feet off the ground," Pinion, my flight coach-- a grey furred stallion with a blue mane, instructed. "Just try to keep yourself as steady in the air as you can."

I stretched my wings, and took a deep breath. Keeping myself steady in the air was easier said than done. To that point, I hadn't done it. Every single time I took to the air I dipped and wobbled about. This was normal for a younger filly, just starting to fly, but I had been flying for several years at this point, without showing much improvement. Most pegasus foals two or three years younger than me flew better than I did, and every filly and colt my own age definitely flew better. My stamina was up from when I was younger, but my skills were still as fledgling as my first day. I sometimes worried I upset my coach, because I never seemed to get better, no matter how much time he spent with me.

"Don't stress yourself too much. Just let your instincts flow," David called out from the back porch. Our lessons always happened at the house.

I flicked my tail at an imaginary bug. Instinct, every pegasus was supposed to be able to do this stuff on natural instinct. Ponies on Earth had far more hard-wired instincts about using their abilities than Equestrian ponies. The spell that had turned us into ponies had laid those instincts on hard, so we could quickly adjust and function as ponies. My instinct should have been enough to get me flying right. It didn't help at all. I did what I felt was right, and no one ever said I was doing anything wrong, but the results were always bad. Flight coaches were supposed to help turn average flyers into great flyers, not try to make cruddy flyers into passable ones.

There wasn't any wind blowing at the moment, or anything that should throw me off course. I was well away from the trees, so no chance of colliding with them. I was also well away from the patio, so there was no chance of coming down hard on the concrete. Everything was safe for me to take to the air.

I wiggled my rump, and beat my wings as I jumped. It didn't take much effort to reach the height Pinion had told me to do, but the steady part immediately became a problem. My left side started to dip, so I flapped the corresponding wing even harder, this made the right side start to dip instead, and I beat that wing harder to compensate. This went back and forth, and I tried to focus on applying the same wing-power to each side. It took a few seconds, but that part steadied out. The new problem that arose was trying to stay in one place. Hovering in a stationary position is much harder than my fellow winged ponies make it out to be. They might think it's the easiest thing in the world, but my body was determined to be propelled somewhere; whether that was further up, forward, backward, or straight back down to the ground. Staying still was not an option my wings were giving me.

Unable to just hold myself where I was, I settled into alternating between letting myself be pushed forward then backward. This had its own struggles. I had to constantly think about what I was doing, and if I jerked one way or another too fast I ran the risk of flipping myself. I'd seen some skilled flyers show off flying upside down, like they were doing backstrokes in the air. I wasn't in any way, shape, or form a skilled flyer, and if I flipped it would be followed quickly by me hitting the ground face first.

"Just keep doing the best you can," Pinion called out. "How are your wings feeling? Are they getting tired?"

"No!" I yelled, unable to say much else, for fear of losing my concentration. It was true, my wings felt fine. The problem wasn't them wearing out. The problem was trying to keep focus on making them do what I wanted them to do. Other winged ponies didn't have to even think about this to do it, it was just instinct, but it was like I had no instinct whatsoever.

"I've never seen a healthy pegasus struggle so much while flying," the crystal pony said, loud enough for me to hear. I decided to take the positive out of what she said. I was healthy; healthy was better than sick or hurt.

"She has improved in the last few months," Pinion replied. "She had far less control before. Four months ago she'd have smacked into either the ground or her house by this point, or gotten tangled in the tree branches. I've had to fetch her out of the tree more than once." I hadn't actually gotten tangled in the branches for a while, at the point of this demonstration, but that was mainly because I'd broken most of the branches that I could get tangled up in. What happened more often was just colluding with the tree trunk, and then having Pinion rush to catch me as I fell. It was always hard for me to focus on flying after smacking my poor nose into some rough bark.

The mare gave me an appraising look. "It's hard to make sense of what I'm reading with her magic. It doesn't feel completely pegasus-like, it feels faintly like a night pony, but not like that either. It also feels as if she should have far more magic available than what she's putting into her flight, but it's kinda throttled. It's almost like she is having to force it to act, instead of it naturally flowing. Flight magic isn't completely passive in nature, but it has large passive elements to it. She has no passive flow happening at all."

"So, is it some sort of mental block?" Pinion asked. I wished they would tell me to either land or do something other than hover. Hovering took too much concentration, and that was hard to do when trying to listen into a conversation.

The mare shook her head in bewilderment. "I'm not even sure how you would mentally block those kinds of magic flows. It's like saying you have a mental block on breathing, or will stop breathing if you forget to. It just doesn't work that way."

"Can I land now?" I called out in frustration.

Pinion flattened his ears, and turned to the crystal pony for direction. The mare frowned and shook her head again. "Not yet. How about you try pushing yourself as much as you can. Maybe do a large circular flight around the house? Go as fast as you're able. You may gain a bit of altitude if you need to. I can read you well from about fifty yards away."

As fast as I was able? In a circle? This was going to end in disaster. If I wanted to go fast, then it was better to go in a straight line. Going in a straight line meant less thinking about changing directions and other complex things. Going in a circle needed me to go slow, because I couldn't think fast enough to adjust direction at higher speeds, even if just trying to maintain the same loop.

I'll cut to the chase; I picked up what I considered an okay amount of speed. Sure, it wasn't going to win me any races, but it would have been enough to keep up with another pegasus that was lightly pushing themselves, the equivalent of a human jogging. That ended up being too much to control, and I ended up hitting the roof, doing a few bounces across it, smashing into the chimney, and then getting grabbed in the air by Pinion-- right after falling off the roof. I wasn't too hurt, just a headache and some bruised hooves (pegasi were built to survive such crashes), but it was embarrassing.

The results from the crystal pony's readings were inconclusive. She said that whatever was wrong with my flying, it had to do with my magic, not my weight. She also said it wasn't that my magic was inherently weak, only that it wasn't acting the way it should. She wanted to do some follow-up visits to further observe me, but the fact the move to Skytree was coming up in just days prevented that.

They left, and David took me back inside. I climbed up on the couch in order to get off my sore hoofsies. David gave me a sympathetic pat on the back. "Hey, at least we learned part of what's going on, and you didn't damage the roof or yourself at all. We'll find a doctor to follow up on your magic after we get settled into our new house."

"I suppose," I mumbled. I was a young teen, and young teens have a fragile ego. I've gotten over worrying about embarrassing myself with my clumsiness since then, but at the time embarrassing myself hurt worse than the crash did.

He stood up. "How about some milk and cookies? I made a special batch for you, earlier today."

My ears perked up, and so did the corners of my mouth. "Milk and cookies sounds great!"

David walked off to the kitchen, and I sat up and got myself ready to chow down. Yes, my hooves were sore, but not so sore they couldn't hold cookies or lift a cup of milk. There was nothing better than a treat to improve my mood.

He came back with a full plate of delicious looking chocolate chip cookies, and a big cup of milk with a straw in it. He set the milk down on the end table next to me, and the plate of cookies beside me. My mouth watered as I looked the cookies over, trying to decide which to be the first to devour. I made my decision, and just grabbed it up directly with my mouth to scarf down in one mighty bite. My eyes bulged as I bit down into it, and I promptly spit it out. It was disgusting! I quickly turned to take a sip from the milk straw, and no sooner had I inhaled the milk did I start choking and gagging on the equally disgusting beverage.

"What's wrong?" David asked worriedly.

When I finished coughing I laid my ears back. "What did you do to the milk and cookies?!"

He flinched back at my outburst. "I, um, tried using skim milk this time around."

I blinked in confusion. "Skim milk?"

He gave me an apologetic look. "It doesn't have the same milk fat as regular milk. You've been worried about your weight, so I was trying to help out. I know it messes with the taste and texture a little, but I didn't think it would be that bad."

I looked at the cookies and then back at him. "I think I'd rather be fat! That's not real milk. How could you do that to milk and cookies?!"

"Sorry."

And that is when I swore my undying hatred for skim milk. It was some nastiness, masquerading as milk. Worse, it ruined my comfort food! Skim milk was the most horrible thing ever to be done to baked goods! So now you know the three things I hate: mean people, destiny, and the crime against all that is good called skim milk.

My mom waved me goodbye, as I hopped into Maggie's car. Maggie smirked at me as I started trying to determine which was the belt buckle and which was the pony harness. "So… have your medication so you can have sex all year long?"

I squinted one eye at her. "I've got my birth control prescription, but I'm not going to be having any sex. I'm a good filly."

She raised an eyebrow. "Oh, so those of us who want to experiment a bit are all bad then?"

That made me flatten my ears to the sides. "I didn't mean it that way. There's nothing wrong with you doing that if you want to. I just don't want to."

"Bec, I've seen your eyes glued to a stallion or two before, you get horny just like everyone else. Aren't you good friends with the literal Dreamwarden of sex?"

I finally got myself harnessed into my seat. "She's about more things than sex."

Maggie was unconvinced. "But sex is what she's really known best for. You say you've been friends with her since you were just a little filly. I'm not sure how a pony gets to be friends with a Dreamwarden like that, but you can't tell me in all that time you've never taken advantage of the fact that you're friends with the premier expert on sex in order to ask questions or have her help create some fantasies."

My face heated up, and I glanced away. "That isn't the same thing as actually having sex. It doesn't even really help those urges. It just gives me an idea what it's like."

She laughed loud enough it hurt my ears. "You have had sex dreams!"

I crossed my forelegs. "So? Almost everybody does. I'm just not interested in making those fantasies a reality."

She gave me a thoughtful look. "You know, since she is literally in everything in the dream realm. Having a sex fantasy is almost like you had sex with her, since she's in everything when you're dreaming."

"Okay, you just made my dreams feel really weird and awkward, thanks for that." It also made me think of what it meant if I became a Dreamwarden. I technically would be in everything in the dream realm too, even if I would only be able to be aware of small parts of it at a time, because I was living. So did that mean every time anyone had any sort of dream fantasy that whatever was happening was on some level happening to me? That was a scary thought. One that made my stomach feel queasy.

"Anytime," Maggie giggled, and she put the car into drive. "Hey, Bec. I always wanted to ask you. Why do ponies insist on saying mare, stallion, filly, colt, foals, and things like that, even if they don't use any other pony pronouns?"

I shrugged. "I don't know. It just feels more exact, I guess. I don't really think about it. To tell the truth, I sometimes catch myself almost saying things like anypony or everypony, and I wasn't brought up with those words."

"So, that pony brainwashing is a real thing."

"I don't consider myself brainwashed. I've been a pony since I was four, that's as long as I can remember anything. I might as well have always been a pony."

She glanced my way briefly, before turning back to the road. "You don't remember anything from being human? I know four years old is not going to have a lot of memories left at this point, but you must remember something. There's lots of things from after that you seem to remember in extreme detail, at least the way you tell it."

I chewed on my lip, but went back to smiling right after. "Miss Seapony helps with that. She says she stores away memories from people that interest her, at least for a while. She can't store all the memories from everyone, because she'd run out of places to put them. It's like the dream realm has only so much memory to store things with, and it has a lot of stuff stored away already. She stores my memories though, and let's me see them sometimes. That way I can remember events that are important to me."

"I have so many questions about how that even works, or why they do that, but she never stored any memories of when you were human?" Maggie asked in confusion.

"I didn't have any left by the time Miss Seapony first met me. She can't store what she never found," I replied. I wasn't much concerned about it. "Mom has tried to stir up memories from me before, by showing old pictures of me back when I was human. She'll tell me stories, and ask if I remember any of that. I never do. I think it makes her a little sad, but I can't help it. They just aren't there."

"That sucks," Maggie said glumly.

"It's not so bad, other than my mom getting a little sad," I said. I then gave a big grin. "You know what doesn't suck? The fact we're going to be signed up with a sorority before today is out! I'm sure that will lead to some more memories Miss Seapony will want to store away."

That got her laughing again. "Good point. Hopefully they don't haze you too much."

I shrugged again. "Nah, I can take it."

Chapter 14: Connecting with Places

I don't typically mind car rides. They let me sit and talk to whoever I'm with, without me having to worry about keeping myself on course while flying. I also get to get a good look at all the scenery out the window. However, the hour long car ride from Columbia to Skytree came right after being in a plane for several hours, and this little pegasus was going stir crazy over not getting to move about.

"Are we there yet?" Yeah, it was cliche for me to be asking that, but I had been sitting for hours at that point. Well, not really hours. I had gotten to walk about when David and I got off the plane, and I'd also gotten up to use the potty when we were on the plane (I wished I hadn't, airplane restrooms were disgusting), but those had both been brief. When we had gotten off the plane I had gotten to finally see my mom, and give her a big hug, but it had only been about ten minutes of freedom before she had us in the car. Ponies weren't meant to be caged in metal boxes… or plastic ones… or whatever cars and planes were made out of. This little filly needed liberation!

"We're almost there, Becky. Just hold your horses," Mom said calmly. Horse puns! Not funny! I wasn't sure if that was an actual horse pun, but I was in the mood to be offended. I was a moody teenaged filly and it was my unalienable right to find offense in everything, especially if I was bored and cooped up.

"How much longer?" I asked with my best whine, while I flopped down in my seat with an exaggerated amount of flop. I glanced at the window and the endless woods we were driving through. All I could see were tree branches. It was raining, but I couldn't even see the pretty rain clouds (pegasi have a special appreciation for a good downpour and group of rain clouds that other ponies don't share). "I'm wasting away. I don't remember what the sky looks like."

"Don't be so dramatic," Mom replied. "It will be about another ten or fifteen minutes, and then you'll get to see Skytree. Ten minutes after that you'll get to see our new house. We'll be driving by some of the big sights in town on the way. I'm sure seeing the Remembrance Monument will take your breath away. The trees that make up that thing are huge. If it weren't for all the trees around us right now you could probably see them from here."

Big trees, that didn't raise a lot of excitement when I was surrounded by them. I needed to get out and move about. I only had one option for that. "Do you mind if I project? I promise to stay unseen and unheard."

Mom sighed. "If you want to; just stay out of trouble."

"Thanks, Mom." I turned myself around so I could just stare out the window. I didn't have my music or headphones, but watching the trees pass by had an almost hypnotic effect that I could utilize to reach the same state of mind.

It only took a minute or so, and I was out and about. I really was out too, because my projection was stationary and the car was moving. I passed straight out of the car and floated in place in the middle of the road while it continued its course towards Skytree. It didn't matter, although I would need to hurry in that direction quickly before my range wore off. I could only project so far from my body, and if my body got too far away it would start to be a strain to do this, until I was forced to stop altogether.

Luckily, I was far faster while in my projection. I was even able to sort of teleport over distances, as long as I stayed within range of my body. That was how Josie had been able to get to me so quickly while training me, rather than having to fly her projection well over a hundred miles to reach me. I didn't have the same range that she had, but I had enough that I could get myself somewhere closer to my body in an instant if my body started getting too far away. My pseudo-teleports were taken kind of blindly, if I didn't have a particular person or place to focus in, so I could teleport right into a solid object, but since I wasn't solid that wasn't a big deal, other than a moment of disorientation before getting myself out of whatever it was. I'd accidentally teleported myself into hills, brick walls, trees, and even people in the past. It was a freaky experience the first few times, but it was easy enough to get used to. I just needed to float up if that happened, and sooner or later I'd exit whatever I mistakenly projected into.

I had no real goal in mind when I projected out of the car. While floating in the middle of the road a car and it's passengers passed right through me. To both sides of the road were just trees, lots of trees. They weren't even particularly interesting trees. They were those thin pine trees that just grew branches and leaves haphazardly all over the place, rather than filling out nicely like a Christmas tree (loblolly pines). I could go off into the woods to explore, but I didn't figure that there was much else to look at there. I instead made up my mind to just get higher and get the lay of the land. Maybe then I could spot something interesting to go investigate.

I floated up, and up, over the treetops, and then I stopped dead still as I saw what my mom had been talking about.

In the distance I could see the city of Skytree, and even at the distance I was from it the four trees of the Remembrance Monument could be seen rising up high above everything else in the city. This was an impressive feat, considering I spotted a fair number of skyscrapers within the city, but none of them equaled half the height of those trees. It was like they all formed one interconnected canopy over the center of the city. A separate skytree, only slightly smaller, stood a short distance away from the others. I was blown away, it was like something out of a fantasy story, or Equestria, not something anyone would expect to be found anywhere on Earth. How could anything living be so big? I had to get a closer look.

A quick blip and I was right up next to the trees. Their height was staggering up close, but the rest of the complex was just as much. The size of the tree trunks surrounding the enclosed inner area were huge, and a few of them had gift shops and food stands hollowed out within, as well as museum displays. Tourists were walking about everywhere, and most of them seemed just as taken away by the monument as me.

I floated over to one of the museum displays. It had lots of photos from the Cataclysm of Riverview with captions underneath. I saw pictures of what the monument site looked like immediately after the Cataclysm. There were so many of these trees pushed so closely together it looked like one massive tree the size of a mountain had just sprung up in the middle of town. I saw pictures of the devastation as well; pictures of people fighting fires, streets so clogged with smoke you couldn't make out anything beyond a few feet of where the picture was taken, refugees huddled together in tents and halls of hospitals, and one picture was of a massive root that ran straight through several shops. Also included were many pictures of people who were involved with the Cataclysm and the cleanup afterward. The story of the Cataclysm was written out in a massive marble plaque labeled The Cataclysm of Riverview, The Day of Fire, Magic, and Wood.

My investigation of the area continued. There was a huge marble cube in the exact center between the four trees, surrounded by a small reflection pool that was just large enough to keep people from touching the cube but free to read the inscription. I was not so restricted, and I went right up to the block to read it.

In honor of those that lost their lives in the

Cataclysm.

You shall never be forgotten.

A long list of names followed. Maybe thirty or forty, I didn't really count. Most of them were human names, with army ranks attached to them, but there were a few pony names mixed in. Down near the bottom, separated from the rest of the names, were two others: James Growth and Tonya Blessing, the Arbiter.

I spotted another three plaques, sitting on stands around the pond, and checked these out as well. One of them was explaining about the high number of deaths being attributed to military service members that had been serving in the Bastion when it exploded. The next explained the Tonya Blessing continued on as the Dreamwarden Arbiter, and it was she who unleashed the explosion so an even greater calamity could be averted. The last explained that James Growth was a name that Wild Growth had given to her foal, who died in her womb when she channeled the magic that grew the trees.

"Such a sad event."

I looked up from the plaque I was reading to see Miss Seapony. My friend looked at the things in my field of vision, and continued speaking. "So much death. We had just lost Ghadab's people just two days before. It was so much heartbreak in such a short period of time."

I had no clue how to respond to that. "Um, the monument is really pretty."

She nodded. "It is. I would rather there didn't need to be a monument. My fellow Dreamwardens and I played a part in what happened here, although very few know it, and none will speak of it. It was we who instructed our little sister how to destroy the Bastion. We had no choice. The price of not doing so would have meant thousands, if not millions of deaths. It doesn't make me any happier about what happened."

I looked around, even though I had just seen the pictures it was hard to imagine the devastation that had once happened here. "At least there's something good to remember it with. This place is amazing."

Miss Seapony smiled at me. "You don't know how amazing. Try to pass through one of those trees."

I gazed at the trees, and slipped over to one. It was wider around than a mansion. If I just floated through it might actually take a few minutes. It would be dark as well. I didn't like floating around in the pitch black. Miss Seapony had asked me to try though. I went forward, but was stopped as I came in contact with the bark. I actually bounced right off the thing!

My friend appeared next to me. "These trees are still just as full of magic as they were on the day they were grown. They sustain their magic, and it sustains them. They shall never know death unless cut down, nor rot or decay. They are perfect and immortal. There is so much magic within them that there is no room for yours."

I went wide-eyed. "How?"

She shook her head. "No one knows. They were made under such extreme pressures of magic and physics that are completely beyond what anyone can replicate. Call it a trick of nature and chance, but Wild Growth created magical life that day. No one has ever done the like, and perhaps no one ever shall again. It was a feat worthy of ascension, in addition to the fact she was willing to lay down her life to protect others. Yet another shame that she burnt herself out, and rejected ascension. Although it is perhaps better that she did reject becoming an alicorn."

I just stared at my magical surroundings, and knew they could come from any of my dreams. "I want to make places like this. Maybe not in the same way, or for the same reasons, but the world needs places like this."

Miss Seapony nodded. "May your ambitions be fruitful. I hope to see you one day make wonders of your own, happier ones."

And that was the day I decided to be an architect. I plan on building my own wonders for people to marvel at, be amazed by, and just as inspired to make something else as amazing as I was on that day. The world needs amazing places, so we can be inspired to do great things, just like Wild Growth once did.

An upside down face of a human greeted me. "Hey, are you alright?"

The fact that I was on my time of month with my exposed rump in the air made me a bit self conscious, even though that smell didn't affect humans. I flipped over, with just a little groan, and let my rump come down on the ground. "I'm fine. My fat cushioned me."

He didn't seem to believe me. "You sure? You hit that wall pretty hard."

A small crowd of ponies and humans had gathered around me to see if I was alright. I waved them off with a wing while getting back to my hooves. "I'm sure. It happens all the time. I could take a side job as a crash test dummy."

He watched me take a few steps, and looked like he was still debating calling for a doctor. "Mind if I walk with you to wherever you are going? I just want to be sure you don't have a concussion or something."

I looked him over. He was about six feet tall, dark skinned, had a small mustache and goatee, with his black hair in dreadlocks. "I suppose so. I'm going to the female dorms, but you can walk me as far as the elevator." I held a hoof out to him. "I'm Rebecca."

He made a fist and bumped it against my hoof. "I'm Russell. Just take it easy. If I see you getting dizzy I'm going to call for help."

I gave him a big smile in appreciation. "Nice to meet you, Russell! Let's get going. This little pony doesn't let a little crash slow her down."

He laughed as he saw me start walking. "I see that. I'm still coming to make sure. I'll give you my phone number too. Just in case you ever need some help after a crash."

There was something about him I liked, although I couldn't put a hoof on it. I'd already made a fair distance from him, and turned and beckened him with my tail. "Well, come on, slowpoke! I'm faster than I look."

He hurried over next to me. "You definitely are."

Author's Note

I recently released two other stories in the same universe. One of them is rather dark, and may not be everyone's cup of tea, the other is more a regular drama.

The dark one:

[Unpublished stories cannot be embedded]

The drama:

TPandemic: Starting Over

MLP: FiM

Drama

Sad

Slice of Life

A unicorn with an unscrupulous past finds herself as a guardian to five orphaned foals. Now she must help them after their world has fallen down, and they must help her become a better pony.

Profanity

Death

Human

Alt. Universe

Trixie

OC

Starlight Glimmer

Halira · 274k words  ·  70  17 · 5.4k views

Chapter 15: I Meet All My Friends This Way

In all the places we moved before we finally settled in Skytree I always felt like an outsider at school. Don't get me wrong, I love everyone, both humans and ponies, but being the only pony in a class, or one of the few ponies in class had its disadvantages. In the schools where I was literally the only pony people would treat me strangely, and give me looks like they didn't know how to act around me.

There was also the act of writing. I'm not terrible with my penmanship, in fact, I think I'm pretty good, but I'm not as dexterous or as fast as a human. There would be so many times an assignment would be given, and the entire rest of the class would finish it long before me, and they had to wait for the 'pony' to finish writing her answer. It was an uncomfortable type of attention, and there were a few teachers who thought I was mentally slow just because I couldn't write as fast as my human classmates.

So my first day of public school in Skytree was a complete change of pace for me. For the first time ever, ponies made up the majority of my classmates. There were humans still, but in terms of numbers it was a complete role reversal. I was no longer an outsider, but instead part of the majority. I also wasn't considered slow anymore when it came to completing assignments. Even though humans and unicorns still typically finished their assignments first, I was usually among one of the fastest done out of the remaining ponies. I think my years of trying to keep up with my human classmates had improved my writing speed dramatically. It was nice to not be 'the slow one' anymore when it came to schoolwork, and it was even nicer not feeling like an alien in the classroom.

My former experiences still made an impression on me, and about a week into classes I couldn't help but notice this one human girl that was in several of my classes who ended up being the only human in class in every class but one. She kept to herself, and I didn't see anyone having more than a passing greeting to her. It made me think of my own time as the odd one out, and resolved that I was going to try to be friends with her.

Our geography class had its first project assigned that particular day. As there were twenty-six of us, and fifty-two states, we each had to give a report on two seperate states. Being that this was a pony dominated school, cooperation was always encouraged with getting projects done, even individual projects like this one. In this case, cooperation on doing a group presentation awarded extra credit, even if the individual reports would be scored separately. I was assigned Guam and Hawaii, and noticed that the girl was assigned Puerto Rico and Florida. Those seemed like they could be good complementary states for a presentation. As soon as class ended that day I decided to approach the girl to see if she wanted to work together to help get our reports done.

However, she was a lot quicker than me getting out of the classroom. That meant I needed to run to catch up to her, and me running never turned out well. I wasn't as heavy back then, but I was still just as much a disaster waiting to happen; an object in motion that wanted to stay in motion (at least until I collided hard against something bigger).

I was running down the hallway, and realized my error as soon as I knew I had to come to a stop. The linoleum floors didn't exactly provide the best traction for hooves, and putting on the brakes resulted in me hurtling along the floor like a bowling ball waiting to smack some pins. The pin in this instance turned out to be a big glass trophy case that was right next to where the girl was standing.

PLOUFP!

That was a fascinating new sound.

She instantly helped me back up. "Are you alright?"

I gave my body a shake, and looked at the trophy case. It was thankfully not cracked, nor was my head. "Yeah, I'm great. Pegasus ponies are made to take crashes. I'm just glad I didn't break this glass." I turned to her and gave her a broad smile. "I was trying to catch up with you."

She blinked and stood up straight. "Um, what did you want?"

"Want to work together for some extra credit?" I asked. "I got two island states, and I noticed you got the third one and then Florida. It seems like we could make a tropical vacation themed presentation."

The corners of her mouth tightened. "I appreciate the offer, but I'm just doing the regular report. I don't need to do any extra credit."

My ears fell. "Please? I already was thinking about all the cool props we could get. Well, I would get them if you are worried about getting extra stuff."

She sighed. "I'm sorry, but I don't do the whole super-social thing you ponies do. I'm sure you can ask one of your other pony friends to do a presentation with you."

This wasn't going as I hoped. "If you don't like speaking in front of class I can do all the talking."

At this point she was frowning. "It isn't really public speaking I was talking about, although I don't like that either." She looked at my sad face and slumped her shoulders. "Look, Rebecca, right? I don't think you can understand my feelings, but try. I don't mean to be mean or anything. This is my first year here, and you ponies... are a little much for me."

My eyes shifted to a different type of sadness. "I do get it. This is my first year here too. I have met some new people, but I don't have any long history with anyone here. This is my first time at a school where I'm not the odd one out for being a pony. I noticed you and it reminded me of how I felt in all the other places. We don't have to do the project together, if you don't want to, but I'd still like to hang out or something with you. I might not be another human, but I'm someone who knows what it's like to feel alone when surrounded by people. I figured that might count for something."

She just stared at me for a few seconds, and I couldn't tell what she was thinking. She then let off another sigh. "No project, I'm not interested."

My wings and tail sagged, and I turned to go. "Alright. If that's what you want."

I walked away, and continued with classes through the day. I tried not to let the rejection get to me, and to just bounce back, but it just stuck to my mood for some reason. When lunch came I sat by myself, and picked at my hash browns and apple slices without eating with my normal enthusiasm for food.

Then someone sat their lunch tray down across from me. I looked up, and saw the girl looking at me. She then sat down. "So… you used to go to schools where you were the only pony in class?"

Still figuring out how to feel, I just nodded. "Yeah, this is the first place where having four legs is normal."

She picked at her own food. "Yet the first person you choose to try to make an extra effort to be friends with is a human. That's kind of weird that you were so eager to have more pony classmates and then you go right to the one human. I guess you aren't used to this many ponies either."

"I guess not," I cautiously agreed.

She continued to pick at her food. "I didn't want to move here. My dad is a construction contractor, and moved us all down here because there's lots of work and it pays more than other places. It's always about the money with him. It's like he doesn't even care that we were fine where we were, not when he could be making more money than he was."

We continued to talk about our shared experiences moving from place to place through the whole lunch hour. We talked again during lunch the next day, and again the next after that, and again each day after that. It took a while before we started doing anything other than talk during lunch, but after a few weeks we started hanging out after school. It would be months before we'd work on any projects together, but that was okay.

Ponies tend to just walk up to people and consider themselves good friends with people that they just talked to for a few minutes, it’s a stereotype but it’s true. But sometimes friendships take time to form and strengthen. Maggie and I are now great friends, and it all started with us just talking during our lunches. Those are the best friendships, the ones that take time to mature and grow.

"So, did you get knocked off course or somethin'?" Russell asked as we walked towards the female dorm's entrance.

I shrugged. "Not so much knocked off course. I'm just not the best at flying."

He glanced down at me. "That's a surprise. I thought it just came natural to you all."

Another shrug. "Not so much me. It used to bother me, but I've gotten over it. I'll never be great at flying, but I'm great at other things. My flights just contribute to making life interesting."

I heard him chuckle. "You sound like my mom. She's an earth pony, and an IT engineer. People are always askin' her how she manages to do all that work with hooves and her mouth. She just puts a positive spin on it and says the same exact thing you just said; it makes life interesting."

"Oh, you have pony parents?"

"Just my mom," he replied. "Dad partially transformed and rehumanized, and I didn't get ETS. I was off with my grandparents when it hit. Dad stuck with my mom, even though she refused to rehumanize. He says he doesn't know anyone else that will put up with him, and isn't going to go try lookin'. Mom's a tough one. Don't ever count a determined earth pony out. They ain't no pushovers."

We happened to be walking through the shadow of the Remembrance Monument, so it was kind of hard to discount what a determined earth pony could do. I heard some people used to think earth ponies were the least capable of the tribes, but I didn't think anyone in Skytree would ever question that earth ponies were just as capable as everyone else. Wild Growth had obliterated that old misconception.

"Are you a freshman too?" I asked as we reached the entrance to the dorm building.

He grabbed the door for me and held it open. "Sophomore. Although it feels like I've been here longer. I took some classes here my senior year of high school for early credit. So, I'm going to be hitting my junior year next semester. Where'd you go to high school? Somewhere around here, or you from out of town?"

I nodded my thanks to him being a gentleman and passed through the door and he followed after. "I went to Patel High," I answered. "Graduated like twenty-something in place in my class. I'm in the architectural engineering design program."

"You're a Patel Night Doctor?" He asked, referring to our sports team name, the Night Doctors. I had no idea why my high school had that for a team name, apparently it had something to do with the guy our high school was named after, but I always thought it was the dumbest sounding team name I'd ever heard.

I raised my wings up in mock cheer. "What's up, Docs!" Yeah, our cheer was that bad.

He laughed. "No wonder you guys lost every year to us in… well… everything. I'm a Middleton Mauler. I was on the human wrestling team."

I turned to look at him. "To be fair, Patel High is mostly ponies, so our human teams had pretty slim pickings. Of course you'll beat our human teams. You've got like ten times more humans to pick a team from."

He gave me a playful tap with his leg. "Our flight team beat you too, all four years I was there. Think they beat you last year as well."

I spread my wings wide. "That's just because they didn't have me flying for them. Would have been a whole different story if I had."

"Is that so?" He asked, amused.

I put my head up high. "Yep, if I'd been on the team we would have either not even made it to the finals every year to face your team, or every other team would be in stitches from me running into them."

"Can't argue with that logic," he replied as we reached the elevator. He pulled out his cell phone and punched in a few quick commands, and held it towards me. "Here's my number. If you ever need any help, don't be afraid to call. You're sure you're feeling okay?"

I held out my wrist phone and they synched the contact numbers. "Yeah. As I said it happens all the time. I don't know a lot of people here yet. Do you mind me just calling to go hang out?"

He shook his head. "Go right ahead. Just don't go crashing into any more buildings."

The elevator opened and I stepped into it, then turned to face him. "No promises on that. It's how I meet all my friends. Nice meeting you, Russell!"

"Likewise, Rebecca."

The door shut and I pushed the appropriate button. I hummed to myself as the elevator rose up, and was pleased to have met a new friend. Still, I was here today mainly for club and sorority sign-ups, so hopefully I'd meet a lot more new friends before the day was through.

Chapter 16: Not Quite An Eagle

No one likes going to the doctor's office. They poke and prod you, stick you with needles, and ask you all kinds of embarrassing questions. I needed to go to the doctor though, because my magic just wasn't behaving right. My parents promised that there'd be no needles sucking out my blood, but they shouldn't have made promises that they couldn't keep.

I sat moping about my sore leg, and trying not to rub at the bandage over where the nurse had just stolen some blood from it. I still had a bandage over part of my lower end where they had cut me open a few days before to remove the little growths. Doctor's visits were definitely not pleasant for me during that week. My mom was sitting in a chair across from the hospital bed I was sitting on. The bed was a pony bed, which meant it was lower to the ground, so my mom was still sitting up higher than me. We waited in silence for them to do more tests. I hoped it wouldn't be a lot of tests, and hoped they didn't need to stick me with any more needles.

"I'm sorry about the blood draw," Mom apologized. "I really didn't think they needed to do that for checking your magic."

My leg didn't hurt as much as it could have. So I gave my mom a halfhearted grin to show I wasn't mad. "It's alright. Who goes to the doctor and doesn't expect to have blood drawn?"

"Well, you were very brave and mature about it," she complimented. "When you were younger you would twist and fight the doctor so much they had to hold you down."

That was true. I wondered what had changed about that. After a moment's consideration, I had an answer. "That was before I started flying. When you get into as many crashes I do you get used to a little pain here and there."

She gave me a hard look. "You told me they don't hurt."

I shrugged. "They don't hurt that much. It's like stepping on a lego block kind of pain. It hurts, and feels intense for a few seconds, but it doesn't last long. Normally by the time I have gathered my senses the pain is almost all gone."

She gave me a deeply concerned frown. "I know flying is a big deal, but if you're hurting yourself each time…"

I waved it off with a wing. "Miss Seapony told me that her meanie older sister was wrong about a lot of things, but she was right about the fact we shouldn't let a little bit of pain stop us from doing what's important. Flying is important to me. It's part of who and what I am. If I crash I'm just going to get right back up, because the alternative is losing out on flying."

My mom could move fast, and the next thing I knew I was being pulled against her chest as she squeezed her arms around me. "I'm not happy you're getting hurt, even if it is just soreness and pain, but I'm proud of you."

"For crashing?" I asked in confusion.

She gripped me tighter. "For falling off your bike and getting back on."

I flicked my left ear. "Um, I don't have a bike. I never tried to ride a bike. Do they even make bikes for ponies?"

"I'll explain it to you sometime."

"How to ride a bike?"

"I'll try to help you with that too, if you decide you want to try."

There was a knock at the door, then it opened, revealing a night pony stallion and a crystal pony mare. The night pony clicked something on his phone then looked up at me. "Hello, I'm doctor Patel, and this is my assistant nurse Arbor. I'll be your treating physician." He had an accent, like he was from India.

My ears perked up. "Hi doctor Patel!" It never occurred to me until much later he was the guy my high school was named after. "I'm Rebecca."

He nodded. "I've looked over your test results so far, and your testimony about what has been happening. I'm confident I know what is going on, but want to conduct two final tests before making any assessment. Miss Arbor will be assisting us with those tests."

Crystal ponies assisting in tests usually involved a person having to use their magic so the crystal pony could read it. "What do you want me to do?" I asked, as I looked at the mare.

Miss Arbor walked over to me. "First, I'd like you to do a regular hover. Just for a few seconds. You don't have to go high, just enough to get yourself off the ground. Will you have any problems doing that safely?"

I shook my head. "I can do it. I'm not real steady, but a few inches isn't going to result in any mishaps."

She nodded. "Begin when you're ready. I'll be reading you."

I didn't waste time. I just started beating my wings, and got to where only my tail was still touching the bed. I even tucked my legs up so I didn't have to go any higher. I still wobbled a little, but it was a smaller wobble.

"That's enough. You can land," she announced, and I came back down to a sitting position. She then turned to the doctor. "One-point-nine on her usage, but reading a four or better on her reserves."

The doctor entered some data onto his phone and nodded. He then turned back to me. "I took a few minutes to consult with the Dreamwardens about your OMMR license, trying to get information about it. They wouldn't tell me what you could do, but did tell me that you'd be able to use the ability to let Miss Arbor get a magic reading on it, and that the ability is almost exclusively a night pony ability normally, and a rare one at that. I shall not ask you to reveal your ability to us, but if you are capable of using it in a discrete way, so my assistant can get a read on your magic, it would be much appreciated."

"Can I turn some music on?" I asked, gesturing at the phone on my leg. He gave me a silent nod, and I quickly started selecting something from my playlist. I picked something from an old Disney soundtrack, labeled I'm On My Way, and set it to play.

It took me almost no time at all to start projecting. I once again was invisible, and this time silent. I kept Just above my own head, just because I didn't want to have the crystal mare looking all around the room at me. She was looking at my body at the moment, but I was surprised to see the doctor looking straight at my projection.

The mare shook her head. "I don't know what she's doing. I've never felt magic quite like this. It's definitely stronger; a four-point-two or a four-point-three easily. It does feel vaguely night pony-ish, but I'm not familiar with night pony magic behaving this way."

Doctor Patel continued to stare at me. "Some night ponies can see dreams while awake, and I'm one of them. I can see what you're doing, Rebecca. Don't worry, I'll keep it private. You can stop now. I think this confirms what is going on with your flight."

I immediately stopped, and blinked my eyes as soon as I was back in my body. "So, what's wrong with me?"

Patel sat down and looked at me. "You're a dreamwalker, correct?" I nodded to him, and he nodded back knowingly. "And I assume that you didn't come by that ability naturally, correct?" I nodded again. "At what age did the Dreamwardens grant you the ability to dreamwalk?"

I thought about it for a moment. "Um, eight, I think, maybe nine, but pretty sure I was eight."

He noted something down on his legphone. "And I take it that you weren't flying yet at that age?" I nodded yet again. "Then that is our culprit."

My ears wilted. "I can't fly well because I can dreamwalk? But other ponies have gotten to dreamwalk and it doesn't mess with them."

"Other ponies that were granted the ability were typically granted the ability as adults, after their magic had already matured," he explained. "Gaining such a powerful trait at such a young age essentially derailed your magical development. Your magic still developed, but its natural course was diverted. As a result, what would be typical for a pegasus in magic was essentially stunted in favor of the new magical path."

"If you're saying her pegasus magic got replaced with night pony magic that doesn't make sense," my mom interrupted. "Night ponies might not fly as well as pegasi, but they have less trouble than she does. She doesn't see any better in the dark than me, and doesn't have any magic climbing ability."

Doctor Patel turned towards my mom. "The way magic manifests does follow certain patterns between tribes, this is true, but they aren't strict rules. There is room for variation. The abilities you just described would have developed before the age of eight on a night pony, if following normal patterns, and dreamwalking would not have yet-- with some rare individual exceptions. Her magic got mostly diverted to a night pony path, but when it got there it was just as much off course of normal development, not to mention she already had some pegasi magic developed before that."

"So my big ability is because my magic developed off plan?" I asked, trying to understand.

He did a brisk nod. "I have seen similar reports from foals that were granted dreamwalking at a young age. There are not a lot of such foals, but there is a high number of irregularities in their magical development. For many of them their normal tribal magics are often stunted, or behave strangely. Some have also ended up displaying rare or unusual abilities, in at least a few cases abilities that seem to be wholly unique to them. There's a small international consortium of night pony doctors who have taken an interest in this condition. We are still trying to fully define the symptoms and impact of it, but it seems to be that you have broken your primary magical template."

"How do we fix her template?" Mom asked.

He shook his head. "You don't. The magic wants a template and it made one. It is essentially the same thing that happens with humans who gain magical abilities. There's no preset plan for development, so the magic makes one."

My eyes started to water. "I'm just going to be bad at flying forever? There's no treatment?"

The doctor turned back to me, and gave me a sympathetic look. "I'm sure you can train and practice to get better, but it's always going to be a struggle. There is no treatment for this condition at this time. I'm sorry about that."

The doctor gave some references for flying instructors. We went back to the lobby, my mom paid for the visit, and we got back in the car.

Before we went anywhere my mom put a hand up to her head, then caused me to jump when she brought a fist down on the steering wheel. I flattened my ears to the sides as she laid her head against the wheel and started to cry. "Mom? What's wrong?"

She lifted her head and pushed aside some hair that had fallen in front of her face. "I can't believe someone we trusted did this to you. How could she do something that would cripple you for life?"

I lowered my head, and stared at the seat between my hooves, and the bandages over my abdomen. "I'm sure she didn't know it was going to happen."

"She's supposed to be the expert on all things related to dream magic. It's her job to know that this could happen to you!"

"Maybe it hadn't happened to anyone yet when she gave me dreamwalking powers," I said in my friend's defense. "It's not like there were lots of us that got those powers, and we're all just now getting old enough to realize there are problems."

"Baby, she messed your magic up for life. How can you be defending her?" Mom asked in confusion and concern. "Aren't you angry?"

Was I angry? I was definitely upset. I was definitely feeling hurt. Anger was something else though, and it wasn't there. I shook my head. "No, it had to be an accident. She's my friend. She's always been good to me. She's always done everything she can to help me. She believes in me."

My mom wasn't having it. "But she's responsible."

Was Miss Seapony responsible? In a way yes, but again, I couldn't believe she would have known. "I'm the one that asked her to let me dreamwalk. She didn't just volunteer for me to do it. I'm the one who wanted to see my old friends whenever we moved. You could blame me just as much, or more."

She looked at me, then started to cry again. "So is it my fault? I'm the one who had to keep with a job that moved us over and over again. If we hadn't then you wouldn't have had to ask that."

I don't know why, but I had a realization at that moment. I reached a wing out to my mom. "It doesn't need to be anyone's fault. It is what it is, and blaming anyone doesn't make it go away or make it any better. No one wanted it to happen, no one intended for it to happen, and everyone wishes it didn't happen, but it happened. I don't want to be mad at anyone."

It took a long time for my mom to stop wanting to find someone to blame. It was months before she stopped talking about it, and I think years before she stopped thinking about it. For all I know, she still thinks about it, but doesn't say anything. However, I made a decision that day. I was never going to get mad at someone for anything unless they did something on purpose to hurt someone, or knowing it could hurt someone. Faults were rarely ever just from one person, and if you sat around worrying about whose fault every single thing was you'd just be unhappy. Worry about fixing the problem, and making sure it doesn't happen again, don't worry about blaming. Blaming was pointless.

The elevator opened, and I found myself staring at a beak, attached to that beak was a being with a lionlike body, and a falconlike head.

She raised an eyebrow at me. "Something wrong, pony?"

I blinked and produced my most intelligent response possible. "Beak."

She narrowed her eyes. The door for the elevator tried to close, but she stuck a talon out and stopped it. "I take it you've never met a griffin?"

I shook my head. "I've seen pictures, and videos, but never one face-to-face. You're a lot more feathery than me."

"And you're a lot more…" she gave me a dubious look. "...round than I am. Are you the pony that just decided to moon all the students on the balconies while laying against the side of the building?"

Had the balconies been right above where I landed? I couldn't remember. "Um, maybe? It wasn't really a decision on my part. It's just where my rump ended up. It sometimes ends up in strange places."

"Your rump just ended up facing up?"

"Yep."

Her beak parted slightly (I still thought that it was really interesting, and tried to see what her tongue looked like) and I got the impression she was gaping at me. She closed her beak (before I could spot her tongue) and shook her head. "Are you a freshman or a visitor?"

"Well, I'm a freshman, but today I'm a visitor, because I haven't moved in yet. I'm getting my key so I can move in a few days from now."

She flexed her talons, which I was unsure what it meant, but was sure it meant something. I didn't really know griffin body language. "Who are you rooming with?"

I pointed down the hall. "With Nightscape and Julie… I just realized I don't know Julie's last name; it's definitely Julie for the first name."

"Wojciechowski."

"Bless you!" What a strange sneeze.

She shook her head again. "I didn't sneeze, chub-butt!"

"Oh, is that some griffin word then? What's it mean?"

"It's not a griffin word. It's Julie's last name!"

"Oh, no wonder she didn't tell me what it was. I'd never have remembered it was Wojciechowski."

She flexed her talons again. "You just remembered it perfectly right now, having heard it once and thinking it was a sneeze."

I smiled. "Hey! I suppose I did."

She shook her head again. "Forget it. I'm Greta, and I'll be your RA this year. Just try to keep out of trouble, okay?"

I put out my hoof to touch hooves with her. "Okay. Nice to meet you, Greta. I'm Rebecca."

She gave my hoof a look, and flicked her tail, but she then closed up her talons and gave it a bump. "Now, can you please step out of the elevator so I can go down to the pool?"

I hastily got out of the elevator and turned to face her. "Sorry. Guess I'll see you around."

She shook her head again as she entered the elevator. She seemed to shake her head a lot, and she started mumbling to herself. "Ponies. Every year they get more and more pony." I had absolutely no clue what she meant by that.

I watched as the elevator closed and then went down the hall to go get my key. I needed to hurry, or Maggie would finish eating without me.

Chapter 17: Continuing to Dream

Questions are powerful things. Someone asking a question can change the course of history. What would the world be like if no one ever asked how do we get across that big body of water? Or whoever first asked is this fair? Or why don't we dunk our cookies into some milk? These are little things, but they lead to much bigger things. When I was a young filly I asked a question, and it changed the course of my life.

I was dreaming, and having a cloud party. What's a cloud party? That's when you invite all the clouds over and have cake and ice cream of course. What else would a cloud party be? All the clouds were wearing top hats and monocles, because that made it a high class party. I was sitting on a floating toadstool in the sky, having a conversation with Mister Storm Cloud and Mister Cumulonimbus about important things like whether tabby cats or orange cats were cuter kittens, when Miss Seapony arrived at my party and grabbed a large chunk of pineapple left-side-up cake and ranch dressing ice cream.

She gobbled down her food as she came over to me one mighty bite. She licked her muzzle and raised an eyebrow at me. "Salad dressing as ice cream? It works in a dream, but I'm not sure it would work in the waking world."

I giggled. "But ranch dressing is great! How is the cake?"

The massive dream avatar turned it around in her mouth. "Tastes like pineapple. Although it definitely looked different."

Mister Cumulonimbus reached a cloudy appendage up and adjusted his monocle and top hat. "Miss Seapony. Perhaps you can settle this pressing discussion. Which is cuter, an orange kitten or a tabby kitten?"

She spread her fins wide. "The orange kitten, although I'm biased. My fur is orange, so I am partial to the color."

I examined her closely. "But Miss Seapony, you don't have any fur. You just have scales."

"Well, I don't keep it with me here, but in the waking world I have orange fur and a red mane," my friend explained, and then created a cup of tea and sipped from it.

One of my ears flicked. "You look different when you're awake?"

She nodded to me, and looked at the two clouds. "I wanted to clarify that tabby kittens are cute as well. I think it depends on the owner. If you love your kitten you will find it cute no matter what."

"Hear, hear! Wise words, Miss Seapony," Mister Storm Cloud said with a pump of his puff. He then started leaking rain, and reached down to cover himself. "Oh my, how embarrassing."

I didn't pay much attention to my dream friend as he tittled. I was more focused on what Miss Seapony said. "Why do you look different?"

She smiled at me. "Because I'm a Dreamwarden and I choose to. Ponies need to recognize that I'm something different here in the dream realm. If I appeared in my waking body I would look pretty normal. In the waking world I am very normal, but here I'm something extraordinary. This is the true me, the extraordinary me."

"Can I be extraordinary?" I asked.

"You are extraordinary, Rebecca. Don't doubt that," Miss Seapony assured me.

I shook my head. "But I'm not like you. You can be whatever you want here. You can visit anyone, anywhere. You know everything."

She raised a fin in objection. "Not everything, and knowing things is not all it's made out to be, especially when you can't use that knowledge. You should be happy being yourself."

"But if I was like you I could help make everyone happy," I countered.

The massive seapony froze in place and then drew close to me, looking me in the eyes. "Is that so? Is that what you would do with power such as mine? Just find ways of bringing joy?"

I looked her in the eyes, unafraid. "Yes! I like people being happy. People being happy makes me happy. You've always been really nice to me, and I'd never have met you if you couldn't do all the cool things you do. There have to be a lot of other people that need to have a friend, but I can't meet. You can meet them."

She pulled back, grabbed Mister Storm Cloud, and sat on him. "I'm friendlier than my brothers and sisters, but we have a history people do not forget. I have been a monster in my time, and people will never forget that."

"Well, I'd be something friendly, and try to be everyone's friend," I insisted, giving my wings a quick snap to punctuate my words.

"Some people would not want to be your friend. What if they didn't?" Miss Seapony questioned.

My ears sagged. "I wouldn't make them do what they didn't want to do, so I guess I'd leave those ones alone. I'd still try to be friends with anyone that wanted a friend."

"What if you had to choose?" She continued. "There are a lot of people in the world, and only so much of you to go around. Even I can only reach so many people at once, unless I die, which I'm not so keen on doing. What if you had to choose?"

My ears sagged further. "Um, I don't know. I guess try to pick out the ones that needed me most."

Miss Seapony flicked her tail against the cloud, making Mister Storm Cloud rain even more. "And what does the world get out of it? All the power of a Dreamwarden being used just to make a few people happy seems like an underuse of power. Miss Nightmares makes Sha'am find aid for those in danger of dying. She does this on a grand scale. Mister Potty-Mouth says that he has big plans once he dies to help victims and law enforcement. Wouldn't those be a better use of power?"

"Those are good things," I agreed, "but one person can make a difference. Maybe being that friend that person needed makes them better, and they make other things better for everyone else because of that. Friendship changes everything."

My friend just sat silently watching me. Mister Storm Cloud spoke up from below her. "Don't mind me down here. I'm happy to be providing a service."

"You are doing an excellent job, my friend. Even if you are wrong about tabby kittens," Mister Cumulonimbus said as he adjusted his hat again.

Miss Seapony glanced at the cloud in the top hat and smirked. "I do love your dreams, Rebecca. We are having a serious discussion, yet your dreams seem unimpeded by it. There's something to be said about never losing your dreams." She focused on me. "Something to be said indeed. You dream so simple yet so big. Perhaps one day we will see how your dreams turn out. I must be going for now. I have much to think about."

Little did I know at the time that I had set myself on a path that few ever walked. Just by asking a question, being asked a question back, and giving the answer in my heart. I asked if I could be like Miss Seapony, and so I would be given my chance to be.

Julie opened the door to the dorm room and smiled at me. "There you are! I was wondering when you'd finally drop by today. Come on in. Nightscape's here too, but she's sleeping. Don't worry about keeping quiet, she'll sleep straight through anything."

I stepped in and looked at the curtains middle bunk of the triple bunk bed. "Are you sure? I don't want to be rude and wake her up."

Julie waved one of her wings. "Believe me. We had a clogging team practice down the hall once, mostly earthly ponies. It was so loud I could barely hear myself think, and Greta got so many complaints she had to tell them to leave. But Nightscape... slept right on through the entire thing like it didn't even happen. If she could sleep through that she’s not going to wake up from any noise you’ll make."

I giggled. "Guess night ponies are just deep sleepers."

She nodded to me, but raised up a wing to cover a whisper. "Fair warning, don't try to prank her in her sleep. I once tried to set a prank up right over her as she was sleeping, and she woke straight up and smacked me silly with her wings. Those things hurt! Anyway, she doesn't wake up to normal noise, just tunes it out, but if there's anything her brain registers as 'wrong' she'll be up and wide awake in a second; normally ready to attack something and ask questions later."

"She won't get that way with having a new roommate walking around the room, will she?" I asked, giving her bed another concerned look.

Julie shook her head. "Naw, she didn't have a problem with me last year when I was the new one, or our old roommate before she graduated, and Felicia was always either streaming videos or playing music with no headphones. Nightscape's brain is kind of wired to be expecting roommates to be walking around, talking, and generally making noise."

I relaxed and stopped worrying about keeping my voice down. "Alright. How are you doing today? So far I've crashed into the building, got my birth control prescription, and met some new friends, including a partial. I also met our RA, Greta, but I'm not sure if she likes me yet. Meeting a griffin and a partial on the same day was really great."

Julie blinked. "What a thorough report. My day hasn't been half as interesting. Just took a morning flight after I woke up, and have been lounging around here waiting for you to show up since then. You said you crashed into the building?"

"Don’t worry, it happens all the time. Just some broken feathers, no big deal."

She used one of her huge wings to lift one of my wings up. After a quick inspection of my wing she let my wing go and gave a small frustrated whinny. "Take it from an athlete, you need to take better care of your feathers. You said you have trouble flying as it is, don't make it worse by dismissing broken feathers. You may think it’s not a big deal to break a few, but we need them. They're part of what helps channel our magic, like hundreds of little unicorn horns."

"Night ponies fly fine without feathers, better than me," I countered.

Julie shook her head. "Night pony wings work differently than ours. They are designed to work without feathers. Our wings are designed to work with feathers, and we need healthy feathers to be at our peak performance."

"I just end up crashing a lot," I explained. "I'm supposed to fly a certain amount every day, right? I can't really avoid breaking feathers if I do that and crash. It's not my fault, it's my magic; I have MPDS."

She cocked her head. "What in the heck is MPDS?" She then took a few steps back. "It isn't contagious, is it?"

I shook my head. "It is what I was kind of telling you about before. MPDS is short for Magical Prepubescent Dreamwalking Syndrome. It means that my magic is all blahflablahba because I started dreamwalking too young."

"Is blahflablahba a scientific term?"

I lifted my head high. "It should be!"

She lifted up one one of my wings again and gave it another critical look. "Be that as it may, you aren't making things any easier with all these damaged feathers. I have special oils for my feathers you can try. They help keep feathers from breaking under stress. That's helpful for ponies like me who really push my wings hard, but you might benefit from them too. It might not stop all the crashes, but it might help reduce the number a little."

I raised my left wing up and looked at it. I did end up having to preen a lot of feathers every day (which reminded me I needed to dump my feather bin still). My flying would never be perfect, but any improvement was improvement. Plus, having more feathers in good shape just looked better in general, and though I wasn’t known for my conventionally good looks I still had some personal pride. I was still a pegasus, and pegasus with no ego at all wasn't much of a pegasus.

"Sure," I replied as I lowered my wings. Then realized I had gotten distracted. "Um, can you tell me all about it the day after tomorrow when I actually move in. I was just stopping by to get my key. I told my friend I'd be back in less than an hour, but then I almost flew into the Remembrance Monument, and there was the crash into the building, and then I talked to Russell, and then talked to Greta, and now I’m talking to you. I need to hurry or she'll finish lunch without me!"

"Oh my! That would be a tragedy!" Julie said in mock horror, looking at my extra padding with a smirk. She still walked over to a nearby desk and scooped up a key off it with her wing. It was a typical pony door key, which means they are a little bigger than human door keys just to make them easier to manipulate. My mom calls them toddler training keys, but I don't know why. The key passed from her wing to mine, and I stuffed it in my little carry pouch.

"This key is mainly for the start of the semester and as a backup," Julie explained. "In about a week Greta will come by and program the lock to read your cutie mark if you bump it against a certain part of the door. They wait to make sure everybody is moved in first before they send RAs out to set that up. Keep the physical key on you after that, because if power goes out or if you are really dirty the scan thing doesn't work. Not sure how it tells what it's scanning to tell the truth, but it can tell the difference between a real cutie mark and a fake."

I nodded. "Okay, well, I'll get flying then. Can I go out from the balcony?"

She gave me a flat look. "Yeah, I have it unlocked while I'm here, but are you sure? You said you tend to crash."

"Not every time," I answered as I headed towards the balcony.

"Knock yourself out then." She paused as if considering what she just said, and then lifted a hoof. "Don't knock yourself out! Have a nice, safe, and happy landing!"

I was already out the door to the balcony. It was wide enough for maybe four ponies to sit comfortably, or one pony and another pony with their wings spread out. Wiggling my rump, I jumped into the air, beating my wings just hard enough to get me over the edge of the railing. I evened them out so I could simply glide down. My path did try to dip and sag a little, but I was able to adjust my weight so it more or less evened out. As I got down near the ground I did a few beats of my wings to try to slow down and lowered my legs.

My legs came down and I wanted to jump for joy at my perfect landing. Take that expectations! However, there's this little thing called momentum I had forgotten about.

TROTTA TROTTA SHISHH SPLAT!

Well, I hadn't crashed while flying. I'd crashed while trying to slow down on the ground, doing an awkward canter, and then planting my face in the grass. I casually observed that this was very well kept grass, so nice, green, and soft. Whoever kept care of it deserved a raise.

I picked myself up and shook the loose grass out of my fur and feathers. Time to go run and see if I could still get lunch.

Chapter 18: The Ties to Our Pasts

One of the things humans don't get about ponies in school is literature, and why we don't tend to like it much. Sure, there are ponies that love to read, but classic literature is just a chore to get through.

The heart of the matter is we don't feel like it is particularly written for us. True, that can be applied to a lot of stories and humans, but at least those stories are filled with humans. There aren't ponies in classical literature at all. This isn't really the fault of those classical authors, as there were no ponies on Earth when they wrote their stories, but it is something that as a pony you can't help noticing. It gives you a disconnect from what you're reading to not have any ties to it. Some ponies can, but I wasn't one of those ponies.

It wasn't like all the school boards didn't recognize this problem. There were attempts to get a more balanced reading curriculum with ponies in mind. They liked to include books with animals in places of humans, such as Animal Farm. Reinterpreted things from fantasy literature as classics, like The Last Unicorn. They also tried getting translations of many of the Equestrian classics. All those things did a little better, but they didn't really hit the mark. Even the Equestrian classics didn't really reflect the ponies on Earth, and the absence of humans in those books was just as off-putting.

We were a people without a long history. We did have some ties to human history, but there was a disconnect from that history that was hard to explain to humans. Just like they couldn't understand why we couldn't get into the Equestrian classics instead, it wasn't our culture and history; we didn't have that long culture and history. Again, some ponies loved all those old books, but the number of us who were bored to tears by them was far higher than humans bored to tears by their books.

That didn't mean that the rest of us hated reading. There were plenty of books that were being written in the present day that filled the void that the classics could not. Maybe one day some of them might become classics themselves, and fill that hole. There was also a vibrant community of writers that reimagined popular TV series and books with a mix of human and pony characters. I followed a bunch of these kind of loosely. My friend Maggy was really into the reimagined Star Trek, and I knew enough about it to recognize most of the characters and a few of the major plots.

There were 'purists' and 'true fans' who objected to these remaking of their beloved things, and they'd yell and scream about how we should just write fresh new things and leave their old things alone. I could understand where they were coming from. They had strong attachments to these older versions, and it was understandable they had strong attachments to the versions the first fell in love with, but they didn't seem to understand where the rest of us were coming from. These were things that were established in the culture, with established fandoms, and those established things kind of left ponies sitting out in the cold, wanting to be included, but not feeling included. It was really hard to introduce new pony characters to already crowded casts. So we found ways of writing ourselves in by switching out some of the old characters with pony ones. Most older fans were fine with it, as it brought in new life and concepts to things that hadn't had the status quo shaken in years, but there was always that very vocal minority that wouldn't stop complaining about ponies having to insert themselves into their beloved franchises.

There were also the ponies that tried to express the experiences of Earthling ponies as compared to Equestrians using writing. An Earthling earth pony had very different experiences in their lives than an earth pony born in Equestria. They'd write about taking up farming for the first time as an adult, having worked some retail job as a human. They'd talk about their experiences trying to defend the land that they'd started trying to farm. An Equestrian might not understand the experiences of a pegasus who had never seen a city made of clouds. The Equestrian night ponies couldn't understand the pain and suffering the gender imbalance brought to the Earthling night ponies. Earthling crystal ponies and Equestrian crystal ponies weren't even alike in magic. No, Equestria's culture and experiences were not ours.

However, I did find an olda old classic from human literature that I did enjoy very much, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. Here the protagonist being human was actually something that I could bond with, because she was a lone human in a world full of strange creatures. She had that outsider-looking-in mentality that only saw everything as strange, while the residents saw everything as perfectly normal. The world of Wonderland also was awash with creativity. You never knew what kind of thing was around the next corner, or by what logic it operated. It was truly a world of wonder, beauty, and excitement. As a creative type I found the images from the story captivating.

The most captivating of the characters was the Cheshire Cat. The character would challenge preconceived notions, seemed to always be happy and having fun, and many of his abilities and physical attributes lined up with my own; he could float around weightless, turn invisible, shift shapes, and be completely immaterial. Those things sounded a lot like my abilities when I was projecting, so it felt like Alice was encountering an enigmatic version of me. I could imagine it as me, trying to guide Alice to look at things in different ways, without ever telling her how she should think.

This is how I first began to associate myself with the Cheshire Cat. This strong association with him also made me want to try to emulate a few of his other characteristics. I viewed him as a friend and helper, but also mischievous and a prankster. I got up to a number of pranks over the years, but never too often. If you prank too often then people expect it, and you can't take them by surprise, and that dulls the effect. I also never did anything really mean, because I could only enjoy a good laugh if my pranked victim was capable of laughing along with me.

I was very happy to see Maggie had waited for me at the cafeteria, and had even bought me a slice of strawberry cheesecake and a veggie-burger. I related to her all that I'd been up to while I was getting my key and she rolled her eyes playfully at me. It didn't take long at all for me to scarf down my food, and then we were off to sign up for clubs and sororities.

The sign-up and information area about the different groups was actually in the cafeteria. The cafeteria had two floors to it, with the second floor overlooking the first. That meant all we had to do was go up the stairs and we found humans and ponies standing around information tables displaying colorful Greek letter banners along with a few other groups with Latin names.

One thing that we definitely wanted was to join groups together. There were some limitations, of course. Some groups wouldn't let you join other groups of similar nature (primarily the sororities). There were however some groups that were open to having members in multiple different organizations, mainly groups dedicated to specific causes, politics, or fields of study. We spent a long time browsing each of the tables.

Maggie laughed as a Shimmerist group tried aggressively to interest her in coming to their meetings. Shimmerism had apparently been strong in the old city from before the Cataclysm, and while it wasn't as strong these days it still had a large enough following that the school had two distinct Shimmerist groups, one with lots of humans and one that was exclusively pony. From what we could gather those two groups loathed each other. However, they both combined forces and started shouting when a Blessingist club tried to get our attention. A security guard had to come by and break up their arguing before it turned into an open brawl, with a statement this was the final warning before they were all asked to pack up and leave. I overheard a student whispering about how the three groups had actually started trading blows last year, and had almost been banned from the school. Personally, I didn't understand why they were allowing the Shimmerist groups to operate at all, they seemed blatantly speciest to me.

We spent a lot of time there, but eventually settled on pledging to Kappa Pi together, which was more an honor society than sorority. I got some information about the AIA (American Institute of Architects). I couldn't actually join that until after I graduated, but the man handing out information said it was a big thing for architects, so no harm learning about it and reading their stuff early on. I also picked up some information about a co-ed group focused on providing resources for architecture students. Maggie grabbed some similar things for graphic design groups, and we both grabbed information for the Amatuer Writers Club.

We were about to go when a blue pegasus mare with black mane, wearing what looked like yoga pants that hid her cutie mark, came over from the Association of Naturalized College Students (what a weird name) table to give me a disapproving grimace. "You are Rebecca Riddle?"

I looked at Maggie and she looked as confused as I was. Had I done something wrong? I turned back to the mare that was glaring at me like I was the scum of the Earth. "Um, yeah, that's me."

Her grimace turned into a scowl. "I am Lántiān."

"Um, hi, Lántiān. Did you need something from me?" I asked, still completely confused about what was going on.

Her eyes narrowed, and her feathers started to fluff out in a way that indicated she was really on edge. "Does my name mean nothing to you?"

I shook my head, and stepped back. Maggie stepped between the hostile mare and myself. "Hey! You got a problem with Becky? She doesn't know who you are, and I know I've never met you before. Don't come up to her acting like you want to rip her throat out. What's your problem?"

Lántiān turned her glare upwards at Maggie. "Step aside. I want to see what makes her so special."

I was so confused. I'd never had a stranger come up to me this hostile before. "Who are you? I've never even met you. If I did something wrong I'll try to make it right."

Lántiān cocked her head to the side. "You really don't know who I am?" I shook my head side-to-side so hard it felt like I was rattling my brain. The other pegasus stared at me for a moment more before muttering to herself in some other language. She did an angry stomp of her hoof before turning away and walking off without a word.

Maggie looked back at me. "What the holy hay was that? Have you been sending hate mail or something to the… whatever her group was named?"

"I don't know," I replied. Then resolved to do something about it. "I'm going to go talk to her."

Maggie put a leg in front of me. "Are you nuts? She very clearly does not like you. I don't know what you did to piss her off, but going right back to her isn't going to win her over. If you're really determined to find out then maybe you should try approaching her after she's cooled down some more?"

I shook my head. "Nope. There has to be some misunderstanding. I want to make whatever it is right."

She covered her face. "Beck, you can't just… if you're really determined to do this can you just back off if she rebuffs you?"

"I can't promise anything."

She shook her head in disbelief. "Okay, I'll just stand right here and watch. If she tries to pummel you I'll come to your rescue, but it's still going to be your own fault if it happens."

I didn't answer. I just silently, and quietly started walking to where the mare was sitting. She watched me and glared the entire time I was approaching.

I gulped as her eyes bore into me. "Hi again. I think that you must have me confused with some other Rebecca Riddle. I've never met you or heard of you. Um, you wouldn't happen to have cookies, would you?"

Her mouth opened slightly, mouthing the word cookies. "Why are you asking me for cookies?"

I plopped my butt down and tapped my forehooves together, giving my answer all in one breath. "Because I eat when I'm nervous and you make me really nervous and right now I really really want to eat something sweet so I can forget the fact that I want to pee all over the floor."

She snorted. "Don't pee on the floor, it's unsanitary. I have no cookies for you. Now leave."

I wasn't going to be deterred. "Well, I will, and really quickly too, but I want to know why you don't like me and how you know my name."

"Why do I need to explain myself to you, you butter-covered rice ball?" She asked with a hiss.

I cringed. "That's a very creative insult for me. I've never heard that one before, but it works really well; since butter is yellow like my mane, and my fur is white like-"

"I don't need you to explain how my insult works! Why would you even do that? Why won't you leave?"

My ears had been flat against my head the entire time, but now we're trying to push down so hard I could feel the strain. "I just want to make whatever I did wrong better."

With two beats of her wings she was down in front of me, her face in my face. I jumped backwards in fright, but I noticed tears in her eyes as she continued advancing towards me. "You can't make it better, nothing can make it better. I am not even truly mad at you. I am mad at her for loving you so much. It wasn't fair. You've made it worse now by not even knowing who I am. She never even told you my name."

I blinked rapidly. "Who are you talking about?"

She was openly crying now. "My mother, Yinyu Wu Yan. She chose the United States to run to because of you, and died in the process. I might still have my mother if not for you. There were safer places to try to run."

I gasped as I stepped further back. She stopped crying and narrowed her eyes again at me. "You should not be the target of my rage, but seeing you makes it boil. Get out of my sight. You can't make this better. My mother is still dead at the end of the day, and if not for you there is a chance she might still be alive." She turned away. "She couldn't even take the time to tell you our names."

And she left out of the area, leaving me sitting confused and hurt. Miss Seapony told me she had foals, but had never told me their names. It never occurred to me that they might blame me for what happened to her. Why hadn't she ever introduced me to them or told me their names?

There was only one person that I could get that answer from.

Chapter 19: Love Hurts

The first time I ever saw Miss Seapony's other form was the night after the Cataclysm of Riverview.

I don't remember what I was dreaming, because she didn't give me a chance. The first thing I was aware of were hooves and wings wrapped around me, and a pony sobbing on my shoulder. She had dark orange fur, and a dark red mane. Her cutie mark was something that made me blush to even look at, and I won't describe what it was. She didn't seem that old, maybe my mom's age, or even younger than that. She looked entirely unlike her normal form in the dream, yet I knew somehow this was her.

"What's wrong, Miss Seapony? Is it the thing that happened to that city?"

"Oh, Rebecca." She sniffled. “Today I have lost my beloved sister.""

"I don't understand? You have a sister?"

Still not letting me go, she answered. "Had… Sha'am Maut. She was so cruel and hateful, she did horrible things to ponies and I hated her for it. She’s the main reason why so many people hate us Dreamwardens, and she’s gone forever now."

"But you said you loved her too?" I was still confused.

"My brothers, and my other sister-- well, sisters again now, in the Dreamwardens knew her better than anyone. She had so much hurt happen to her, so much injustice, so much loss, that it became all she knew. Yet there were still rare moments where she could still be kind and gentle. Enough to give us hope that she could one day escape her darkness. People never saw her with foals, or those she went to in their last moments. When she’d drop her guard and show the gentle soul buried under all her hate, something worthy of love. Unfortunately, all her other moments reminded us how far removed she was from that goodness."

She stopped and choked out more sobs. "We tried time and time again to plead with her, tried to offer her help, tried to make her understand, but in the end she never came back into the light. I hope that where she is now that she somehow gets her spirit healed and knows some peace."

I had a rare moment of needing to be bluntly honest. I thought Miss Seapony might be blinding herself to how bad Sha'am Maut was. She'd told me lots of stories about her in the past, and I knew Sha'am was a very BAD pony. "Even bad people can do good things. Didn’t Hitler love dogs?" That was something I always heard people say.

Miss Seapony pulled back from me and growled. "I'm well aware that she was evil, Rebecca. My siblings and I are not naive. We just lament that we weren't able to save her from herself."

"I still don't know how you can both love and hate someone," I confessed.

She sighed. "Love and hate are not always separate things and family complicates things even more. I know the good that Sha'am was capable of in her softer moments, but I was not blind to what she did in all her other moments. I felt nothing but sympathy and woe for the hardships that made her into the monster she became, but I could not deny the woe she caused as a monster. She was a broken and sick person that we wanted so desperately to heal, and we failed so horribly at doing so. Now she is gone."

I didn't know what to say as Miss Seapony wrapped her wings around me again. She put her head once more on my shoulder and whispered. "Let me just cry for my lost sister. Today I'm asking you for comfort. People around the world will soon be cheering her passing, but the dream realm mourns."

And so she started crying again, and I wrapped my wings around her as she did.

I was now a mare on a mission. Miss Seapony had deliberately kept me from knowing anything about her foals, and I wanted to know why. I knew it was deliberate; there was no way with all the years we spent together that she wouldn't have told me more about them than they exist if she hadn't been keeping it from me on purpose. I didn't even know how many more there were. Were more ponies going to come at me like that?

There were more questions. Out of the whole world what were the chances of actually running into one of them? There were more than half-a-billion ponies in the world, yet somehow the two of us still met, and she knew who I was. She knew me by name on sight, and everything about her was a mystery to me. The only way she could know about me was if Miss Seapony told her. Why would Miss Seapony tell her about me and not tell me anything about her?

Why did she think Miss Seapony loved me more than her? Was it true?

I told Maggie that I needed to go home. If she wasn't ready to leave that was okay, because I could fly if I needed to. Maggie didn't argue with me about it. She simply said I had enough crashes already today, and flying around mad wasn't a good idea. I don't think she knew how to deal with me right then. I rarely got mad, and never lasted more than a few seconds. This was new, this was me seething with bottled-up anger. I wasn't even completely sure what I was angry about, but the hurt, anger, and resentment in Lántiān's words made something in me snap.

Maggie drove me home, and when she dropped me off I told her I would give her a call tomorrow afternoon. I didn't mention I needed to face Miss Nightmares tomorrow morning, because all that mattered was facing Miss Seapony tonight. She knew about my intentions for tonight. I didn't have to say anything for her to know. Maggie likely had no intention of getting involved with me yelling at a Dreamwarden. Like most people she had a fear of them, and no desire to provoke them; not that she could, since she couldn't encounter a Dreamwarden in a dream. She'd never meet Miss Seapony.

I accidentally slammed the door to the house shut after walking in, and my mom lightly admonished me from the kitchen for it. "Hey! Easy on the door. The door didn't do anything to you. You're home earlier than I expected. How did the-"

I walked straight by her towards my room. "I'm going to be projecting. I don't know how long I'll be, but I need privacy."

She immediately picked up on my mood. "What's wrong? Did you and Maggie have a fight? Did someone at the school make fun of you?" She paused briefly and lowered her voice. "Is this about the stuff we aren't supposed to talk about?"

"No, I don't know what this is about, but I'm going to find out!" I closed my door with a more deliberate slam and retreated over to my bed.

At this point I realized there was a major miscalculation in my plan. I was too worked up to project. In order to project I needed to be relaxed, calm, in my happy place. I was most certainly none of those things at the moment. Trying to force it when I was like this wouldn't work either. That meant I either had to calm down, or I needed an alternative method of getting to talk to Miss Seapony.

I tried to calm myself and find my happy place, but it became apparent that wasn't going to be happening. I needed to do something else. With a beat of my wings I was back down off the bed and headed back to my door. I marched down the hallway to go see my mom in the kitchen.

"Do we have any of that stuff… what's it called? The stuff that makes people sleepy?" I asked her as I entered the kitchen.

It looked like she was making dinner. My stepdad wasn't around, which meant he must have had a later shift at the restaurant today. She pursed her lips as she laid down the knife she'd been cutting vegetables with. "Melatonin, is the name. Yes, we have some. Are you going to tell me what has you acting like this? I'm almost done prepping the food, and you can try to calm down with a meal."

My first instinct was to snap, but I restrained myself. Snapping at my mom would be unfair to her. She hadn't done anything wrong, and was just trying to help me. There was no guarantee that the sleep aid was going to do much to get me to sleep faster either if my adrenaline was running. I clenched my wings against my side and took a deep breath.

"I met a pony named Lántiān today. She says that she's Miss Seapony's daughter," I explained.

My mom blinked and grabbed a chair. She straddled it and sat down so she could lean over the back of the chair and cross her arms. "That's interesting. Not something I would have expected. It doesn't explain why you're so angry though. Did she say something to you?"

I plopped my rump down and stared down at the floor. "She says that Miss Seapony died because of me. She says that Miss Seapony loved me too much. She acted like she hated me, but said she was really angry at Miss Seapony."

My mom took that news in with a long exhale. "Wow.. Okay, sounds like there is some serious family drama going on there. I always thought that she spent an inordinate amount of time with you. If I was her daughter I might be a little resentful too. What kind of pony is she? Tribe I mean."

I flicked an ear. "Pegasus. She's got blue fur, a black mane and tail. She was wearing yoga pants that blocked me from seeing her cutie mark. She was giving out information about some organization at the school, and all the people doing that were seniors or recent graduates, so she has to be older than me."

My mom frowned. "She's a student at your school? That's quite a coincidence."

I went full scowl. "Yeah, I thought so too. One of the things I wanted answers from Miss Seapony about."

My mom leaned the chair towards me a little so it was on two legs then plopped it back down on four. "You know. It must be tough being a pegasus with a night pony for a mother, much less a Dreamwarden."

I looked up at my mom and cocked my head. "Why do you say that?"

She shrugged. "Think about what it must have been like for her growing up. Her mom is always asleep when she's awake, and when she's asleep her mom is awake. She doesn't ever get to see her own mom. In the meantime her mom is giving you plenty of attention in the dream realm. That probably changed after Yinyu… after what happened when she tried to reach the states, but that was years of time where she never got to have her mom. Judging by the age you describe those were the years she would have most wanted her mom's approval, and she never had her there to get it."

I lowered my ears and head, and wrapped my tail tightly around myself. "I- I never thought…" All that time she had been giving me all the care and attention any filly could ever ask for, Lántiān had been sitting there wanting. Miss Seapony had planned to come to the USA to train me in person, so her final days were partially my fault. I now was starting to understand the anger Lántiān directed at me, but I still didn't understand why Miss Seapony had never said a word about Lántiān. It didn't explain why we ended up together at the same school. It also didn't answer why Miss Seapony had told Lántiān about me if she was so quiet about her own foals.

Thinking about how Lántiān must have felt took the seething anger out of me. I was still angry at Miss Seapony, but it was a more subdued anger. A lot of it was actually at me wondering how Miss Seapony could leave her own daughter feeling like that.

I stood back up. "I think I'm calm enough to project now. I don't need the melatonin. Thanks for talking to me. You've been a big help."

"I'm always here for you, for anything," Mom replied. She didn't stand up, only watched me. "After you're done come back and talk to me some more. It doesn't have to be about anything important. You're going to be moving into the dorms soon, and I won't be seeing you as much. It won't be long before you're moved out of here altogether, and starting a new life on your own. I want my time with you; I only get so much."

I turned and half galloped back to her. Grabbing a hold of her leg and giving it a squeeze. She reached down with both of her arms and gave me a proper hug. "I love you, Mom."

"I love you just as much or more. Don't ever doubt it," she replied.

Chapter 20: Tale of Two Sisters Part 1

I remember the first time I dreamed after I'd been told that my pegasus magic didn't work right because I'd started dreamwalking at too young an age. Even though I had been putting on a brave face about it, it was impossible to keep my hurt and disappointment from impacting my dreams. I could lie to myself while awake but I couldn't lie to myself while asleep.

Dreams can reflect all the scrambled thoughts that go on in the back of our heads. A lot of it doesn't make sense because they aren't fully formed thoughts, they are feelings that our minds are trying to make sense of and give images to. I had it explained to me once that our minds are like computers, but sometimes all these bits and pieces of hanging information gets our minds fragmented, so dreams are there to defragment them. Magic gets fragmented too, and the dream realm aided in fixing that, like an extra layer of protection. The entire dream realm was essentially a big virus control and tune-up system. If you go without sleep for extended periods these fragments pile on top of one another and your mind stops working the way it should. Some people needed a lot of sleep, some less, but they all needed time to defragment.

I don't get nightmares often. Dreamwalkers are different from others since they tend to have that defragmenting process going on in the background when they are asleep, since they have stronger ties to the dream realm. It is one 'perks' of being a dreamwalker. They also tend to be vivid dreamers as a result as well, and more in control and aware they are dreaming. This doesn't mean they don't ever have nightmares, or are never at the mercy of their own dream (unaware they are in a dream). High amounts of stress (good or bad stress) can make a dreamwalker involuntarily retreat back into a regular dream, if it gets to be too much for the passive effects of the dream realm to cope with.

My fragments weren't too bad, at least in types. I say this because my mind seemed to know exactly how to visualize my feelings. That's something you can say that is healthy about nightmares that you can understand completely, your brain can't be too scrambled if that happens. So, hooray for having a healthy brain! I take those silver linings where I can find them! However, I still had enough of them to put me in a nightmare outside my control.

I was flying along, quite peaceful and gracefully. That should have immediately alerted me to the fact that I was in a dream, since graceful was one of the last things I was in the air, but that part of my mind was off at the time. I was high in the air, so high that I could only see clouds beneath me. That should have been the next warning, since I never ever flew that high. The air got thinner that high up, the wind currents got rougher, and I just didn't like those things. Plus, even a pegasus who could fly really well could be hurt by a crash from that height. I wasn't nearly as cushy back then, and even with my adult cushiness my bones would go splat.

My flight suddenly came to an abrupt halt. A giant catfish flew through the air towards me, it stopped right in front of me and said something profound.

"Squirrels only fly to Atari!"

Well, I'm sure whatever that meant was extremely profound, even if I didn't understand what it meant. The way the fish said it sounded like it was the answer to everything. Wisdom from flying fish is no less profound if no one can understand it. That a flying catfish decided to share its wisdom should be profound enough. Perhaps some future generation will understand those words and it will bring world peace.

Or perhaps it is just a dumb fish saying nonsense. I guess I'll never know.

All the feathers on my wings just fell off. One moment they were there, the next moment my wings looked more like fatty versions of night pony wings. I beat my wings as hard as I could, but they didn't do anything, and I fell, just like a cartoon character who'd walked off a cliff and needed to realize they had before gravity took hold.

My fall wasn't too far, as I hit the clouds. This was a short lived reprieve though. My fat on my body started expanding, till I couldn't even move my head or legs because they were invaded by the fat of my body. I became so heavy that the cloud could not support my weight, and so I began to fall again. My face turned downward, and I could now see the hard bedrock below me, rapidly approaching. I screamed.

"I think this has gone on long enough to satisfy Miss Nightmares."

I stopped, right in the middle of the air. My body resumed its regular figure, and my feathers returned. A massive cloud cover set in, bathing everything around me in white and grey. Finally, Miss Seapony appeared before me.

I tried to put together what had just happened. "Did you do that?"

Miss Seapony swam up next to me. "I put an end to the nightmare, but was not responsible for it. You were the source of all that."

"Why didn't you stop it sooner?" I asked, crying now. "I was scared. I thought I was going to die!"

She wrapped her tail around me and sighed. "Phobia doesn't like us to stop nightmares too early. She says they serve a purpose, and we're negating that purpose if we end them too soon. Technically, she can't do more than complain if I stop a nightmare right away, but she'd be mad at me for it, and I don't like my sister being mad at me. She's not wrong either, about them serving a purpose. They reflect our feelings and anxieties, and it is important to recognize those things."

I hung my head. "It's about me not being able to fly right."

"And you are angry at me, aren't you?" She asked softly.

"I'm- I don't know."

She wrapped a fin around me and hugged me. "I'm sorry. I didn't know it would happen, and I don't know a way of fixing it. I wouldn't have done this to you if I had. It's alright to be angry. Mister Potty-Mouth yelled at all of us already, but you can yell some more, if you like. It can be very stress relieving."

I shrugged. "What's yelling about it going to fix?"

"It isn't about fixing it. It is about venting your frustrations. You have a right to do that, and don't ever let anyone tell you that you don't. It's just a matter of how you vent them that can be right or wrong."

I buried my head against her side. "I don't want to yell at you. I don't want to yell at anyone. It just hurts your feelings."

"Yelling isn't always the best choice, true, but you need some sort of release. Holding all that stuff inside… it isn't good, Rebecca. Believe me, I learned it the hard way. Little frustrations happen, and they are just little things, so you dismiss them. Then more and more of them happen, and you keep ignoring them. Then the next thing you know your beating someone you care about with a blunt object over something stupid, all because you couldn't ever voice your feelings for years… I'm getting off track."

I looked up at her, and she had her face turned away from me. "Did you- did you hurt someone?"

She sighed. "Rebecca, no matter how I try not to, I always end up hurting someone. I did once hurt someone a lot more though."

"Do you want to talk about it?"

"It's an old hurt, Rebecca. It's best to let it be."

"You just said don't hold it all in."

She turned and looked at me, then smiled. "Nothing like having my words turned on me right away." Her smile went away. "If I tell you this you might not look at me the same. Only my brother and sister Dreamwardens know about this. It's something I'm deeply ashamed of, something more than anything I wish I could take back."

I rubbed against her. "I trust you. If you say you're sorry for it, I believe you."

She didn't reply right away. I thought she was going to just ignore me with howls long she was silent, but then she started talking. "A long time ago, when I was a young human girl, I lived with my parents and my older sister. People from elsewhere sometimes think there aren't different economic classes in China; I'm not sure where they get that idea. My family is what you Americans would consider upper class. We had a nice house, we got nice things, I went to a nice school, everything was… nice.

"I was what you might consider lazy, or at least my parents thought so. I didn't do well in most of my classes, I tended to never be where I was supposed to be, and I was generally rude. My sister was just the opposite. She was seemingly perfect about everything. She wasn't arrogant about it either. She never spent time reminding me how she did better at everything than me. She didn't really have to, it was obvious, but she did worse. She still treated me with love and respect."

I frowned. "I don't understand. Why is that last part bad?"

"Because it made me feel guilty about thinking anything bad about her. I wanted so much to be mad at her, but she never gave me a reason I could justify. If she had just held one thing over my head, just once, and been a brat about it, then I could have expressed all my built up resentment about her. There was nothing. She was perfect, I was not, and I was so angry about it.

"My parents always heaped praise on her, and told me I should do better, like my sister. I just dug in and refused to apply myself, convinced that I couldn't compete with her. That changed though, when I finally found something I was passionate for. Something I wanted to be great at, the violin."

A violin appeared, and Miss Seapony took it into her fins and gazed at it. "I practiced my heart out, day after day. It took a long time, but I became very good at it. Enough that my parents seemed like they were proud. My sister played the violin too. Listening to her had been what had inspired me, but I never thought about comparing myself to her when it came to that. I loved to play my music. It was mine. The one thing I could say I was good at. The one thing I cared to be good at. It was my passion… and my undoing."

She sniffled, and raised the edge of her long tail up to wipe her nose. "There was a recital. My sister and I were going to perform together. We were the two Huáng sisters, and I actually had some pride that I was being listed right along my sister like an equal partner. Fate was against me though. That day I had a cold. I didn't tell anyone, because I didn't want to lose my chance to perform. I just took some medicine. We took to the stage, and began to play."

I listened as Miss Seapony's breath became labored. I never understood why that kind of thing happened, since it was a dream, and by that point Miss Seapony didn't even have a real body anymore, yet she still physically reacted to things.

"Things seemed to be going great. We had three pieces to play, and the first was done with no problems. However, halfway through the second piece I had to stifle a sneeze. You can't be doing that when trying to play an involved piece on the violin. Any little sudden jerk of the body causes the note to come out wrong, sometimes very noticeably wrong. That is what happened to me. I messed up, right there in front of an audience. My sister kept playing as if it hadn't happened, and I tried to resume, but after that I just kept making mistakes one after another. I wanted to cry, and that just made the notes come out worse."

She turned away again. "The third piece went better, but the damage had been done. When it was all over I had to listen to how my sister had continued on perfectly when I had done an inadequate job. It wasn't fair. I was just as talented as her at the violin. I cared more about it than she did, and she had so many other things she could be better at. This was my thing, and here I was being put down as not good enough again."

"So, what did you do?" I asked.

"That night my sister came to me. She wanted to tell me that she was sorry about what happened. That I would do better next time. That it was just bad luck. With each attempt to soothe me I became more and more angry at the reminder of my failure." Miss Seapony's breath caught, and the next part came out in an anguished sob. "I don't know why I did it, but I grabbed my sister's violin from the wall, and I just started beating her with it, screaming like an animal. She begged for mercy, but I wouldn't stop."

I flinched away from my friend, and she looked down at me with such a sad look in her eyes. "She survived my assault. I'm glad I didn't kill her. But my attack had disfigured her face. My parents didn't press charges against me, didn't have the authorities come get me, they just kicked me out of the house. I was dead to them. I think it might have been more of a mercy if they had me taken away, perhaps that's why they didn't."

I was speechless. I never in my life thought Miss Seapony would do such a thing.

"And that is how my passion and built up frustrations led me to hurting the person who loved me most, and led to me finding myself trying to figure out how to survive on the street. I have never forgiven myself for what I did." She looked forward at nothing. "I did face my sister one more time though. It was about a year later. I was doing petty theft at the time, but decided to rob my parents house. I broke into my old room, and to my shock my things were still where I left them. I walked over and found my violin, sitting right where I left it on the bed. I picked it up and heard movement. There was my sister, her face looked better, you couldn't even see the stitches if you weren't looking for them. She and I stood staring at each other silently for what seemed an eternity, just frozen where we were. She then reached a hand out to me and said my name. Then I took my violin and ran. That was the last time I ever hurt my sister."

I only felt sorry for Miss Seapony, and hugged her while telling her I forgave her for what she did. There's a caveat to this story though. Sometimes history repeats itself, and resentment between siblings is one of the longest repeating stories. I had a sibling, an angry one, I just didn't know it at the time.

Chapter 21: Tale of Two Sisters Part 2

I decided to just go to sleep at my normal time that night. My talk with my mom gave me some idea of what Lántiān must have been feeling. I thought back to the story Miss Seapony told me years before about her own sister, and I couldn't help wondering… how could she do the same thing to her own daughter that her parents had done to her? Miss Seapony was always so nice to me. She'd always been there for me. Why had she been there for me and not Lántiān? I knew about the whole sleep schedule thing, but for the past seven or so years Miss Seapony had always been in the dream realm. She should have been able to spend just as much time with Lántiān as she did with me.

After I fell asleep I immediately found myself in an unfamiliar place, and not one of my making.

It was some sort of shipping location. There were those huge metal containers everywhere, those ones that were put on train cars or loaded high on ships. Everywhere I looked was more of them, some stacked several containers high. Most of them had Chinese writing on them, but there was also writing in English, German, Russian, Italian or Spanish (I had a hard time telling the difference), Arabic, and I even saw one with Equestrian writing. It must have been a port, although I couldn't tell for sure unless I flew up and looked around.

"This is where it happened. This is where I died."

I turned and saw Miss Seapony, only she was in her night pony form, the one with the dark orange fur and the scarlet mane. She even had her cutie mark exposed instead of censoring it (the silhouettes of a night pony being sexually mounted by an earth pony, one of the most graphic and least subtle cutie marks I had ever seen or heard of). She was sitting and looking around at our surroundings with her ears hanging low.

"This is where I set myself on fire. I'd anticipated something might have gone wrong, and had a friend give me something to do it with if it came down to it. I'd hoped that the worst would be having to use that flame to distract the people chasing us, or to create a temporary barrier, but there were too many. I couldn't let them get my foals."

I walked over to her, ears flat and wings stiff. "Miss Seapony, why does Lántiān think you love me but not her? Why didn't you ever tell me about her. Are there more foals of yours out there that hate me too?"

Miss Seapony chuckled. "Mister Potty-Mouth should be happy, he always complains you don't get angry often enough." Her moment of mirth abruptly ended just as fast as it had come, and she stared at me with sad eyes. "Lántiān is mistaken. I love her very much. I love you as well, and would give my life for either of you. However, and don't take this too badly, if I was put in the impossible position where I could only save one of you, I'd save her. She is my daughter, and though you're like a daughter to me, she is the genuine article."

It was fair that she should put her real daughter first, but hearing I'd lose if she was forced to make a choice between us still hurt. Although Lántiān must have felt that a choice had been made already, and she had come out the loser in that. "You didn't answer why she thinks that."

My oldest friend and mentor shook her head. "No, I didn't. My daughter's thoughts and feelings are her own, and they are private. They're not for me to share with you. I can't answer your question the way you want me to do. It is against my oaths to do so. If you become a Dreamwarden you'll understand. It isn't even a choice I can make."

"You have to be able to tell me something!" I objected. "You can tell me what you did. How you treated her compared to how you treated me, and you can tell me why you did that. Those things are your secrets, not hers."

She narrowed her eyes at me. "Very well, though don't make assumptions and treat them as facts based on this information."

"I'll try not to," I replied, and plopped my butt down so I could listen.

She looked around again and then laid down. "You need to understand some things about Lantiān growing up here in China, all my foals really, but her especially since the others weren't old enough to be fully exposed to things. I wasn't a nobody who could be ignored, I was a Dreamwarden. They courted me, provided me with the best housing, food, all I could ever ask for. My foals were put into the best schools. In terms of material things my situation was even better than when I was a child, but it was a far more dangerous position to be in.

"What I said and did were always watched by the government," she continued. "By extension, everything my foals said and did were watched as well. I love them all, but if I had been open about things to them it would have been inevitable one of them would let something slip. Then the government would have come down on us. It was better to keep them in the dark, to keep us all safe."

She gave her head a regretful shake. "Lantiān grew up for years under the false pretense that everything was fine. She was taught the government's lies as facts, and I did not reward her for learning her lessons well. I just distanced myself from her. When she got a little older, and a little more mature, I started trying to talk to her about how I disagreed with things she'd been taught. We fought, quite a bit, about those things. Perhaps I should have spoken up sooner, but it seemed too risky. My love for her was no less, but my years of silence had built a wall between us. In time, everything became an argument with her."

"In the meantime you were out treating me with all the love and approval she'd always wanted," I interjected.

She nodded. "Oh, yes, that was definitely going on. There was more to it than that though. I always kept her from the dream realm. To this day she cannot dreamwalk, only my one night pony foal can. She's asked when she was younger, and I denied her."

I gasped. "What? Why? You're part of the dream realm, you and the dream realm are inseparable from one another. Not letting them dreamwalk is like pushing them away from you."

"I'm not sure if you realize this yet, Rebecca, but being close to a Dreamwarden is dangerous business. You will be seeing Miss Nightmares… Phobia tomorrow. You'll get to see more of her family when you visit. Take note of what you witness and ask yourself, do you want that kind of life for your loved ones? We're keeping your identity from going public if you join our ranks, so your loved ones won't face the same dangers, but my identity, like Phobia's, was public, and the impact on our families is very real."

"Refusing to let her dreamwalk doesn't change anything about that," I countered. "Why wouldn't you give her the ability."

She sat still for several long seconds before replying. "If I was being honest with myself, I was just wanting her to live a life separated from mine. I didn't want to put expectations on her that she'd be like me. I didn't want her to be like me. And finally, and this is selfish, I didn't want her to hear things other dreamwalkers may have said about me. Bad things happened in the early days of the Dreamwardens, and I didn't want her to hear about those and think of me as a monster."

"Lantiān isn't a foal, she's a grown adult, older than me. She should be allowed to hear those things and make her own decision," I replied, then gave an irritated flap of my wings. "Why does she even know about me if you are so secretive with your foals? Not that I think that I should have been kept secret, but it seems inconsistent that she should be allowed to know if you're so bound and determined not to tell them anything."

"It was a mistake on my part," Miss Seapony whispered. "In the days that followed my death she demanded answers. It was a very hard time for us all. I owed it to her to tell her why I made the decisions that led to my death. She was still young, still of high school age, but she'd been raising her siblings much of the time to that point, and had a filly of her own. She was a young mare forced to be an adult too soon, but I was going to treat her like an adult. Anything else would be an insult. I told her what my plans had been, and that included the training of you."

One of my ears sagged. "And she didn't take it well, I guess."

"That's private information."

I huffed. "I want to request to speak with her, here with you, right now. Can you ask her if she's willing to speak with the two of us, if she's asleep?"

Her eyes went wide, and for the first time ever I thought I saw a small flicker of fear in those eyes. Miss Seapony, this immortal with powers and knowledge beyond comprehension, was scared of having to face me and her daughter together.

She turned her face away from me. "Very well. Hold a moment while I present your request. You'll know your answer shortly."

I sat and waited. The conversation could have continued, since Miss Seapony was capable of holding hundreds, if not thousands, of different conversations at once and they'd all be as if she was giving them her undivided attention (even if the attention was divided so much it would be impossible for anyone else to possibly follow half of what was going on). I didn't want my unexpected nemesis to show up in the middle of me talking, and Miss Seapony could read my intent and wishes.

It seemed like the silence stretched on forever as she talked to Lantiān. I wondered what was being said. Just because I was typically cheerful and tried to be friends with everyone didn't mean I couldn't read what was going on with others. It couldn't have been Lantiān just saying yes, otherwise she'd already be talking to me. It couldn't have been a no either, since Miss Seapony would have just told me so and left it at that. That meant it was a negotiation, perhaps with angry words being exchanged.

Eventually, Lantiān appeared. This time around she wasn't wearing those weird pants (seriously, what pegasus just casually wears yoga pants around in public?). Her previously hidden cutie mark turned out to be the red and yellow stylized sun peaking out from behind a cloud. That mark basically basically screamed 'Shimmerist' and I wondered if that was the reason she had it hidden under a garment previously.

Her eyes followed mine to her flank, and she turned back to me with a scowl. "Don't mention my mark to anyone at school. It's private."

I blinked in confusion. "I learned about it in a dream, so I'm not allowed to talk about it without your permission anyway. I've got a human mom and dad, who I love very much, so I don't like it, but why hide it? There's still plenty of ponies that wouldn't have any problem with it, and those of us who don't like it wouldn't get rude with you or anything because of it."

She snapped her wings out and then shut. "Just don't! It's my mark and none of your business. What do you want?"

"I just wanted to clear the air between us, and try to understand why Miss- why your mom treated you so differently than me," I explained. "She can't tell me what you're thinking. You have to tell me your side of things."

She began to pace back and forth. "I don't have to tell you anything. I'm assuming you interrogated her. I'm assuming you aren't as dumb as you look, although you look pretty dumb. She loved some rollie-pollie pegasus from America more than she loved me! I told you I shouldn't even be mad at you, because it isn't your fault she treated you that way and treated me like the unloved stepchild. Clearly you don't have much going for you to earn that love. Maybe I wasn't chubby enough. It was her choice though, not yours."

"Lantiān! Since when are you so cruel?" Miss Seapony demanded in outrage. "Name calling? Putting others down? I didn't raise you that way, and neither did the guardian I gave you."

Lantiān turned and sneered at her mother. "I'll apologize, because Ma'am would be disappointed in me if she heard me saying such things. I'm beyond caring if you're disappointed in anything." She looked over her shoulder at me. "I'm sorry. I have a hard time not directing my anger at you, but that's no excuse."

"Um, whose Ma'am?" I asked.

She turned back fully towards me. "The pony who had been appointed my guardian. Before you ask, I understand that's an odd way to refer to her when she is not here. It's something personal between me and her that I don't expect others to understand. It's not intended to be rude towards her, in case you're wondering."

"Um… okay," I said slowly. "So whoever Ma'am is she's like your second mother, right?"

She nodded. "I don't quite see it that way, but I don't find it completely wrong for you to suggest it. I'm no longer in her care, but we call each other often and sometimes visit. I'm actually attending the school in Skytree partially on her suggestion."

"What's the other parts?" I asked curiously, hoping to try to settle her down with more casual conversation.

"I am an art student, and it is an art school," she said briskly, then narrowed her eyes. "And I learned you were in Skytree."

Oh dear, that seemed ominous. So much for casual conversation. "You- you wanted to run into me?"

She flicked her tail. "I don't know, honestly. Maybe?" She paused and seemed to grapple with what to say next. "You… you're the pony that my mother always devoted attention to. The one she took the time to show pride in your accomplishments. I always felt like… "

Miss Seapony cleared her throat and we both looked towards her. "That's always been your problem. You do things seeking approval from me, rather than what is good for you."

Lantiān jerked her head up and flattened her ears. "Is it wrong of me to want your approval and love!"

Miss Seapony shook her head. "You always had my love, and still do. What I can't approve of is you doing things just to get my approval. Continue on, explain it to her."

Lantiān looked like she had been struck, but turned to me slowly again. "I found out that you were an artist, so I took up art so I could show I could be better at it than you."

I stepped back. "But, I never wanted to compete with you. I didn't even know about you. If you don't have any particular love of art you shouldn't be trying to do it as a career. You can't be happy that way."

"I'm happy with my career choice," she snapped. I blinked, and she softened her expression. "Let me explain. It started off being about you, but it turned into something of my own. My art reflects me, and my experiences. I may have learned how to draw because I wanted to outdo you, but now I use it to express myself."

This was getting a little better. "I'd like to see some of it sometime. If that's okay. I love seeing what other people make."

"If you think of a particular piece I can conjure an image of it from your memory," Miss Seapony announced.

Lantiān stared at her mother for a moment and licked her lips nervously. "Alright. I'm thinking of one. My favorite one."

As soon as she finished speaking our black expanse of nothing (I hadn't even noticed when the setting had changed to an empty expanse, I was too focused on Lantiān and her mother) now had a massive painting high above it. I recognized the setting right away; it was the front of the Forbidden Palace in Beijing. I'd seen pictures of it before. It was set at sunset, and there were lots of humans walking around outside it. They were all just silhouettes and shadows, nameless black shapes upon the canvass. There were two humans that were standing to the side, the only ones standing still, and the only ones given detail. It was a woman and a little girl in plain looking clothes you could find on any human bundled up for winter up north. The woman held the girl's hand and pointed to the palace with the other. The girl looked up at the palace with pure wonder on her face, and stood pressed against her mother as she looked on. The shades of the entire painting were dark, with deep oranges and nighttime colors that did justice to the coming evening, but those two humans, even standing to the side, were filled with brightness that made them the focus of the piece, even as the palace filled most of the view.

"It's very pretty. I love what you did with the colors, and the contrast between the shadowy figures and the woman and child, and how you made them the focus even when they take up so little space," I said as I gazed up at the painting. I wasn't exaggerating, it was gorgeous to look at. "My art is typically all bright and colorful, with fantastical settings, but you capture a lot of feeling with this that mine can't do. I should take tips from you."

"Thank you, I am very proud of this one, and it is very special to me," she replied softly. I could hear tears in her voice.

"It is very special. It is my favorite as well, in terms of any art," Miss Seapony whispered, just loud enough for us to hear. Lantiān and I turned to her and saw her looking up at the art with a faraway look. "I remember this day, and I was surprised that you did. You were so young, and it was before ETS, back when it was just you and me. You were so mystified by the things I showed you, the things from our heritage. I think that was when you first developed pride in it. Yet, it is our personal heritage that is the focus of this painting, mother and daughter during simpler times."

"Back when you had pride in me," Lantiān said bitterly.

"I am proud of this painting, and so many other things," Miss Seapony whispered again. "You assume I'm not, but I am."

"You never say so!" Lantiān hissed with a snap of her wings. "Are you just trying to make yourself look good in front of her?"

"Miss Seapony…" I said timidly. I didn't like calling out a friend, but I didn't like that Lantiān felt so hurt either. "I believe you if you say you're proud of her, but you don't sound proud. You just sound sad. You don't sound as if you're taking her feelings seriously either. I mean- you started to sound maybe a little proud when you talked about the painting, or maybe more like you were wistful, but now you're pulling away again. Why is it so hard for you to show you're proud of her?"

"Because she isn't!" Lantiān snarled, then spat on the ground.

My oldest friend looked straight at her daughter. "Let me tell you how we got to this point. We had been living in slums for years, barely staying off the streets. Soon after the Dreamwardens made themselves public our government back in China gave us a wonderful place to stay. They put you in the very best school. If there was anything we could ask for they would provide it. For a while, things seemed to be going well. You remember this?"

Lantiān nodded. "Yes, I remember. I even remember telling you how much I wanted to be a weather pony, and you encouraging me. You hadn't changed towards me yet, but you did."

"Yes, I did," Miss Seapony confessed. "The Shimmerists soon started coming to power. China saw the future full of magic, and magic meant ponies. They believed to dominate the future China must become all ponies. I love my homeland, I taught you to love it too, but it is not always the best place in some regards. You can't be important there and speak up against the government. There are consequences to this, severe ones. They started teaching you the most wretched things in school, and I had to keep silent. They couldn't hurt me, not directly, but they could hurt you. You sat and repeated their propaganda, and I had to keep my mouth shut. I grew distant from you, and I am sorry for that."

"That was years ago! I haven't lived in China since- since you- you know what happened. Things are different now, but you are still unchanged from then," Lantiān struggled to protest.

"We had already set ourselves against each other by then," Miss Seapony whispered. "I remember the point we both turned on one another. I was so disappointed you were having a foal because the government told you that it was your duty. It was cold of me, but I couldn't believe you were treating yourself like some horse to be bred. We fought so much about it. It was the first time I ever dared to contradict the government directly."

"It seemed hypocrisy coming from you. You had me at a similar age," Lantiān fired back.

Miss Seapony grit her teeth. "I was a child on the streets selling her body for food and shelter. I should never have rightfully had you so young. I wanted better for you. I could have even accepted it if you were out having sex for fun and something happened. No, you let yourself be told you were stock to be bred and expected me to be happy you accepted this as your lot in life. I was not proud, I was furious that you thought so little of yourself. What made it worse was you thought that doing that would please me. It was partly about getting my approval by doing so well at what they wanted. Where was my little filly who dreamed of busting clouds? They took her from me."

"This coming from a courtesan," Lantiān snarled. "Or should I use Ma'am's word for you? Whore."

I tried to think of how to rescue this situation, but they weren't going to give me time to think.

"Whore is the right word, and don't be afraid to say it," Miss Seapony snapped back. "Yeah, I chose to keep that job after I could have put it behind me. It is what I am. I took pride in my ability to please clients, and loved the pleasure. It was not what you were though, and not something you would take the same pleasure in. Tell me now, with full honesty, that you would want that for your life." The blue pegasus mare kept silent and my mentor smirked. "I didn't think so. You still defended that decision, and we fought. I grew more distant from you and you grew more angry with me."

"You could have been the bigger mare. I was a foal."

"A foal who had been raising her brothers for me for years. A foal who thought herself old enough to have a foal," Miss Seapony reminded her, then looked down. "But… you're right. I could have done better. I am a creature of passion, and although I give warning about the dangers that come with it, I myself am the prime example of what I am warning against. I'm sorry, I failed you in that."

Lantiān seemed like she wanted to yell back, but instead looked up at the painting and took a deep breath."Why didn't you ever tell me you loved this painting?"

Miss Seapony looked taken aback. "You never shared it with me."

The pegasus glared back at her. "You see into my head. You knew about it."

"Until you give me permission your private thoughts are your own, and I must act as if I don't know them. You do that too, assume that because I must know that I can act on it. You'd never behave in such a way if I weren't a Dreamwarden. You never treat me as just your mother," Miss Seapony reminded her.

"Miss Seapony, you're starting to do it again," I warned.

She looked at me then back to her daughter. "You have never given me that permission, and I never really wanted to do things as a Dreamwarden towards you. Yes, I knew about it. Yes, I do indeed love it."

Lantiān's mouth dropped open as she stared at her mother. She mouthed something I couldn't follow and then turned to me. "I need to thank you. Your presence here has changed the- let's say the dynamic of conversation." She turned back to her mother. "I'm giving you full permission to discuss and respond to my thoughts with me now, and anytime going forward. You're a Dreamwarden, and trying to pretend you're not with me is not helping anything. My mother is a Dreamwarden, and all her choices were impacted by that. It's about time I got to talk to her rather than the phoney you keep rolling out in front of me."

Miss Seapony frowned. "Very well. If you choose to do this then that's your right. Only a few have granted me such free access. You may choose to take it back anytime in the future." She then looked at me. "Rebecca, I'll be sending you back to your own dreams now. What is discussed here is between me and my daughter. Her thoughts are still private, and you don't have a right to them."

I was disappointed, but figured that was coming. "I understand."

"Hey!" Lantiān called out. "I will speak with you later about how this conversation went. I feel guilty for the way I treated you, and would like to start fresh."

I smiled back at her. "I'd like that."

And the next thing I knew they were gone, and I was dreaming about trying to fly to the top of a giant tree that kept getting taller, while a white dragon sat atop it demanding to know why I was trying to fly so high.

Chapter 23: Inside the House of Nightmares

The inside of Miss Nightmare's house was black as night, with only an occasional nightlight along the wall to give illumination and let me know where the boundaries of the room were amongst the void. It was exactly the kind of place I would expect one of the most frightening ponies in existence to live.

"Sorry, forgot to turn the lights on before I left to get you," Crystal said.

A moment later the room suddenly lit up with a soft light and the inside of the house took on a very different character. In place of the oppressive dark cave I had first entered there was now a room that looked almost disappointingly domestic. There were two sofas, both done in navy blue, with lots of plump frilly pillows piled along their sides, as well as a big cushy looking armchair in the same color. There was a perfectly normal computer desk with a desktop computer and a stool. On every wall were framed photos, most of them featuring a family of night ponies, although there were other photos that featured other ponies and humans. There were even a few with Wild Growth and one that had two griffins and a griffin chick. There was no television set, but there were lots of bookcases, and a small glass display case. This didn't look anything like what I expected from the Queen of Nightmares. I wasn't sure what I expected- some medieval dungeon or something like the Addams' Family mansion- but definitely not something like this.

Crystal started walking towards a stairwell. "I'll go let Phobia know you're here. You two can relax while you wait for her. Jess, Phobia wants this room muted to everyone outside of it, so make yourself useful."

"I figured as much," Jess replied, as she walked over to the chair and flopped into it. "It's done. No one can hear what is being said in this room, even if they have their ear up to the door."

Crystal seemed to focus on something unseen for a moment before nodding. "Confirmed. I'll be right back with Phobia. Make yourselves at home."

Jess tapped the arms of the chair with her hands. "Already have. Hey… do you think you can let me change out your fluids in your car? I'm planning on getting a mechanic's license at some point."

The crystal pony turned back. "I don't mind, but you aren't even old enough to drive yet. Don't you think a mechanic's license needs to wait until after you have your driver's license, and aren't you already working on a second doctorate or something already? What are you planning to do; launch their spaceship and give them an oil change on the side?"

The partial human shrugged. "Never hurts to expand my expertise- and I have my learning permit for driving, just so you know. I like cars. I want to get a classic corvette and covert the engine to a clean one."

Crystal chuckled. "I approve of your hobby. We can talk about cars later. Let me get Phobia before she starts wondering if something's wrong."

I didn't know anything about cars other than they should have four wheels and someone needed to start color coding pony harnesses compared to human seat belts. I instead decided to further investigate the room.

All the framed photos looked pretty much like normal family type photos. Every tribe of pony was represented, along with humans, and more. Some even looked like they were taken in Equestria. I spotted even a photo of Lántiān joined by three foals and a red unicorn mare with a purple and yellow mane that had just a small touch of grey to it. That same unicorn was featured in other photos, and I wondered if that was Miss Nightmare's mother.

"There's me," Jess said, as she pointed to some photos. "Me twice, actually. You can see what I looked like when I was a pony."

I looked at the indicated photos. It was easy enough to pick the photo of Jess in her partial form out. She was in a graduation cap and gown with Robby, two adult humans, and a young boy all standing around her looking proud- except the young boy who looked like he'd rather not be standing still for a photo. Next to that photo was another photo; this one had the same human couple, what looked like a Robby as a younger teen, and a tiny little yellow earth pony filly with a blue mane that matched Jess's hair.

"You were so cute as a little filly!" I gushed, flapping my wings to hover just a little and get a better look.

"Well, most ponies look cute and adorable, little fillies even more so. It's your secret weapon against us humans," Jess said with a smirk. Her expression turned wistful though. "Every once and a while I wonder what it would be like to still be a pony; mainly because I hate picking out clothes to wear. I wouldn't go back to being a pony if I had the option, since I do not want to give up my hands, and can't imagine functioning without them- I'm not even sure how you ponies function without hands, and I spent six-and-a-half years as one."

I thought about pointing out she still had the tail and ears of a pony, so she looked adorable too, but remembered that Robby said not to bring up the fact Jess was a partial. "That's a long time to be a pony. I didn't know you could rehumanize that late."

"They don't advertise it, and it is an extremely complex spell, but they can turn any pony that doesn't have a cutie mark permanently into a human- if they are accepting of the spell. I'm not the only one here to have it done; Tempest Shadow used to be an Equestrian pony, and had been a pony her entire life until she humanized. They did a better job on her than me, but I was kind of the alpha subject for the procedure. They had the spell better ironed out by the time they did it to her."

I couldn't help it any more after that, I had to touch on the subject. "Are you mad you still have pony parts?"

She was silent, and her ears had gone flat. I worried that I offended her. I was about to apologize when she spoke up. "I'm not mad about it. In a vacuum, I have no problem with my so-called pony parts. What I don’t like is how people get misconceptions about me, or the way I get treated because of them. Anyway, I'm human, therefore they're a human tail, human fur, and human ears- just different from what most humans might have."

"Is it my stripes or my spots you see…" I mumbled to myself.

Her ears perked up and she gave me a puzzled expression. "What was that about stripes and spots?"

I landed and shook my head, and then gave her a big smile. "Nothing, just musing about how we all see ourselves one way, and everyone else seems to see something different." My attention was diverted as I looked over at the glass case, and finally found something nightmarish in the room. My wings stopped flapping and I dropped to the ground with an audible thump then pointed a wing at the case. "Ack! What is that?"

She looked at where I was pointing. "Oh, that? That belongs to Phobia, and she's never really explained why she has it sitting out in a glass case. I agree, it's creepy looking."

The item in the glass case was what looked like a very ugly, and very dirty, old human doll. It was a dirty brown-grey color, had two black button eyes, was in a slumped over sitting position, and was otherwise featureless. Since it was obviously extremely old I wondered if it was some old family heirloom. It felt completely out of place with everything else in the room.

"That was left to me by someone very close to me who has now passed away. I take it as a personal reminder and warning."

I turned to see who spoke, and saw a night pony in a jet black gown, her green mane and tail were well styled, and I could tell she was wearing mascara. She wasn't old, I'd say somewhere in her thirties, although if someone told me she was in her twenties I'd believe it by just looking at her. She also looked very delicate and thin, definitely not someone who fit the night pony fighter archetype. If it came down to a physical confrontation she didn't look like she could put up a strong fight against a foal. I might have been the last kid always picked in gym class, but if I had been in class with her there might have been competition for that role.

The night pony glanced at Crystal, who had followed her into the room. "Thank you for bringing her here, but can you please step outside? This is going to be a very private conversation." Her voice was soft and calm, but I still got the sense it was one that was used to being obeyed.

Crystal blinked in shock. "Um, okay. I didn't think she was that big a deal, but I can give you your privacy. I do need to ask, as your bodyguard, is she dangerous in any way? I know better than to underestimate a pony just because they look harmless."

"My little sister is more dangerous," Miss Nightmares deadpanned. "If Miss Riddle tried to attack me for some reason Jess would be more than capable of defending me on her own… even if she doesn't keep up with her martial arts training like she should." Jess snorted and crossed her arms in annoyance at being called out.

Crystal bowed her head briefly. "Okay, you're the boss. I'll know when you're done when I feel Jess's sound dampening field go down. Is that alright?"

Miss Nightmares nodded. "It may actually go down for a minute or so very soon. So when it stays down for five minutes or more you may check on me. Let me stress that no one is allowed inside while we are talking; not you, not Tempest, none of my foals, not even my wife. Only break that order if it is a life or death situation. Don't make a big deal about it to anyone, but don't let anyone in. Do I make myself clear?"

Crystal whistled and gave a salute. "Real hush-hush. Clear as crystal, boss." The crystal pony gave me an appraising look before she left. "I meet so many interesting people on this job. Anyone that Phobia is being this secretive with must be pretty interesting. Good luck with whatever she's putting you up to."

Crystal left the room and Jess cleared her throat. "We have full privacy."

Miss Nightmare's posture had never been stiff and remained relaxed. "Good. First thing on our agenda actually involves you, Jess. I need to put another compulsion for secrecy on you."

Jess jerked up in the chair. "What?! You know I don't like the idea of my head being messed with. Haven't you given me enough of those?"

Miss Nightmares nodded. "I would not be insisting if it were not important. This is for Miss Riddle's protection that what is discussed here doesn't get out. If you refuse she and I can have this conversation in the dream realm, but I prefer one face-to-face. It lets me present myself to her as a pony first, instead of a Dreamwarden."

Jess seemed to mull it over for a moment before seemingly relenting. "I'll do it, but only because you've stirred up my curiosity. You can't be all secretive like this and not have me itching to know about it. Though I'm guessing you already anticipated that."

Miss Nightmares just smiled and said nothing. Jess groaned and got up from where she was sitting. "So how does this work? You just say something and I'm compelled to obey it?" I was actually curious myself. I'd never seen a compulsion done before. I'd heard about them. Miss Seapony said she did them all the time, but I'd never seen one done.

The night pony gestured with a wing to right in front of her. "Come sit down here. I need to put you to sleep for a moment. My compulsions that I do in the waking world are too weak to hold properly. My compulsions I lay down in the dream realm are far stronger."

Jess walked over. "Isn't putting me to sleep a compulsion?"

Miss Nightmares nodded. "A relatively weak one. One you could resist with ease. My stronger compulsions in the waking world are ones I don't tend to use, the ones that bring out anxiousness and fear. They are hard to control or make consistently useful, and too easy to fall into abuse with, so I rarely use those."

I watched as Jess sat down with her legs crossed in front of Miss Nightmares. The night pony put her hooves up on Jess's knees and stared her directly in the eyes as she said some things too quietly for me to hear. I suddenly heard snoring, which was a second later joined by another snore. That was the fastest I had ever seen two people fall asleep.

They weren't asleep long before Miss Nightmares woke back up and patted Jess's face with a wing. "Wake up, and thank you for your cooperation." The night pony stepped back as Jess roused herself and stood back up.

"Um… Miss Nightmares? Aren't people going to think it's weird you being so secretive about me?" I asked hesitantly.

Jess laughed. "You don't deal with Dreamwardens much, do you? Everything is secretive, the only weird thing about this is why she bothered to bring you straight to her instead of just dealing with you in a dream where she could lock down any chance of anyone finding out what you discuss. There's things that she shares with me in dreams that I'm not allowed to tell a soul the details of. Since seeing you in person is actually a bit of a security risk in terms of her normal secrecy I am just wondering what she considers what warrants less secrecy. Are you here to discuss plans for the demons' birthday party or something?"

Miss Nightmares shook her head. "Can you put your field back up, please?"

Jess rolled her eyes. "Fine, there, it's done. Now what did I get compelled into not talking about."

The night pony smiled. "Nothing too major. Rebecca here might be the next Dreamwarden, and perhaps before the year is out."

The pony-eared human just stared at Miss Nightmares with a blank expression for a moment before turning and looking at me in disbelief. I could see her looking me over and sizing me up, judging me. She then turned back to Miss Nightmares. "Real funny. I know you never directly lie, but you can be misleading. You said might and perhaps. Those same things could apply to just about anyone."

"True," the night pony confessed. "They could apply to you as well. If the thirty or forty thousand people ahead of you- depending on which Dreamwarden you ask the list of- suddenly fell lower. Rebecca is number one currently on all but two of our lists."

I raised a wing up. "Um, which lists am I not number one on?"

She flicked an ear and looked at me. "Mine and Ghadab's; we have other candidates we value higher, but you still rank quite highly with us. You might be number one with me before today is out, who knows? Would you like some cake? I'm told you enjoy chocolate cake, and I baked one just for you."

This was more serious than I thought. I didn't realize I needed to prove myself to Miss Nightmares. I'd just assumed that they all wanted me to be a Dreamwarden. I knew there were other candidates, but I didn't know this was actually going to be a competition.

"Yes, please. I'd love some cake," I squeaked.

Jess shook her head. "Can I get some coffee? I need to sit down and think."

Miss Nightmares turned and started walking towards the kitchen. "Of course, I'll put a pot on for you, although you'll have to go fetch it yourself when it's ready." She looked over her shoulder at me. "I'll be right back with the cake. Just relax, and don't let your fear get the best of you."

Easy for her to say. She didn't have her future on the line.

Chapter 24: Tests

Miss Nightmares, known to be the most fearsome Dreamwarden, was in the kitchen, putting on a pot of coffee and fetching her homemade cake. Supposedly chocolate cake. I didn't know how to feel about one If the most frightening ponies alive having specially made me a chocolate cake. I mean… she's the Queen of Nightmares, but it's chocolate cake… those things shouldn’t go together.

"You know, I feel kind of honored," Jess said slowly.

I looked over at her. "About what? Getting to hear this conversation?"

She did a brushing off gesture with her hand. "This conversation? No, hearing you might be the next Dreamwarden was a tiny shock, but I can see some logic to it. It's not the most shocking thing I've ever heard of out of Phobia. She's been hitting me with one crazy revelation after another since I was a tiny little filly. It starts to get mundane after a while. She could walk in here with irrefutable proof that the world is being run by a pair of parakeets and I would just figure out how to roll with that."

I sat and flicked an ear. "So… what do you feel honored about?"

"I'm in the top thousandth percentile of people that they would consider for Dreamwarden," she said with a laugh.

"Huh?" I tilted my head. "But she said there were like thirty or forty thousand people ahead of you on the list."

She nodded. "Yep, which puts over ninety-nine point nine-nine-seven percent of people with magic that I'm ahead of; that's statistically impressive."

Okay, that made me giggle. "Always great to look on the bright side!"

“Eh,” she shook her head. "I'm not going to lie, I don't want to be any higher on that list. Dreamwarden is not a job I want. I've known Phobia most of my life, and I know she doesn't enjoy her job. I don't think any of the Dreamwardens do."

I tilted my head. "Why wouldn't they? Dreamwardens can help everyone. Why would anyone want to turn up that?"

"Because-" Jess began.

"Because of how many restrictions are put on us, unwanted knowledge we're forced to know, the terrible decisions we might be required to make, and how helpless we feel in most situations," Miss Nightmares answered as she walked into the room holding a small cake laden plate in her wings. The night pony carefully set the plate down on a small table in the middle of the room. "Jess, your coffee should be about ready. You may fetch it now."

I watched as Jess hurried out of the room, and then went to investigate the slice of cake. It was indeed a chocolate cake with a layer of dark fudge inside and yellow frosting covering the exterior. It looked really moist and really good.

"There is more, if you wish. You can dig right in," Miss Nightmares said, as she flapped her wings a few times to fly up on one of the couches and relaxed against one of the frilly pillows.

She didn't need to tell me twice. I bit right into the side and started chewing. My eyes half-lidded as I savored the taste. "Soo good."

"Thank you for the compliment. I never baked before becoming a Dreamwarden, but we tend to inherit traits from predecessor Dreamwardens here and there. This is a trait I think you'd inherit as well."

I swallowed, suddenly something about the cake felt sinister. "So who did you pick baking up from?"

"Sha'am was a very avid baker of sweet treats," Miss Nightmares replied with a smirk.

The cake didn't seem so appetizing now, and I stepped back from it.

"I was wondering how'd you react to that news," Miss Nightmares replied lazily.

I perked my ears up and looked at her. "Is this a test?"

She shrugged. "If you wish to view it that way. I thought this might be a good way of introducing the concept of inherited traits among Dreamwardens." She patted a hoof to the sport beside her. "Come, sit with me, I don't bite."

She didn't look dangerous, but she was also Miss Nightmares. At the same time, if I needed to impress her I didn't want to look cowardly around her. I mustered my courage, determined to impress her, and jumped up on the couch right next to her without flying, and was surprised when she flinched and yelped.

"Sorry," she said after taking a breath. "I didn't expect you to jump up that close to me. I thought I'd need to ease you over. I at least expected you to fly to give me warning. I misjudged you."

I immediately scooted back from her. "I'm sorry! Did I land on your leg or hoof? I only normally land on my parents, and they're big enough that it just makes them go oooffff. Why do you have human sized furniture that we need to jump up on anyway?"

She steadied herself. "Don't worry, you didn't land on me. I just get a little jumpy when things come near me quickly. A reflex from a bad experience." Explaining it seemed to calm her down. "As for the furniture; I host humans often, and Tempest lives here full time, and she makes the most use of the living room. My wife and I also have a love for vintage furniture- now that our foals are old enough they won't destroy anything of value. It also gives me little excuses to stretch my wings, since I don't fly nearly as much as I should."

"Oh," I replied dumbly, and did a little hop on the cushions. "Um, it's a very nice couch, very cushy. I don't fly as much as I should either. I'm not a very good flyer."

She nodded. "A fact about you I knew, but only by way of dreams." She let out a long sigh. "Knowing things as a Dreamwarden is rarely very helpful. It is part of why I wanted to deal with you face-to-face. It’s a much better experience when I’m not waiting for you to speak because I know what you’re thinking."

"You knew I like cake," I replied.

"Well, I have spies, don’t I? They left out the part about the flying, so it was as if I didn't know it, even though I did," she explained.

"I don't really understand," I confessed.

She settled back down into a fully relaxed position. "It's something you have to experience to fully grasp."

"Oh…" I replied, not really understanding how she could know and not know something at the same time. I decided to just drop it. I was supposed to be impressing her. "You were telling me about inherited traits. I heard from Miss Seapony about those, but she said they were unpredictable. You acted confident I would pick up the baking."

Miss Nightmares chuckled softly. "Yinyu is very good at many things, but she takes less interest in studying our nature than me or Psychic Calm. There's no surefire way of knowing what traits might be inherited, but there are patterns that we can use to make educated guesses. It's even really simple patterns; we tend to inherit traits that compliment who we are already. With you being so fond of what comes out of the oven, it isn't much of a stretch to think you'd inherit a love for baking."

I looked down. "I just worry about inheriting bad things."

"A good concern to have," my companion replied. I jerked my head up and looked at her. "The Dreamwarden mantle is a powerful one, and you should be fearful about inheriting the worst in us. No one wants another Sha'am or another Joss, no one wants someone whose worst traits fall easily in concert with other bad traits. That fear means you're aware of the danger that poses, and it will help protect you against it."

I didn't know who Joss was, and decided not to ask. "How much does it change you?"

She shook her head. "For me, it was hard to say. I was still figuring out who I was when I became a Dreamwarden. I understood some things about myself, such as my connection with fear, but many other things I was still discovering. I can tell you things I suspect I inherited from each of my brothers and sisters, as well as Luna."

I asked about the first one that popped into my head. "What do you think you inherited from Miss Seapony?"

She gave a dramatic flip of her mane. "A love for being pretty, although I didn't inherit her very famous love of sex. I'm very much the polar opposite of her in that department."

"And Mister Potty-Mouth?"

"You mean Ghadab? I helped in his creation, so I inherited nothing from him. He no doubt inherited some things from me, but that's for him to discuss with you, not me. I'm told I have some of Luna's bearing, and I can see that, so I suspect it is something I got from her. I think Yinyu inherited a greater part of Luna's compassion than me, not that I'm without compassion, just that she is more compassionate than me. She became much more compassionate after becoming Dreamwarden and she didn't get that extra compassion from Sha'am or Krik- not that Krik is a bad guy, he just isn't what I'd call a bleeding heart."

"So...Miss Seapony is only nice because she inherited that from Luna?" I wasn't sure how to feel about that.

Miss Nightmares shook her head. "No, what she inherited complimented what was already part of her. She already had a kind heart, it just became even kinder after getting mixed with Luna's kindness. It is traits that enhance who we are that we inherit, not traits that change who we are at the core. We are still us, just an enhanced version of ourselves. Ghadab is still all about his justice and righteous anger at injustice, Arbiter is still the supporter and influencer lurking in the background, Psy is still the calm and logical psychologist, we are still individuals."

Jess walked into the room in an annoyed huff, gripping a coffee mug with both hands. "You need to take down those stupid chains from your kitchen ceiling! It's been years since you needed them, and I keep running into them."

Miss Nightmares raised an eyebrow at her human guest as Jess flopped back into the chair. "Apologies, I'll get around to it, sooner or later. Rosetta's the one that put them up to start with. We don't normally have anyone as tall as you walking around the kitchen. Tempest is a full head shorter than you."

I gave the two a puzzled look. "Why are there chains hanging from your kitchen ceiling?"

"Phobia and Rosetta have some really freaky parenting concepts," Jess replied, and took a sip of her coffee. When she lowered the mug back down she looked right at me. "They used to hang things their foals wanted from the ceiling, back when the demons were all too young to fly. It was like a game where they had to figure out how to get the item and make off with it before anyone could catch them. They dragged me into it once, when I was a filly."

"Rosetta encouraged them to have critical thinking, work as a team, and develop survival skills," Miss Nightmares explained in defense. "They also had fun doing it, and got some treats. Also, night ponies at that age tend to need to burn off a lot of mischief and aggression, otherwise there's no telling what trouble they can get up to."

"They all but destroyed your house each time," Jess countered.

Miss Nightmares shrugged. "Oh, it was chaos, but it was a controlled chaos. You learn to accept some chaos into your life when you become a parent."

Jess's face went blank for some reason, and she went back to quietly sipping her coffee. I got the impression it wasn't just a disagreement, but something else that bothered her. Miss Nightmares stared at her for a moment before saying anything else to her. "I'll be visiting your dreams tonight to help you. I can't fix it, but I can help you work through your feelings."

"I don't need help," Jess snapped.

Miss Nightmares leveled a glare at her. "Yes, you do. This is something that can fester, and I am not having that happen. We will address it head on. Face your fears."

Jess set the mug down on a nearby end table and crossed her arms. "I face my fears just fine, thank you very much.'

"Then you won't be bothered if I tell my son, as well as Arachne, and Tempest that you find all of them very attractive, in a turn you on type of way. Oh! And tell my wife you think that same way about me."

Jess sat bolt upright and pointed a finger at Miss Nightmares. "You aren't supposed to reveal things you learn in dreams!" Her eyes went wide and she immediately covered her mouth.

Miss Nightmares giggled like a school filly. "I have eyes, and I'm pretty sure Rosetta and Tempest already know. You can calm down. It's flattering, really. I won't say anything else about your teenage crushes."

Jess still looked mortified. She looked at me and pointed a finger at me. "Keep your lips zipped!"

I ran a hoof in front of my mouth. "Lips are zipped."

She stared at me as if judging my sincerity for a few seconds before turning back to Miss Nightmares. "What I'm dealing with isn't a fear."

"You aren't dealing with it, you're trying to pretend you're okay with it. I'm the Queen of Nightmares, and sometimes the worst of all nightmares don't involve fear," the Dreamwarden replied sagely. "The fear you do have is admitting how much you hurt."

Jess glared at Miss Nightmares and then glanced at me. "I guess if she's going to be a Dreamwarden she'll find out anyway, so let's talk about it, here and now. Yeah, I'm upset my eggs are only capable of being fertilized by a statistically improbable partial. It wasn't exactly planning on having kids until I was much older, but hearing that I can't hurts, it hurts a lot. What's worse, it isn't because of any common fucking defect women get- no, it's because I'm not fully human and not a pony either. I'm just a thing unto myself. My own little species of one. I see myself as human, but my biology calls me a liar."

This was a lot of very personal information, and I wanted to object that I wasn't definitely going to be a Dreamwarden and that I had no right to be hearing all this. She wasn't done though.

"I figured, maybe when I was about thirty or so I could think about having kids," she said, tears streaming from her eyes. "Robby is probably going to have lots of foals, and unless my little brother turns out to be gay, he'll have kids when he grows up too. I imagined big family gatherings where all the cousins were playing together, and I would cuddle up with whoever I ended up with and just watching them play. Yeah, I'm a scientist, but I don't want that to be all of who I am. Is it wrong for me to want something resembling a normal life? One where I do normal things like raise a family, instead of spending every second trying to figure out how to save the world? Is that so wrong?"

"You could adopt," I suggested.

She sneered at me. "Look at me! It might not be right, but do you think social workers look at me and don't immediately start thinking of excuses I can't adopt? They are hesitant to let parents adopt outside their species already, what are they going to think when they see me? I live every day of my life getting those looks. I refuse to try to hide what I am, even if I deny it to myself. I wouldn't have acceptance in scientific circles if scientists weren't looking at my work long before meeting me. It isn't fair, but it's reality."

"You're ruling out the possibility too soon," Miss Nightmares said quietly. "Just because it might be harder for you to adopt doesn't mean it isn't possible. You're letting your fear of what they may think of you rule you."

Jess slammed a fist against the arm of the chair. "Okay, so suppose I managed to adopt a human child or a pony foal. That kid gets to grow up with others picking on him or her over his adopted freak mother!"

"This isn't about not being able to have kids, is it?" I asked. She gave me a sullen glare, and I climbed off the couch. She watched me as I walked over to her and put a hoof against one of her legs. "You're upset because you're being forced to face the fact you aren't fully human, and it hurts."

"You wouldn't understand," she mumbled.

I sat down. "Maybe not, not all the way. I can understand not feeling part of the group you think you belong to though." She continued to silently watch me, and I sighed and raised a wing up. "Look at me. I'm a pegasus, but I'm a cruddy pegasus. I can't really cloudwalk, can't do any weather magic, and my flight is an embarrassment to even watch. I have a lot of night pony magic, but I don't really fit with them either; I'm not aggressive, I'm still a worse flyer than them, I'm not nocturnal, just to name a few things. I know what it's like to be kind of caught between two worlds, and not fitting all the way in either of them. It might not be as extreme as your case, but I do get the concept. It's lonely, and you wish you could be a little more normal, or at least what counts as normal.

"They stare at me like I'm some sort of freak when they watch me fly. I pretend it doesn't bother me, but it does," I confessed. "I always need to put on a brave and happy face. I'm forced to laugh at myself, because if people don't laugh with me they'll surely laugh at me. I learned that a long time ago. I know people can be cruel."

"I'm not in a hurry to be the butt of any joke, even my own," Jess replied bitterly.

"Then don't be," I answered. "But acknowledge what they're seeing and be loud and proud about it. You're not normal, and that's great. You wouldn't be normal if you were just a human or a pony. You told me proudly that you were one of the smartest people on Earth or Equestria, and you owned that. Own the fact you aren't fully human either. Don't let others determine that's something to be ashamed of. You have cool magic that's all your own. You can hear like a pony, better than a pony using your magic. You're a super genius. Any kid should be glad to have you as a mother. Any person should be glad to know you, because they aren't going to get a chance to meet anyone else quite like you."

She sat still for a moment, then suddenly stood up. "I need to go wash my face, but… thank you for the words of encouragement. It's things I know I should do, but it helps hearing it from someone else. I'll keep the sound barrier up while I'm gone, don't worry."

She walked out of the room, leaving me alone with Miss Nightmares. I wondered how much I helped, if I helped at all. I didn't like seeing people hurt like that.

An odd sound from behind me caught my attention, and I turned to see Miss Nightmares oddly clapping her wings together. "Excellent job."

My mouth fell open. "Was that a test? Did you set that up to happen on purpose?"

She smiled at me. "Another thing I picked up from Sha'am. She was quite the manipulator. Yes, that was a test."

I narrowed my brow. "How could you? She is so upset, and you used her to test me?"

"Jess needed that, and I would have seen that she faced things herself. Maybe not as gently or directly as you did, as it is not my way, but I would have guided her to it in my own manner," Miss Nightmares replied, then her expression became sad. "This may sound cold, but she is important to other plans of mine, and I can't afford her getting depressed. I care deeply about her, as she is essentially family, but I have other things I must assure go as planned. Things too important to leave to chance. Things that she brought to my attention as being urgent."

"What kinds of things?" I asked, still mad that she was using Jess just to test me.

She shook her head. "Nothing you need mind yourself with right now. If you become a Dreamwarden you'll be glad for every moment you didn't know about them, and I'll not take those moments away. Jess knows what is at stake, and her logic will agree with me. I don't doubt for a second she is eavesdropping on us right now."

I didn't know how to respond to that. I just looked back towards where Jess had exited the room. "Do you think she'll be alright?"

"Jess is a tough girl, and can be very brave. Do you want to know why she had to rehumanize?"

I looked back in interest. "I don't want to pry into her private business-"

"Oh, it's public record. You can find news articles about it," Miss Nightmares replied with a wave of her wing. "When my foals, my sisters, and her were all small they got into a very dangerous situation. Jess ended up sacrificing herself to save my little sister Jordan. It was a far far braver thing than most foals could have done in a similar circumstance, but it left her gravely injured. She rehumanized because it was the only way she was sure to live. That girl is a hero in addition to all the things you said. She continues to be a hero in other ways, as she helps me prepare for the most important conflict that this planet will ever face, and I'm glad I have someone as brave and capable helping me."

"You said she was eavesdropping."

"That I don't doubt she is eavesdropping," Miss Nightmares corrected with a chuckle. "And as Jess can tell you; I don't lie."

"I just hope she's alright," I said softly. "People shouldn't feel ashamed of themselves like that, even if they've tried to convince themselves they aren't."

"There are certainly things people should be ashamed of," Miss Nightmares countered.

"Not things that they have no control over and that aren't bad things," I clarified. "She has no control over what she is and it isn't even a bad thing. Why do you have to keep testing me, Miss Nightmares?"

"I think we can dispense with the foalish term for me. My name is Phobia Remedy, and I'm the Warden of Fear," the night pony said gravely. "I test you because I don't want mistakes to happen. I promised myself that I would make sure we would never again let a Dreamwarden hurt people like Sha'am did. Which brings me to my key question before we end this meeting, and my final test for you."

My ears flattened as I stared at her. "What is it?"

Phobia narrowed her eyes. "If it came down to it. Would you be willing to erase all the Dreamwardens from existence for the sake of the world?"

Chapter 25: Maybe This Job Isn't the Right Fit

I stared dumbfounded at Phobia Remedy, unsure if I had heard her right. Maybe I didn't understand the question. I wasn't stupid, but that didn't mean I couldn't misinterpret things. There were lots of things I didn't understand.

"Um, I'm sorry, could you clarify that question for me?" I asked in a tiny voice. "I think I got the wrong impression."

The night pony stood up on the couch and then did a few quick flaps of her wings to fly to the other side of the room. She landed next to the case with the ugly old doll and put a wing against it as she gazed upon it.

"This doll belonged to Sha'am Maut," she began. "She left it to me in her will. It belonged to her long dead daughter, and she kept it as a keepsake after her daughter died. She wanted to remind me of how the world is cruel, and can swallow us up if we are not strong enough, as was consistent with her outlook on life. I instead look at it and see the reminder of how even a good soul can be twisted and perverted into something sinister. Sha'am was a good woman, once upon a time, a kindly mother who did all she could to care for her children. Time and injustice after injustice warped her into something darker, something terrible."

I was confused. I felt like I got confused way too often. "Okay… but what does that have to do with the question you asked me?"

She looked back at me. "Sha'am becoming a Dreamwarden was a mistake, but we cannot ignore to others' detriment that any one of us have the potential to turn into something vile and dangerous, no matter how good a person we may be now. I have been asked, and have also questioned myself, about what would have happened if Sha'am had not stood down? What if she had defied the rest of us and kept doing what she was doing? What if I had not been able to intimidate her into good behavior? What were we supposed to do then?"

I couldn't believe what I was saying. "So your solution is to kill all the Dreamwardens?!"

"I have considered many methods on how to deal with a rogue Dreamwarden," Phobia replied. "We have many advantages in what we can do in our day and age that weren't available billions of years ago. Unfortunately those advantages won't last forever, and I continue to consider more permanent solutions and more methods. One of the methods I have devised involves completely rebooting the dream realm, which would erase any Dreamwarden trapped within. It is not the only possible method I have devised, but the most effective we currently have."

I still couldn't believe it. "But- Miss Seapony, Mister Potty-Mouth, the Angel Lady, that would kill all of them for good. What if they didn't do anything wrong? Why should we erase them?"

Her eyes were hard as they locked on me. "Because it is our duty to protect the minds that enter the dream realm. If a threat arises from our own ranks we must not hesitate to do what is necessary to fulfill our duties. Yinyu, Ghadab, and Arbiter are all in grim agreement with me, and they are prepared to do what they must if the need ever arises."

I didn't want to hurt anyone, much less kill anyone. I started to cry and her expression softened before she continued- not by much, but there was a slight relaxing of her gaze. "I hope that none of us will ever have to make that kind of choice. We do everything we can to choose good candidates and support one another in our hours of need. I don't see any of us being so corrupted, but we would be foolish to not be prepared for the worst. Even with all our efforts it can still happen, and given enough time and enough generations of Dreamwardens we will inevitably come to one who will force us to make that choice- if not us then future generations. We must be resolute and do what must be done when that happens, even if it costs some of us our very existence."

I knew the answer she wanted to hear, but I couldn't bring myself to say I would do it. It was just too horrible a thing to agree to. At the same time, I understood why she felt that was needed, and I knew that she was right.

"I-I'm sorry," I finally replied in a choked voice. "I understand what you're saying, and I agree with you, but I just can't do something like that. I want to be able to help people and make their lives happier, and I understand how a corrupt Dreamwarden can ruin lives, but to ask me to kill them… I-I just can't. Maybe that means that I'm not cut out to be a Dreamwarden, but I won't ever do something to hurt or kill, even if it might be better if I did."

"I see," she said in a flat tone. I imagined it was hiding disappointment. "It is good and brave of you to be honest with me. Many would have simply told me what they thought I wanted to hear. If you had told me you would do whatever was necessary I would have known it for a lie. The truth is written too loudly in your body language for you to lie to me, even if I had never seen into your mind."

I nodded dejectedly. "I guess you will be voting against me."

She surprised me by shrugging. "I shall continue to consider your candidacy, just as I have since you were first proposed. I simply have more information to weigh into that decision than I did before. I think our time is up for today though. I will pack up the remainder of your cake so you may take it home with you." She lifted her head up high and flicked an ear. "I might not have your powers, Jess, but still can I hear you lurking by the stairs. Come on out."

Jess came slowly around the corner with a sad expression. She glanced at me then turned to Phobia. "Are you serious about that? That my aunt agrees to let herself be killed off for good if it came to it?"

That sparked my instant curiosity. I was meeting lots of relatives of Dreamwardens. "Who's your aunt?"

"Arbiter," Jess said shortly. "My older brother and I talk to her all the time, even if my parents can't. We tend to pass messages back and forth between her and my dad."

"I'm serious and so is Arbiter," Phobia replied. "Do you really think she wouldn't lay down her undead life as quickly as she laid down her life in the waking world if that was what it took to protect others?"

Jess shook her head. "I believe you. Does Auntie Sunset know about that?"

Phobia shook her head. "We didn't feel there was a need to tell her. You knowing we have such plans if need be is privileged information. We don't exactly want to broadcast that there are methods to destroy us. The people that need to know it have been informed."

"Who needs to know?" I asked.

"Princess Celestia, Princess Twilight Sparkle, Princess Cadance, a few key world leaders- although I won't go into specifics about which ones," Phobia answered. "My own family doesn't know. As I said, I hope never to be forced to make that choice, and will do everything I can to make sure I don't have to, but it doesn't mean I don't prepare all the same."

Jess's brow creased. "You conspicuously left Princess Luna off your list of princesses."

Phobia nodded. "So I did." She didn't elaborate on that. I didn't have to be as smart as Jess to figure out why. These plans were just as much meant to take out Luna if need be, and they didn't feel the need to give her a heads up that they had plans in place to destroy her if it came down to it. Princess Luna was the one responsible for creating our Dreamwardens, and it seemed cold that they would make plans to destroy her if they needed to do so.

Jess didn't reply further. I knew she had to have figured it out if I did. She just looked tiredly around the room as if this was just one more weight on top of many for her. I wondered what things she did for Phobia and what was so stressful about them.

"You may want to make yourself scarce," Phobia continued. "I have other guests arriving in about an hour, some leaders of Humanity First."

Both my head and Jess's head shot up. "What?" I blurted out. "Why would you invite them over? They hate ponies!"

Phobia didn't bat an eye at our shock. "Just to talk, have some tea, and enjoy the afternoon."

"Talk about what?" I asked in disbelief. "Are you telling them hating ponies is wrong? I don't think they're going to listen to a pony about that."

"We'll discuss the weather, sports, the stresses of parenting, maybe some good books or movies that we've seen or read," she replied in that same calm tone. "It's just a friendly visit."

"A friendly visit with a bunch of speciest humans that hate your guts," Jess replied in a half growl, balling her hands into fists.

Phobia nodded. "I'm glad I was clear."

Jess huffed and stomped a foot. "I've known you my whole life, and I still don't have a clue what goes on in your head sometimes!"

"That is likely a good thing," the Dreamwarden replied. "Would you be a dear and go put the cake lid on her cake and bring it out here? You may lower your sound barrier now as well. Our conversation is at an end."

Jess didn't verbally answer, she just threw her hands up in the air and stormed out of the room. An uneasy quiet settled over the room between me and the Dreamwarden after she left, and I wondered if I was supposed to be saying or doing something.

"Jess is a good girl," Phobia said, breaking the silence. "But she's still a fourteen-year-old with all the issues that come with that."

"She's just fourteen?" I asked in surprise. Jess definitely didn't look fourteen, she looked as old as me, or older.

Phobia chuckled. "A very mature fourteen, but still just fourteen, and don't let her try to fool you into thinking she's older, because she will try."

"I hear you, Phobia!" Jess shouted from the kitchen.

"I know," Phobia replied without raising her voice even a single decibel. "Perhaps you should spend some time with Rebecca for a few hours, since I need you away from the house anyway. Crystal can take you both to her house and can bring you back when the coast is clear."

Jess walked back into the room holding the cake in a container. "I was wanting to spend more time catching up with Jordan before I needed to get on a plane back home."

"She can join you as well. I will let my father and Amanda know. I prefer she not be around either for these guests. You'll have Crystal with you to defend you both."

Jess looked towards a window. "And your foals?"

"They'll be going to bed," Phobia answered.

"I guess my parents won't mind some unexpected guests," I added in. I wouldn't mind getting to spend a little more time with Jess as well, and I supposed meeting Phobia's little sister would be interesting too. It occurred to me just then that I hadn't thought of her as Miss Nightmares since she ordered me not to, and wondered if there was some subtle mind magic at work.

"I suppose it is okay then," Jess relented. "I'm still going to need a few minutes to cheer Jordan up after Moon kicked her flank."

I gave the partial human a confused look. "But you didn't get to see the fight, and you were rooting for her."

Jess just flicked both of her ears. Oh yeah, she heard everything in a certain range. She just had to choose to listen in. How did she sort through all those different sounds without it driving her crazy? Her manipulation of sound was such a cool bit of magic unlike anything I'd ever heard of, and I wanted to know all the stuff she could do with it. Melissa had a weird magic radar sense too, although it seemed to work differently than Jess's. Why did humans all get such cool magic and ponies just got basic stuff?

Well, I supposed mine wasn't basic, but there were other ponies, even if they were very few, that could do the same thing.

"Am I allowed to talk to Jess and Jordan about my powers?" I asked.

Phobia gave a lazy shrug. "Who you speak to about them is always at your discretion, at least since you ceased being a minor. We discourage you from making them public knowledge, but we can't actually ban you from talking about them with whoever you wish. I would classify Jess as generally safe when discussing such things. Jordan you might want to use a little more caution with, not that I don't trust my little sister, just that she is also a young teen and has never really been expected to keep any major secrets. If word gets out about what you can do it is ultimately your problem to deal with, not the OMMR's. That is all in the bylaws for your classification, you might want to re-read them. Don't tell about any others with the ability, that is not your secret to tell."

That made me feel a little embarrassed not to know. It seemed like one of those things I would have been extra super excited about when I turned eighteen. I just always assumed I wasn't allowed to talk about them because they always told me not to since they first manifested. That, and the fact that anyone inquiring from the OMMR about them were always denied access to knowing. I wasn't about to just go announcing it to everyone, but surely I could safely tell Maggie about them. I always felt bad keeping them a secret from her even though we were supposed to be best friends.

"You two really should be going now," Phobia reminded us. She then flapped her wings and crossed the room so she was behind Jess. "It was a pleasure meeting with you, Rebecca. I'll be in touch. Have a pleasant rest of your day." She then just walked off out of sight.

With our dismissal Jess and I just looked at one another and she shrugged at me. "At least she didn't monologue too much. She must have been distracted. Let's get going. Crystal is right outside the door and Jordan is still out in the yard. Arachne and Moon are sparring right now, so beware of falling night ponies when you go out the door."

That was such a cool ability.

Chapter 26: Girl Talk

Jess gave Crystal the list of Phobia's instructions when they exited the house. Crystal nodded and immediately began barking out orders to everyone present.

"Arachne, Charlotte, and Nightmare Moon, the three of you are to go to your rooms for the remainder of the day. Do not come downstairs or go flying off anywhere."

"Why? That's not fair!" Arachne complained with a savage beat of her wings. I was fairly sure that one was Arachne anyway, since she had a spiderweb for a cutie mark.

"Humanity First people are going to be here," Crystal explained. "All the foals need to be out of sight."

Charlotte, who had what looked like a heart in army camouflage as a cutie mark, joined her sister in objecting. "I can't believe Mom is bringing them here again. It's stupid talking to them. They're the enemy!"

The human that had been overseeing their fights pointed to the house. "You can question your mother's judgement all you wish, little filly, but you will not disobey her. Get in the house."

Charlotte glared back at the human. "I'm not little! I can fight, I can fly, and I have my cutie mark! I'm a young mare, and I shouldn't be told to go to my room while the grown-ups talk!"

"Enough of that!" Crystal yelled. "You're a minor living under your parents' roof, and shall continue to be one until you're eighteen. If you want to argue about how you're a young mare in five years when you can take off on your own you are free to do so at that point, but for right now you'll do as you are told."

Charlotte glowered at Crystal. "Can't wait until I'm old enough to join the army and get away from this stupid place."

"You're in for a nasty surprise when you get to boot camp if being made to follow orders bothers you so much," Crystal countered. "Consider being here pre-boot camp. With the way Tempest drills you now you should be at the top of your class at whatever fort you end up training at, if you can learn to follow orders without a fuss."

Charlotte stormed off towards the house with her sister hot on her hooves. "Whatever."

The human softened her expression and turned to Crystal. "I'll speak to her in a few minutes. Rosetta being out of town for an extended period is wearing on her more than the others. She's missing her primary confidant."

Crystal nodded and looked at the third of the trio, a colt with a moon and what looked like a big bandage over it for a cutie mark. He simply shrugged and started making his way to the house. He seemed the strong silent type, since he hadn't really said anything when I arrived either, or right before he started pounding away on Jordan's shield.

Jordan got up and started walking towards the house until Crystal stopped her. "Not you! You'll be going with Jess and me as she visits Rebecca here. The three of them need to be getting to bed soon anyway, so it isn't as if you'll have any company here."

The violet unicorn glanced at me then back at Crystal. "I'm fine with that. It gives me more time with Jessie. Will I be coming back here, or do I still need to get my stuff?"

"You'll be coming back, so feel free to leave it," Crystal confirmed. "Thank you for being cooperative, at least one filly around here can be counted on to do what she's told without a fight. I'm sure if Jackie were here she'd be giving me lip too."

"I'm cooperating," Jess objected.

Crystal looked up at her with one ear bent back. "You aren't a filly. Go ahead and get in the car. It's unlocked."

Jess, Jordan, and I all went to the car and filed into the back. Jess quickly buckled herself in and Jordan was quick finding her own harness and put it on with well practiced ease. Me, I once again was left trying to sort out what strap went to what.

"Let me help you with that," Jordan offered. Her horn lit up in a yellow light that matched her mane and the appropriate straps for the harness moved and buckled themselves around me.

"Thanks." I pulled to check if the harness was on too tight; which ended up not being the case.

"No problem," the unicorn filly happily replied. "You're a lot different than most of the people that come visit my eldest sis. What did you come visit her about?"

I nervously shifted in place. "Um, I can't really talk about it. It's kind of a secret."

The filly's face fell. "Oh… well, I understand. Most things end up being secret with Phobia. I know Jessie has like a million things she can't talk about."

"Not quite a million," Jess corrected. She then turned to me. "And I need to make a quick point, only Jordan, my older brother, and my parents get to call me Jessie, got it? Don't go calling me Jessie just because it's okay that Jordan does. To everyone else I'm Jess, or Jessica, or Doctor Middleton. No Miss Middleton's either, I earned my doctorate and want that respected."

I nodded. "Alright. I know ponies with pony names that only let certain people use their old human names, or no one at all, so it's not that different."

Jess relaxed. "It's actually very close to that. Everyone called me Jessie as a filly, and me switching over to Jess instead was kind of a symbolic gesture that I wasn't a pony anymore, at least to me. Jordan and I have a special history and friendship, so it doesn't upset me at all to hear her call me Jessie."

I looked between them. "Are you two like special-special friends?"

Jordan's eyes about popped out of her sockets. "What!? No, eww, no! I'm very-very straight, and not into humans either. I don't think I'm really Jessie's type either. She doesn't care if you are a mare, stallion, man, or woman, but she likes people who are really prissy or really tough."

"Jordan!" Jess screamed while turning red.

"Well, you do! There's nothing to be ashamed about for having preferences," Jordan said defensively.

"You just started noticing colts weren't just cootie factories a year or two ago, you barely know your own preferences," Jess shot back.

Jordan smiled dreamily. "I know there's this colt that sits in front of me in my pre-algebra class. He has the cutest stripe of blue that goes straight down his red mane. I don't think he even knows my name, but I wish he would notice me. Just because you can't date doesn't mean I shouldn't try to."

"Why can't you?" I asked. "I'm sure there are plenty of people that would find you attractive."

Jess crossed her arms and slouched in her seat. "Because if I tried dating someone my actual age I'd be called a pedophile, and if I tried dating someone who looked the same age as I do they would be a pedophile. It's a no-win scenario."

"How about you?" Jordan suddenly asked me. "Do you have a special somepony?"

I shook my head. "I don't really date."

Jordan pouted. "I'm the youngest person here and the only one interested in dating! I want someone to give me pointers on how to ask a guy out."

Crystal got into the driver's seat and looked back at the three of them. "How about you start by just going up to the guy and starting a conversation? Don't make it more complicated than it is. Jess, if the three of you are going to be chatting about that stuff all along the drive I would appreciate you putting up a sound barrier so you don't drive me nuts."

"Sure thing," Jess replied. Crystal cocked an ear, then nodded, and began putting the car in drive.

Jess then turned back towards me. "Okay, Crystal can't hear anything, and I'm ninety-nine percent certain that she can't read lips. You can tell us all about your secret powers now, if you want."

Jordan's ears shot up. "Wait, I get to hear something secret for once? This is like the fifth best day of my life!"

"If you can keep her secret to yourself instead of blabbing it out like you did with what I'm attracted to," Jess said in a short tone.

"I can!" Jordan asserted. "And anyone who spends a lot of time with you can figure out who you're attracted to. You do this thing where you stare at them for a long time and slowly lift your tail up. It's kind of obvious, so I didn't consider it a secret."

Jess glared at her tail like it was a traitor and then stuffed it in her lap without a word.

I looked at the two of them, feeling kind of put on the spot. I hadn't actually fully decided if I was going to tell Jordan yet, since Phobia had cautioned me about it, but now Jordan was expecting me to.

"It's easier for me to show you than to describe it," I answered. I then had a thought and lifted up my leg with the attached phone. "Hey, can I still be heard by the person on the other end of the line if you have your magic sound thing going?"

"If I allow it," Jess replied. "Sound behaves pretty much as I choose around me."

"I know I said it already, but that's a really cool power," I said in admiration.

She sighed. "It's okay, now that I have full control over it, but when it first manifested it was a nightmare."

"How bad was it?" I asked curiously.

She shook her head. "Sound just went berserk and chaotic around me. Everything would be at the wrong volume, or seem to come from the wrong place, sounds would mute or blast at random times, and we'd be treated to loud background noise that didn't seem to have any origin. I couldn't even hear people speaking to me because they were drowned out by the noise. It was also exceptionally energy efficient, so it didn't even stop from overuse. It was hell, and if I didn't have crystal ponies working to cancel things out it would have never quit at any hour of the day. It took from when I was eight till when I was ten to gain full control of it."

My ears sagged. "I'm sorry you went through that. When my own powers first started they were kind of scary, but they were nothing like that."

She gave me a small smile. "I had some great people that helped me through it. I'm really intelligent, and like to think I can figure everything out on my own, but everyone needs some support and help sometimes. Go ahead and make your call. I've got you covered."

I hit the autodial for Maggie and waited as the phone rang. It only took a few seconds for her to pick up. "Hey Bec, what's up?"

I took a deep breath as I committed to this. "Hey, do you have time to come over to my house right now? I have something I need to show you. Something I've been keeping secret from you, but I just found out I don't have to."

"What are you talking about?" She asked in a confused tone.

"You know I have an OMMR license, right? I wanted to show you exactly why."

"Okay, you got me curious, but you better not be trying to mind control me or anything."

I chuckled. "It's nothing like that. Don't worry."

"I'll head right over. I'm not doing anything right now that I can't procrastinate on a little."

"I'm on my way home now, and have some new friends with me that I'll be showing as well. If you beat me there I'll be there soon."

"New friends? People from the college?"

I absently shook my head. "No, a super genius human who has pony ears and a tail, and Phobia Remedy's little sister."

There was a pause. "Alright then… you sound like you've had an adventure today."

I giggled. "Yep, walked into the Warden of Fear's den and lived to tell the tale."

My two current companions both rolled their eyes at that. They might not think facing Phobia Remedy was a big deal, but it felt like one for me.

"I'll have to hear about this one," Maggie replied in a bemused voice. "I'll be over there shortly. See you soon."

I clicked off the phone and Jordan immediately spoke up. "If you're done with that, can we please get back to helping me figure out how to ask a guy to notice me? I need to figure out what to say when I talk to him!"

I laughed. "Alright, let's figure it out."

Chapter 27: Speaker from Beyond

Maggie was waiting in the driveway when we pulled up to the house. I watched her examining Jess carefully as we all filed out of the car, and wondered if there was any way to tell her to not comment on the fact Jess was a partial without Jess overhearing. Given Jess's powers that seemed basically impossible.

Jess was immediately distracted though, by Melissa waving at her across the street. The partial gave Melissa a baffled look, but waved back.

"Do you know her? She and her husband just moved in the other day," I explained. "I like them. She has cool powers and her husband is a cyberpony!"

"We've met a few times," Jess said slowly. "Kind of an odd coincidence to have them choosing across the street from you to live."

"The world is a weird and wonderful place," I said with a happy grin.

"Is that the old police chief?" Jordan asked as she followed our gaze.

"Yep," Jess replied quickly.

"She came by Phobia's house the other day," Jordan said as she looked out at the human across the street, then snorted. "I hadn't seen her in forever before that. I didn't find out why. Everything is secret with Phobia. It's so frustrating!"

Jess continued to stare and chewed her lip as she did so, and I could tell she knew what was going on.

"Let me introduce you all to Maggie!" I exclaimed, and trotted over to my best friend.

"You weren't pulling my tail about them," Maggie said as I reached her.

"You're human, you don't have a tail to pull," I replied smartly. I instantly realized that comment might have been insensitive to Jess, but it was already said now.

She stuck her tongue out at me for a second before replying. "Smart ass."

I stretched my grin out wider. "I’m a pony, not a donkey, but thank you for calling me smart."

"I'll boop your nose if you don't stop," Maggie said with a giggle. "Go ahead and introduce me to your new friends before you start going on about I'm about to sexually harass you by booping."

"Oww, but I had a great fake outrage all planned out," I pouted. I gave her my puppy dog eyes. No one can resist the puppy dog eyes.

She crossed her arms and leaned back against her car with a smile. "Not going to work, Bec. I know all your tricks. Come on, stop stalling, and introduce me. I want to get to hearing about this big secret."

"I wanna hear it too!" Jordan added in with a little hop.

"Okay," I replied in defeat, a little sad that my back and forth banter was being cut short. "Maggie, the unicorn here is Jordan. She's Phobia Remedy's little sister, so be nice to her or Phobia will get you."

"I don't have any magic, so she can't enter my dreams," Maggie pointed out.

I pointed to the car. "Well, she's got a really tough crystal pony bodyguard in the car there, and an army of night ponies to sic on you still."

"Point taken," Maggie replied. Then she smiled at Jordan. "Nice to meet you."

I gestured to Jess. "And this human here is named Jess- excuse me- her name is Doctor Jessica Middleton, and she's a super genius." I turned to Jess. "Um, I kind of forgot what your doctorate was in."

"I have a PhD in astrophysics, and am one of the leading experts in my field," Jess replied smugly. "I also have a masters in electronic engineering which I'm working towards a doctorate in, and planning on getting my mechanic's license as well."

Maggie blinked. "Okay, someone is an overachiever. How old are you if you accomplished all that? You don't look that old. You couldn't be older than twenty-five."

"She's fourteen," I answered before Jess could get a reply out, which made her scowl down at me.

Maggie stared at Jess for a moment, then turned to me and laughed. "Okay, nice prank. You had me going on the doctorate and all, but there's no way she's just fourteen. She's at least our age."

"She is fourteen!" Jordan insisted. "Go ahead and look her up on your phone, Doctor Jessica Middleton."

Maggie pulled out her phone. "I can call that bluff." She tapped her phone and spoke into it. "Wikisearch Doctor Jessica Middleton." She then looked at her phone's screen with a grin, which quickly dropped off as she blinked. "Holy sh-"

"Hey, no cussing. There are minors present!" I exclaimed.

"You've never heard what Jordan mumbles under her breath when Tempest is putting her through drills," Jess said with a chuckle.

"That's the only time I ever do that. I'm a good filly," Jordan protested.

"A good filly with a mouth like a sailor," Jess replied.

"I picked it up from you," Jordan countered.

Jess turned to her. "Oh, don't put that all on me. I know about those really smutty romance novels- and I use the term romance lightly- that you've been reading."

Jordan quickly looked away. "I read them for the plots."

"Riiiight…" Jess, Maggie, and I all said at the same time.

Jordan laid her ears back and glared up at Jess. "This is to get me back for what I said in the car, isn't it?"

Jess looked upwards and pursed her lips. "Possibly…"

"Are we even now?" Jordan asked.

Jess held out the palm of her hand to Jordan. "We're even. No hard feelings?

Jordan touched a hoof to Jess's palm. "No hard feelings."

"It's okay, Maggie actually writes that kind of stuff," I said while chuckling. Jordan's ears and tail instantly picked up as she turned to look at Maggie. "And to finish up the introductions. Jess and Jordan, this is Maggie. She's been my best friend for a few years. She is a graphic design major at my college, and she likes to write Star Trek fanfiction."

"Since introductions are all done now can we hear what this big secret is?" Maggie asked.

I pointed to the front door. "Come on inside." And began leading the group towards my house, with Crystal staying in her car. She hadn't seemed interested in leaving it.

My parents were both in the living room as I walked in. "Hey, how'd your meeting with Phobia Remedy go?" My mom asked.

I pointed to the group following me. "It was… interesting. I'll talk about it later. Meet my new friends Jess and Jordan."

"Pleased to meet you," my stepdad said as they walked in. He didn't even blink about Jess being a partial, but then again he just had a cyberpony and a human that magically turned into Wild Growth show up at the house the other day, and after that most things must seem normal. Plus he lived with me. "Can we get you anything to eat or drink?"

"Um, I'm fine," Jordan replied. Jess just shook her head.

I waited till everyone was in and the door was shut. "I'm going to be showing all of them my powers."

My parents exchanged a worried glance. "I'm assuming you have permission to do that, but are you sure that’s a good idea?" My mom asked.

I nodded. "I actually just found out that I have the right to tell whoever I want. I just have to deal with the repercussions myself if they tell other people. I trust my friends."

"Not throwing any shade on your new friends, and I trust Maggie completely, but Jess and Jordan haven't known you that long," my stepdad replied. "You know as a pony you can be a bit trusting."

"We understand," Jess spoke up. "We also hang around the Warden of Fear all the time and we are used to keeping secrets." Well, Jess was at least, but she didn't seem ready to out Jordan.

"I can keep a secret!" Jordan insisted. "Big sis Phobia lets me hang around her house all the time and I don't tell anyone about what goes on there." I chose not to comment on the fact that Jordan didn't seem to know much about what went on there to tell anyone. I was going to trust her though.

My mom still looked nervous about it. "Well, you're an adult, and it's your decision. Just be careful about who you tell."

"I will," I promised. I turned back to my friends. "Okay, take a seat and prepare to be amazed by the incredible magical marshmallow!"

Maggie and Jess both rolled their eyes, but went and sat down on the couch next to my mom. Jordan just sat down on her haunches where she was. I lifted up my leg and picked out a song to play from my playlist. I decided to go with something a bit different this time, as I thought I could zone out to something a bit more upbeat. I'd also been practicing a new trick and wanted to wow my parents.

I put on a song from David Bowie, Dance Magic, and listened to it as it started to play. Everyone gave me confused looks, even my parents, since this wasn't my normal zoning out type of song. I just smiled at all of them and started dancing with the music.

"I don't think your dancing qualifies as a major magic power," Maggie snarked.

"Hush, let me do my thing. I've got to get in the mindset and zone the world out." I said, and reset the song to play from the beginning, and put it on loop.

It took longer than it normally did, but it ended up working, and working with the extra effect that I'd planned. I was standing next to my body which was still happily dancing and shaking its rump along with the music.

"Oh my god, there are two of her!" Maggie shouted out. "I think the world is about to end, it can't take two of her."

"How's your body still dancing?" My mom asked. "You normally can't do that."

"I'm still zoned out in my own little world," I explained with a grin, they waved a wing straight through my dancing body at everyone.

"So… she can duplicate herself?" Jordan asked in confusion.

"It's a highly complex illusion spell of some sort," Jess replied. "That new version of her isn't really there. There's no sounds of breathing, heart beating, or even the sounds of dust hitting her fur. The only sounds coming from her is her voice."

"You can hear dust hitting a pony's fur?!" I asked in amazement.

Jess frowned. "Believe me, you don't want to know what I'm capable of hearing if I'm listening for it. Thankfully I can tune things out or I'd be listening to everyone's digestive tracts."

"Hmm, I might have a rumbly in my tumbly. I think you left my cake out in the car," I replied thoughtfully.

"I'll make sure you get it before we leave. Just don't ask me to focus on your rumblies," Jess said with a slightly pale face.

I let myself drift into the air, just kind of casually floating about. "I can do all kinds of things, float through the air, pass through walls, turn invisible, mute myself, change shapes. I just can't touch anything. I've got a pretty good range too. I don't need to stay near my body."

"So you could go invisible and spy on your neighbors in the bathroom," Maggie suggested.

"Eww! Why would I want to do that? That's nasty!"

"I'm not saying you would, just that you could," Maggie clarified, she then frowned at me. "You never used this to spy on me, did you?"

I shook my head. "No, I usually just go sightseeing around town, and I snuck into a movie theater once."

"Rebecca! That's technically theft!" My mom scolded.

"It was just one time," I asserted.

"And I chewed you out for it already," came a voice from beside me. "Having fun, Rebecca?"

I turned and saw Miss Seapony in her giant dragon-seapony form. "I just learned I could show my friends this. Why didn't you ever tell me I could after I turned eighteen?"

Miss Seapony spread her fins. "You never asked."

"Who are you talking to?" Maggie asked.

I turned back to my confused looking friends. "Oh! It's just Miss Seapony. She likes to talk to me when I'm doing this."

Maggie took a step back with her eyes as wide as they could go. "Miss Seapony as in Yinyu?"

I smiled. "Yep! I'm kind of in-between awake and asleep right now, and she can see what I can see and talk to me, and I can see her."

"She can see what you can see? As in she can see this room, and more notably- us, right now?" Jess asked with concern.

"Oh! I can see the gears turning in her head. Jessica is a smart one. She's about to figure it out," Miss Seapony said mischievously. "It's really interesting having to try to guess what someone is thinking based on their expression and what they say. I never get this experience in the dream realm. It's so exciting."

"Figure what out?" I asked in confusion.

"You're giving the undead Dreamwardens a view into the waking world; something that should otherwise be impossible," Jess answered in wonder. "Not only that, they can have you as kind of the middle-pony in a direct conversation with someone with no magic. Do you realize how big a deal that is?"

"And the girl has got it!" Miss Seapony said with a cackle.

I sat kind of dumbfounded. It had never once occurred to me that the Dreamwardens might want me because of my powers. I had always assumed it was just because I was a nice pony. My powers were just something to play with. I decided not to talk about that right now. That would involve revealing to Jordan and Maggie that the Dreamwardens wanted to make me a Dreamwarden too. I wasn't ready to share that with even Maggie yet.

Turning back to Jess I plastered my best smile back on my face. "I mean it's big yea, but in the grand scheme of things not that big. I mean have you seen my dance moves? Those are huge!"

"Well, swan princess, you might want to do something about your body," Maggie said while pointing.

I turned just in time to watch my body start dancing into the chairs in the dining area and knocking them over. That didn't stop it though. It kept on dancing all the same. Maybe letting my body just aimlessly dance without me in it to direct it hadn't been the best idea.

"I'll talk to you later," I told Miss Seapony, and then went back into my body and stopped dancing. My rump was actually sore, and I had a feeling it was because I'd been smashing it into things.

Turning back to everyone as a flesh and blood pony again I continued to grin. "Okay, that's my secret. So let's eat some cake now. I'm starving!"

Chapter 28: A Humble Request

Jess brought in the cake and I greedily tore into it, although I made sure to give a small slice to each of my friends… a small one.

"You are going to get diabetes yet, Bec," Maggie said as she watched me chomp through my cake. "I don't mean that to be mean. I just worry about you. Aren't you supposed to be on a diet?"

"I'm not sure that diabetes is a thing in ponies," I replied after swallowing the bite in my mouth.

"Well, it still can't be healthy," Maggie asserted. "You need to eat better."

"I stress eat! And you're not my mom," I fussed.

My mom walked over and took the now empty plate away. "But I am, and she's right. You really need to do better at your diet. Your pudge might be cute and cuddly, but it could lead to health problems. You could develop issues with your blood pressure, or you could wear out your legs from making them carry all that extra weight. I don't want you ending up miserable by the time you're my age."

"You do look kinda heavy," Jordan inserted.

"You too? Et tu Jordan?" I asked in exasperation.

"Et tu, Iordanis," Jess corrected, and I looked up at her. "The proper way of saying Jordan's name in that phrase and converting it to Latin in a classical form would be Iordanis. Classical Latin doesn't have a letter J, although the sound might come off sounding a lot like a Y."

"I thought you were like a rocket scientist, not a language professor," I grumbled.

"I studied Latin as a second language in high school," Jess replied.

"I think she's just finding things to complain about, Jessie," Jordan informed her friend.

Jess blushed. "Oh! Sorry."

"You normally don't get grumpy when you're stressed, so what are you stressed about?" Maggie asked. "Does it have anything to do with what Jess said was a big deal earlier?"

"I'm just a chubby pony you are trying to seperate from her food," I fibbed. It wasn't a total fib, as I didn't want people separating me from my food either. It just wasn't the main reason I was grumpy.

"I think I know what it is," Jess said.

"So what's bothering her?" Maggie asked.

Jess shook her head. "I can't really talk about it. It's Dreamwarden business, and Phobia would have a fit if I did, not to mention my aunt. I can understand how she's feeling, if I'm right about it."

"Urgh! Stupid Dreamwarden secrets, it's not fair," Jordan complained, stomping dramatically.

"Let's just change the subject," I said, and forced a smile on my face. "So, Jordan, other than getting frustrated about not ever getting to hear secrets, what's it like having a Dreamwarden for a big sister?"

Jordan plopped her rump down and shook her head. "People at school ask me that all the time. It really isn't that special. The school gets extra security because me, my sister Jackie, Moonie, Charlotte, and Arachne all go there. I also have to do those stupid self-defense drills with Tempest and Crystal all summer long, and on weekends."

"You'd do better at those drills if you would just fight back," Jess said sagely. "There isn't always going to be someone there to save you. You've got to learn to do more than throw up a shield and run."

"But I don't like to fight!" Jordan protested. She then got up and pointed at her cutie mark, an open book with a heart in it. "See, I'm just a reader of books. I don't want to hurt anybody. I'm going to be a teacher when I grow up, not some army soldier like Charlotte."

I decided not to brood on people getting hurt. "Well, besides all that. What's Phobia like around you? Does she behave more like a sister or is she still kinda like do what I say and don't argue about it?"

"Kinda both, I guess," Jordan replied. "She's only my half-sister, same with Jackie. Except Jackie and I have different biological dads and Phobia and I have different moms. I never met Jackie's biological dad, since he died before even she was born. I've met Phobia's mom; she's okay. She doesn't visit that much, but when she does she always takes time to teach me a new spell. She knows way more magic than my dad, or anyone else I know."

"Did she teach you how to make a shield?" I asked.

Jordan shook her head. "No, my dad taught me that one. He's really-really good at that spell, even if he doesn't really know many others. She taught me my word search spell, spells to heat things up, and she's helped me with my teleportation the last few times she visited. I want to get my teleportation license when I'm good enough to take the test. It still needs work though."

"Word search spell?" Maggie asked.

Jordan nodded. "Yeah, apparently all the big mages in Equestria know it. I can flip through a book with the spell and find particular words or phrases. It's really helpful in trying to find what I'm looking for in a book really quick."

"Auntie Sunset is very well versed in magic. It's good she takes time to share with you," Jess said with a grin.

"So you two are like cousins or something?" Maggie asked.

"That's not how cousins work," Jess said dryly. "Neither of us are blood related to Sunset Blessing, but Sunset Blessing did marry my aunt Arbiter, and she is Phobia's mom. We both just call her Auntie Sunset because she's kind of family and she likes us calling her that."

"She adopted Yinyu's foals didn't she?" I asked. "I don't know much about them. What are they like? What are their names?" It was a good chance to find out some more about Lántiān and her family.

"Sorry, but I don't really know them that well," Jordan replied. "Miss Lántiān and her daughter visit sometimes, but she tends to be very quiet when she does. I think she's an artist or something like that. There's a couple younger ones, like my age or younger, but they've only visited once or twice during big family gatherings, and I don't remember a lot about them. They stay with Auntie Sunset."

My eyebrows rose. "Lántiān has a daughter?" They gave me a funny look. "Sorry, I met her the other day, and she didn't mention it, and Miss Seapony never talks about her foals."

Jordan blinked. "Oh, well, yeah. I always forget her daughter's name, because it's some weird Chinese name. She's kind of cute, in the way little fillies are cute and adorable. She likes to bring everything she finds up to people and tell them all about the great thing she found, and I mean everything. Last Thanksgiving she brought one rock after another up to me and had to tell me where she found each rock and all about the shape and color of the rock, then she started doing the same thing with bugs. I wanted to tell her to go bother someone else, but she acted so proud about each thing that I couldn't bring myself to do it."

"If she's a little kid, kids do things like that," Maggie said with all the authority of her eighteen years. "Maybe she thought you were Twilight Sparkle, and was trying to impress you."

Jordan's ears shot up. "You think I look like Twilight Sparkle?"

"Well, you are both nerdy lavender ponies," Jess suggested.

"But she's got a completely different mane than me, and she's got wings, and she's much bigger than me," Jordan listed off. Then her eyes narrowed. "And I'm not nerdy! I'm hip! I'm cool! I've got the groove!"

"Okay, now you sound extra nerdy," Jess said with a laugh. "But don't worry. I'm a nerd too, and so is Twilight Sparkle. It's okay to be a nerd."

"You're just saying that because you've got multiple degrees, speak like a million languages, and have science websites interview you all the time," Jordan pointed out.

"A few corrections; I only speak eight languages, languages that I'll remind you that I took the time to study and learn the old fashioned way. If I just learned them by spell I'd probably have learned more, but I like learning things on my own. And those websites don't interview me all the time, just every once and awhile," Jess objected.

"Nerd!" I called out, then broke down laughing. Jess gave me the evil eye, but then smiled knowing I was only poking fun at her.

"So, enough of me, my freaky family, and my overachieving best friend," Jordan declared. She pointed a leg at me. "What do you do, other than have weird powers?"

I sat up straight. "I'm studying to be an architect. I'm about to enter my freshman year at the college."

"Architect?" Jordan asked. "Well, you jumped over me in the nerd category. There's no catching up to Jessie there, but you're firmly in second place out of all of us."

Maggie raised her hand. "I write Star Trek fanfiction. I think I should get some honor nerd points for that."

"She writes super-gay shipping between all the males," I added inwith a smirk.

Jordan's eyes lit up. "I really want to read some of it."

"I'm sure you do, you horny little pervert," Jess giggled. "It's okay to show her. No matter how perverted it is, I'm sure she's read worse. Just don't let her parents know she's reading that stuff. Her dad will flip his lid."

"I'm pretty sure my mom knows already," Jordan replied with a blush.

"Your mom isn't as old fashioned as your dad, and she realizes that you are getting to an age you have an interest in colts," Jess countered. "She also knows there's no way of keeping you from reading that stuff, and is probably just happy that reading is all you do. Your dad looks at you and sees his perfectly innocent little baby filly still."

"Hey, at least your parents trust you," I said. "My mom just insisted I get put on birth control, and I've never even gone on a date and don't have any plans on doing so anytime soon."

My mom, who had been silently reading on the couch, looked up. "I'm just making sure no accidents happen that end up making you have to quit college to raise a foal. You're a young mare, and young mares have certain urges. Did I ever give you the birds and the bees talk?"

"I knew about the birds and the bees already before you tried giving me it, remember?" I called over to her. "And there aren't going to be any accidents because there isn't going to be any sex. My only sexual relationship is going to be with my vibrator!"

"Whatever you say, dear. Just remember not to miss any of your pills," she replied, and went back to reading.

"Dad, back me up!" I called out to the kitchen.

"Just make sure you're taking your pills, Becky, and I won't ask any detailed questions about your love life," he responded. He paused for a second. "And please, don't give us details about your relationship with your toy. There are things no one needs to know, but you don't have much of a filter."

"Dad! Why is everyone betraying me today?" I fake sobbed.

"You're such a ham!" Maggie chortled.

"I have a serious question, Rebecca, and maybe a request," Jess said while looking down.

I stopped my dramatic display and cocked an ear. "Um, sure. What is it?"

Jess looked at the others. "Do you mind if she and I step away for a moment? This is kind of a personal thing."

Jordan's ears went full erect. "Are you going to ask her out?"

Jess did a double take. "What? No! I've got no interest in her like that. She's not my type and you know it. She's also four years older than me, if you hadn't noticed. This is about my aunt."

Jordan's ears fell immediately. "Oh… that I get. Well, maybe not exactly, but I get it's a really personal subject. Yeah, I don't mind you getting some privacy."

"We can talk in private," I replied while standing up. "Do you want to go outside or to my room?"

"Whichever you prefer, or we can just go into a corner and I can put a sound barrier up," she answered.

I walked towards the front door. "Let's sit out front then. My parents have a bench out there that will be more comfortable for you to sit on than any of the pony sized furniture in my room. You're pretty big, even for a human. How tall are you?"

She outpaced me to the door with her long legs, and opened it for me. "I'm six-foot-one, not counting my ears, and the tallest person in my family. Thanks for thinking about that. Pony furniture is so low I feel like I might as well be sitting on the ground half the time."

We walked outside and Jess shut the door behind us before going and sitting on my parents' red bench. I gave a quick flap of my wings and joined her on the bench a second after.

"So what's up? What about your aunt?" I asked.

She clasped her hands together on her lap. "You said you can change shape and sound while doing your powers. You can also see and talk to the Dreamwardens at those times too. Is that all correct?"

I blinked. "Um, yeah, but why is that important?"

She took a deep breath and gripped her hands tighter together. "My dad is coming to pick me up tomorrow and fly me back home the next day. My older brother and I pass messages back and forth between my aunt Arbiter and him, but it isn't the same as him getting to actually see and talk to her."

I shook my head. "I see where this is going, but it won't work. I can't make her visible or anything like that. I can only adjust myself. I can't even make a dream construct like a dream cupcake unless I was turning myself into a cupcake."

"But could you mirror her?" Jess asked. "Copy what she looks like, sounds like, does, and says? She could be present with you and you could just repeat back what she says while imitating her body and voice."

I frowned. "Maybe? If she talked really slow, and sat really still. I know I could make myself look and sound like her, but am kind of iffy about imitating the rest. I've never tried something like that. I'd have to have her permission too, since I think impersonating a Dreamwarden might be illegal or something."

"I'm sure she'd agree, and it would mean a lot to my dad if he could have a more direct conversation with her. I know going through you isn't direct, but it is as close as he can get when he has no magic."

I looked back and forth. Then whispered. "Wild Growth came to my house the other day in disguise, and she used her disguise thing to give my dad a tiny bit of magic. Couldn't your dad do that? That way he could just talk to Arbiter just like you or I can."

She narrowed her eyes. "What kind of disguise?"

"She looked like a human. She turned my dad into a pony for a few minutes," I explained. "You seem to be in on all the secret stuff."

She closed her eyes and brought a hand up to pinch the bridge of her nose. "I wasn't in on that. Of all the secretive Area fifty-one bullshit-" She took a breath, released her nose, and opened her eyes. "I suppose I can't complain too much. I'm involved with plenty of secret crap that the public would have a cow if they found out about. Still, I'm upset. My dad has been on a waiting list for volunteers to test temporary transformation magic for years, and here they have some method already developed that can do it without a team of unicorns by someone that can't even channel magic!"

My ears dropped. "Sorry, I didn't mean to upset you."

She shook her head. "I'm not upset at you, and I really don't have a right to be upset. Just don't assume because someone is made aware of some secrets that they've been made aware or were supposed to know other secrets. It will get you in trouble. I wasn't supposed to be aware they were that far along in developing that magic. I'm wondering if there are even new tests being run or they are just pretending there are."

"So… do you still want to try the thing where I act like I'm your aunt?" I asked.

She nodded. "We are just going to pretend I don't even know about the other thing and no one will get in trouble about that. My dad won't find out that they've been basically pretending they needed volunteers for no reason and he'll probably never get a call to do it. So, yeah, I still want you to act as a link to her."

"We'd still need to talk to her first, and warn your dad about what we planned on doing. He might not be okay with it," I said, trying to be as cautious about this as I could. "I'd like to be incognito if we were going to do this. You can say a friend is doing it, but not me specifically or how I'm doing it. My mom and dad are right, I need to be careful about telling too many people I just met or don't know well. I also can't promise I'm going to do great at this, since I've never tried it before."

"I understand, and I'll make that clear to my dad," Jess replied with a nod. "We can talk to my aunt about it together tonight when we're sleeping. I'm pretty sure she'll say it's okay, and I'll talk to my dad about it when he arrives tomorrow. I'll give you a call to let you know what he says and we can arrange someplace private for it if he says yes."

I held out my leg with the phone and she pulled her phone out of her pocket and held it up to it. We heard the little ding that confirmed numbers had been exchanged and she put her phone away while I put my leg down.

"You know," she said while glancing at Melissa who was still watching us from across the street. "You being able to do something like what I want you to do with my dad might be one of the main reasons the Dreamwardens want you as one of them."

I stared down. "I thought of that after you made a big deal out of it. I feel stupid for not realizing it before. I also don't know how I feel about it. Before now I always thought it was because of my personality and that I was a nice pony. Hearing that it might be because of powers that happen to come with the package kind of makes me feel… I don't know."

She nodded. "I get it. You don't have to tell me who else has powers like you do, but Phobia implied there are others. Those others aren't at the top of their lists, so it isn't just your powers they're looking at."

"I guess," I muttered, not feeling completely reassured. Though it did bring up the question of why weren't they talking to Josie. Josie had the same powers as me, even more powers than me actually- and stronger, but she wasn't ahead of me.

"Why'd you say you wouldn't want to be a Dreamwarden?" I asked.

She leaned back and fluttered her lips. "Well, for starters, it's not something I really have an interest in. On top of that, they've shared lots of knowledge with me over the years, and a lot of it is extremely unpleasant. I know that even then they are holding things back, possibly much worse things. I don't want to know those things. Then you take in the fact you get to see all the suffering people go through but don't tell or show anyone- I just couldn't do it. If you can, then more power to you."

We watched as Crystal got out of the car and walked over to us. "What are you two conspiring about? I can feel the sound barrier is up, and I felt some odd magic earlier that I've only felt a time or two before. Pretty rare stuff, that magic, and I know it didn't come off of Jess or Jordan."

"We were just having normal teenager talk," Jess replied sweetly.

Crystal snorted and smirked. "You ain't a normal teenager and I have a feeling she isn't either, but I'll let that go. Mind if I come in? Boss lady still isn't ready for us to return and I'm getting kind of bored out here in the car."

"Sure, I think Jess and I are done out here anyway," I said as I hopped down from the bench.

Jess stood up. "And I need to intervene with Jordan before she gets herself too excited reading whatever Maggie wrote."

As we all headed back inside I continued to wonder what the Dreamwardens wanted me for, and whether I wanted to be one myself.

Chapter 29: Parental Reassurances

Eventually, Jess, Jordan, and Crystal were called back to Phobia's house. Phone numbers and promises to keep in touch were exchanged, and Maggie headed home as well. That left me alone with my parents, who had burning questions that they couldn't ask in front of guests. I knew those questions were coming when they started turning all the electronics off that were hooked up to the internet.

My parents sat down on the couch together. This was bad, that meant they were getting ready to form a unified front against me. I took up a spot on my throw pillow on the ground across from them.

"So…" Mom began. "I remember that partial woman, Jess, from the clinic. You had a conversation with her there. I didn't think much of it at the time, since you always seem drawn to speaking to unusual people, but it doesn't seem like it was just a one time meet with her."

I shifted a little. "She's a friend of Phobia Remedy's. She's really smart, and can do all kinds of things with sound. She was there when I was speaking with Phobia Remedy, and she heard all of it, but kept everyone else from listening in. She's also fourteen, but no one ever explained to me why she looks like she's twenty-something. I really should have asked. You kind of forget about it when you're looking at her. She doesn't like being called a partial either, she's rehumanized from being a full pony, just like you mom."

Mom brought a hand up next to her lilac colored eye with a considering expression. Maybe she was considering if she counted as a partial too, since she had a single eye that was pony colored. At what point did any human with pony features go from being a human to a partial in other people's eyes? I wondered if anyone ever called Mom a partial because of her one eye. I'd never asked about it before.

"Just be careful about telling people your secrets," Mom finally said. "We all worry about you. Your father and I have had a lot of talks about your safety in the past, and so have I and Yinyu."

My ears shot up. "You talk to Miss Seapony? Since when?"

She gave me a deadpan look. "Since way back when I first became aware she was visiting you regularly. She doesn't visit me as often as she does you, but she still takes time to talk to me a few times a month. Do you think I'd have let her spend so much time with you if she didn't take time to talk to me once and awhile?"

"I never really thought about it," I replied honestly. I was finding there were more and more things that I'd never thought about that seemed obvious to others. How many things were there that I still hadn't realized that everyone else around me already had?

Stepdad pulled out an old electronic tablet and turned it on. My mom raised an eyebrow at him and he explained. "This thing has no microphone, so it can't pick up anything said. I was going to check some things." He then started entering some information into the tablet.

Mom watched him for a second then turned back to me. "Back to the main conversation. What happened at the Dreamwarden's house?"

I rubbed a wing against the back of my head. "We talked about how Dreamwardens inherit traits and things from previous Dreamwardens, and she watched how I reacted to that. She kind of deliberately guided the conversation into one that would upset Jess, and then let me be the one to try to soothe her."

"Deliberately upsetting the poor girl sounds kinda like a jerk move," Mom replied with a grimace.

"I thought so too, but she said this was something that could fester and make Jess depressed if it wasn't taken care of," I explained. "I can't really talk about it, since it's kinda her private business. I probably shouldn't have even mentioned it was her that was upset."

Mom nodded knowingly, and smiled at me. "We understand, and it's a good practice to not be giving out any private information. It is always important, but it's especially important if you're going to be in a position where you have easy access to people's secrets and they need to trust you."

"Wow!" Stepdad suddenly shouted. They both turned to him as he looked up. "I just found out that they're making a movie about your friends Jess and Jordan."

I cocked an ear and stood up. "Really?"

He nodded and turned back to his tablet. "It's loosely based on their experiences during the Cataclysm of Riverview. They're going to be taking some artistic license with it, and I think they're aging them up for the sake of the movie a little, since it has some action sequences that would be too intense to have small foals do. The actors playing them are both preteens and they'd have been much younger than that back then. That Jess girl as a pony is supposed to be the main hero of the movie."

"Phobia did say her foals and sisters were saved by Jess way back when, but didn't say how," I replied. "When's it supposed to be coming out?"

He scanned down the webpage. "Summer next year, it has a pretty big production budget too, but I guess that makes sense if it is supposed to be during the Cataclysm. That would be a lot of special effects. Has a pretty big named supporting cast as well, aside from the foals. They even got Leta Ortega to play Wild Growth. Looks like they are trying for it to be a blockbuster."

"We'll have to check it out when it comes out," Mom said with a smile. "What's it called?"

"Shadow of Demeter," Stepdad answered.

"Noted," Mom replied. She then turned her attention back to me. "What else happened? You were pigging out on cake pretty hard when you got in, and that means you were upset."

I stared downward. "I can't tell you the exact details, but she had a third test for me after those two things, and I failed that one. She told me about a bad thing that could happen, and talked about this old doll- maybe I shouldn't talk about the doll. Anyway, if this bad thing happened she said that Dreamwardens had a responsibility to do something, and the thing was something I said I wouldn't do."

She gasped. "So you aren't going to be a Dreamwarden now?" My stepdad was now focused on me instead of the tablet.

I shook my head. "I don't know. She says it was brave of me to tell her the truth instead of just saying what she wanted to hear. I even told her I understood why the thing was necessary, and agreed with her about it, but it just wasn't something I could bring myself to do. She said I wasn't disqualified, and that she would continue to consider my candidacy, right before sending me home. I'm not sure if she was just being nice about it. I wasn't even at the top of her list of candidates anyway."

"Oh my baby, I'm sorry to hear that!" Mom gasped. "She just doesn't see how special you are."

"It's okay," I replied quietly. "After talking to her, and after talking some with Jess, I'm not sure I want the job anymore. There's so many dark and unpleasant things about the Dreamwardens- that's just not me."

"You don't want to be a Dreamwarden anymore?" Mom asked, seeming more concerned. "I'll support you no matter what you want to do, but you haven't been living under a rock, so that there are unpleasant things involved with the Dreamwardens shouldn't be news to you, but it never made you not want to be one before. What else has changed?"

I crossed my forelegs and laid my head down on them. "There was that thing Phobia wanted me to say I'd do. There's also how Maggie reacted to Miss Seapony being able to see her. She was afraid. Miss Seapony never hurt anyone as a Dreamwarden, but even still people are afraid of her. I don't want people to be afraid of me like that. The last thing is I'm wondering if they just want me for my powers."

My parents looked at each other then turned back to me. "Sweetie, while your powers might have been part of why the Dreamwardens wanted you, I think the greater part of why they wanted you is that you aren't like them, and that's very important."

"They're all different from one another already," I said dismissively.

"Yes, and so are you, and you aren't giving yourself credit for what you bring that they can't," Mom said firmly. "You're right, a lot of people are scared of Dreamwardens. For a long time now, dreams have become something else than what they were before ETS, they've lost their innocence. That's what you bring with you that the Queen of Nightmares and the rest can't bring, making dreams something to be loved and not feared again. You can bring back the wonder for dreams."

I looked up at her. "But… Arbiter has been trying to-"

"Arbiter is focused on utility not joy, and she's no innocent," Mom said forcibly. "I've talked to every one of them I could in my dreams, which is all of them except the Warden of Fear and the Warden of Peace. None of them are the types for that. You've got one obsessed with sex, another that died in a genocide, another who attempted murder, and the Warden of Order is nothing but a glorified accountant. None of them are the types to make dreams into dreams again."

I flicked an ear and looked at her straight-faced. "The Warden of Order is a glorified accountant?"

"That's what you took out of all that?" Stepdad asked in shock.

I shook my head. "Well… no, but I think that surprised me the most. I never met the Warden of Order, and they've always been kind of mysterious. It kinda kills the mystery to learn they basically are the dream god of doing taxes."

Mom touched her fingers to her forehead and breathed. "Aside from the fact that you just learned that he is really boring-"

"Now I learned he's a he! I'm learning all kinds of stuff about him today!" I said with a grin. I then let my grin fall. "All that stuff is great, and I appreciate you saying all those nice things about me. Even if that was all a hundred-percent true I'd still have reservations about this. You don't know what Phobia suggested was necessary, and that's going to mess with me for a while."

"So are you just going to decline the offer if they say you're definitely the one?" Mom asked. "Again, I'll back you no matter what, but I think it might be a mistake to turn this down. This is your future we are talking about, and how you can impact the future."

I stood back up. "I don't know. Psychic Calm hasn't even officially announced he's retiring yet. So it isn't like I have to say yes or no tonight. I don't even know if I'll be the pick after today, so all this stressing might be about nothing." I smiled again. "But I do know that my first semester of college starts in a few days and it's going to be exciting! I'm going to pretend that's all I have to worry about. That and getting to where I can stick a perfect landing flying down from the balcony of my dorm."

Mom stood up, and clapped her hands once. "And we were planning on helping you get your stuff together before today went all weird." She walked over and bent down beside me. "My baby, all grown up and going off to college! I never thought we'd get here when we were living in our car. I'm really proud of you."

"Stop it, Mom. You're going to turn me pink," I giggled. She pulled me into a hug and I leaned into her. "Thanks for always believing in me. I'm going to make some awesome places for people to see."

"I know you will. You have always been meant for great things," she whispered in my ear. Then released me and smiled as she ruffled my mane. "Now let's go work on packing what we can. You can deal with that thing in your pillow."

"Uh… I might wait until tomorrow to pack it."

She sighed and stood up. "I didn't need to know that. Don't forget to take your pills!"

I laughed one more time. "Anything you say."

As we were going off to my room to pack it occurred to me that my mom had just told me that she had a lot of contact with just about all the Dreamwardens. It seemed from what she was saying it was a lot of contact. She never really talked about this with me, and neither had Miss Seapony. Heck, my mom knew more about the Warden of Order than anyone else aside the Dreamwardens, or at least it seemed so. So what had she been talking about all this time, and why was I just finding out about it?

It didn't matter. If it was important either she or Miss Seapony would have told me already. They loved me, and wanted the best for me. She was probably just being a protective mother.

Chapter 31: One Last Dream Before School

After practicing my imitation of Arbiter for a while, I reached a point I could fairly convincingly mimic Arbiter's appearance, her voice, and even match her facial expressions- for the most part. What I wasn't so great at was keeping my eyes on whoever I was supposed to be talking to, and ended up watching Arbiter instead. In theory, I should be able to alter my form in a way it appeared I was looking in the correct direction, even if I wasn't, but theory and practice were two very different things. Ultimately, we decided I was good enough at it, and Jess's dad would just have to understand his sister's mime might end up staring off at what seemed like nothing.

If my career as an architect didn't pan out, I could rest easy knowing that I could still make it as the best darn Elvis impersonator ever. Uh-huh huh. Thank you very much.

Jess eventually needed to return to regular sleep; since she wasn't a dreamwalker, that meant her mind wouldn't get a good night's rest while she was in a shared dream. Once Arbiter was satisfied that no further progress to be made in our routine, she and her temple left as well, and that meant it was Miss Seapony's turn to visit.

The dream shifted, to an endless star-filled expanse, and Miss Seapony appeared in her standard seapony form.

"I understand you have some questions and concerns for me," Miss Seapony said in a solemn tone.

I fluffed my wings, trying to appear larger, even with my rotund shape. "Yeah, I do. Why did you think I would in any way be okay with killing you!"

"Technically, I'm already dead. Therefore you wouldn't be killing me. You'd simply be erasing me, along with Arbiter, Ghadab, and whatever Dreamwarden proved to be a threat- if it wasn't already one of the three of us," she replied. She said it so casually that she may as well have been discussing the weather, or what she had for breakfast, instead of being erased from existence.

"You're still alive, even if your body is dead, " I protested. "I don't want you to die."

She gave me a sad look. "Rebecca, have you ever considered that Ghadab, Arbiter, and I might want to be erased at some point? Even if there were no Dreamwarden that became dangerous, the time would still come when we would wish to depart. Eternal existence might be something fools long for, but for those of us that can remember living for far too long, it is the worst thing you could do to us."

I teared up. "Don't say things like that."

She touched a fin to the side of my face. "I'm in no hurry to end my existence, but I know it is a goal I intend to reach someday. The Eternal Dream might be better than it once was, but it is still a prison, much like the one we are in now. I wish to escape this prison someday, and I don't intend to trade one prison for another. In truth, my days are already numbered. Arbiter is on a countdown to when she must be erased or go into the Eternal Dream, and when the time comes, Ghadab and I intend to help see she gets to go free."

I shook my head. "You might change your mind."

She nodded. "Indeed, that is possible. We will deal with that when the time comes. I do not think there will be another corrupt Dreamwarden, like Sha'am, again in that span, so we have time yet. I know that, for right now, I don't want to have the same fate as my poor lost sister."

I sat down. There was nothing to sit on, but that didn't matter here. "You talk about being able to help people forever is such a terrible thing."

"It is, and that is why we do everything we can to make sure those of us who are still able to wake get to retire to Equestria, " she replied. "Try to understand. I am a prisoner here. I have three options; go to another prison, stay in this one, or cease to exist. While here, I get to see everyone I ever loved and cared for pass away in a world I can no longer touch. I get to experience the pain of loss generation after generation. We had forebearers that watched their entire species pass into the void. At some point, it needs to end. I wish to pass on as a loving and caring person, not one that has had every ounce of compassion crushed by endless losses. Even in my few short years that I've been a Dreamwarden, I've had my joy diminished. There was no Dreamwarden so devoted and loving as Joss, but even he was warped into a monster by despair. I won't be another Joss."

"But, you want me to be a Dreamwarden? That’s why you’ve spent all this time visiting me, right?" I asked accusingly. "Won't I lose my joy, if that's the case?"

She stared down at me. "I think not. You won't have to endure the same hardships I did, and you will get to retire happily to Equestria when your time comes. We have been going through- growing pains- in our first few years. It is time we moved past the misery. We need your joy. We need your optimism. I used to be the one to try to bring some of that, but these past fourteen years have not been kind. Now the best I can do is compassion."

That brought me to my other concern. "And my powers didn't play a role in me being picked?"

"Your powers helped differentiate you from other individuals with similar character traits, " she answered. "Just like your character traits help differentiate you from others with similar powers. You are high on our lists because of many factors, not merely any one thing."

I shook my head. Her reasons for wanting me didn't matter in the end. "Well, I won't kill, and Phobia wants me to, so I guess I'm not up for this job."

She tilted her head. "That's too harsh. You say it like she's looking for opportunities to knock us off. She simply wants us to be prepared to do what we must to protect against another Sha'am. Do you think that disqualifies you? Why?"

One of my ears tilted at a similar angle to her head. "Because I won't do what is necessary if there was a rogue Dreamwarden. That's why."

She smiled kindly. "Silly filly, you misread what Miss Nightmares was testing you on with that question."

My ears perked up again. "So, she doesn't really want me to help kill you if a Dreamwarden went rogue?"

Miss Seapony waved a fin. "Oh, she does want that. My sister doesn't lie."

I blinked. I then flicked my ears to make sure they were clear because I wasn't sure we were discussing the same thing. "Then how could I have passed her test?"

Miss Seapony giggled. "First, you're a little confused about a detail; failing a test from one of us does not instantly disqualify you- although that might lessen your standing in rankings. Second, she already knew you were unwilling and didn't need to test you on that."

I remembered something Phobia said."So- was she testing to see if I would lie?"

"In part, " Miss Seapony answered. "She wanted to see if you would stand up for what you feel is right. She wanted to know if you would let your morals cave under intimidation and the desire to please others. She wanted to see if you'd dissent or if you'd be a pushover. That is something I struggled with in my early days as a Dreamwarden- all of us did- aside from Sha'am. You stated your position clearly and stood your ground. We're all happy to see you not fall into the same trap."

I tried to wrap my head around this. "But I disagree with her- and you too!"

She nodded. "And that's good. One line of thought shouldn't dominate us all. We need members that will stand up and say I disagree, and we need to find another way. Hopefully, those voices can suggest alternative actions. It doesn't mean those voices will always get their way, but we must be made to stop and consider our actions instead of just following the leader."

"Don't Dreamwardens all agree to do the same thing?" I asked.

"In the end, yes, after everyone expresses their opinions, and we have a vote, " she answered. "Sometimes we even have to include non-Dreamwardens in those votes, because no majority can be reached- and sometimes we have to debate who those third-party votes should come from. It can get very drawn out."

My ears wilted. "That doesn't sound very fun at all. Why have you never talked to me about these things? Shouldn't I already have known about all this?"

She settled at a lower elevation. "I'd have informed you sometime during your training if I had lived, and I'm telling you now." Miss Seapony then frowned. "There is another thing you need to be warned about; votes are binding for the newer Dreamwardens. If a vote doesn't go the way you want it to go, you're still bound by that vote. You can argue for a new vote all you want, voice your displeasure with the decision all you want, but you will comply- the oaths give you no choice in the matter."

I flinched back. "So if a vote were called for eliminating a rogue Dreamwarden, I would have to help with that if the vote said we do it?"

She nodded. "Indeed. Ironically, if it is a newer Dreamwarden, they'd be compelled into assisting with their destruction as well. That makes it more likely we would simply shift them to the Eternal Dream or banish them into Equestria, and a vote for eraser would essentially be a vote to assist a suicide. Only me, Phobia, Psychic Calm, and Ghadab lack that oath and can defy votes… well, and Luna, although she gets into very complicated territory."

"So when Phobia is talking about voting to kill a rogue Dreamwarden, she's talking about that rogue being one of the original six?"

"Remaining original six, which will be down to just three once Psyche-Wikkie is gone," Miss Seapony replied miserably, and tears filled her eyes. "We were supposed to keep each other company for eternity, but now half our number are gone, in only a little over fourteen years. I'm not sure if that is a sad or happy thing. I've been told Krik is enjoying his retirement, and I hope Psy does as well."

"You've gained Arbiter and whoever the Warden of Order is, " I reminded her.

"Yes, I have, " she agreed. "And like all my fellow Dreamwardens, they are dear to me." She dried her eyes and looked at me again. "That reminds me; you shall soon start getting visits."

I blinked. "Visits?"

She nodded. "The United Nations will be appointing a psychiatrist to meet with you. Equestria shall have Luna evaluate you. Ghadab will pick a time to visit you in your dreams, and the Warden of Order shall find time to see you in person. All of them will judge you, just like Phobia, Arbiter, and I have already. You aren't the only candidate and not the only one receiving these visits. I am visiting another of the candidates as we speak, and I'm making judgments about them."

I forgot she wasn't tied to being in just one dream at once. "What are they like?"

She shook her head. "That isn't something you are permitted to know. This candidate is one that Ghadab favors heavily, and without getting into details, I can see why. Just like you, they have valuable traits they could contribute to our ranks- just different things than you."

I signed and frowned. "I hate feeling like I'm competing against others. I've just never got into the whole competitive spirit thing."

"It's an interview process, and interviews are inherently competitive, " she said with a knowing smile. "Concern yourself only with you. For right now, you still lead."

I bit my lip and looked into her eyes. "And if I decide I don't want to be a Dreamwarden?"

"Then, no one will make you one. I hope you don't decide that, but that is your choice to make," Miss Seapony answered in a solemn tone. "You have time to consider that- just like we have time to consider you. There are a few months yet before the decision must be made. This won't be like Arbiter, where we had to decide yes or no at the spur of the moment."

I chuckled. "She must have been an amazing candidate."

That made Miss Seapony laugh out loud. "Not really, there were so many better candidates. She was chosen out of grim necessity. Arbiter was in the worst place at the worst of times with the worst job to do for us- which is how she ended up dead. I love her no less for being a subpar candidate, and she has done well with her position. She may well have been a better candidate than me. I love Luna as well, but I found Luna's choices to be rushed, and her decision to only choose night ponies was probably not a wise one- in retrospect." She shrugged. "But, we all sometimes make mistakes. Every bad decision looks far more obvious several years after the fact. We just have to do our best to learn from mistakes."

Well, at least I had time to sit down honestly and think about whether I actually wanted to do this. I had considered the drawbacks before, but never to this extent. I had anticipated some of them, but the amount I knew about had grown considerably. I'm an optimist, but there's being optimistic and then being just plain dumb. They wanted my happy disposition, but I needed to be confident I could be happy as a Dreamwarden. If I couldn't, then I was just a mistake waiting to happen. It was reassuring they all thought that I wouldn't be a mistake- and they saw and knew a lot more than me- but even they could make errors in judgment.

"Perhaps you should let yourself dream regularly for the rest of the evening, " Miss Seapony suggested. "You've had a stress-filled day, and your dreamwalking tonight has only added to it. Even dreamwalkers need to let their minds rest from time to time. You've got a very busy day coming tomorrow."

I grinned. "That I do. I've got the first day of school jitters."

"I hope you have a lot of fun with this new stage in your life, " she said enthusiastically. "I hope you meet lots of new friends, learn lots of new things, and maybe have some fun with a guy or two."

I turned pink. "Miss Seapony! Not you too!"

"What? I'm the Warden of Lust, and you aren't a kid anymore. It's part of my job to talk to you about this. You also have way too much natural libido to stay a virgin forever- at least not happily, " she replied firmly. "I'm not saying go jumping right into bed with someone, or to actively seek a relationship, but you should be more open to the idea of having a romantic relationship. Having a loving partner that you can lean on makes life better, and your burdens feel less heavy. Ask Miss Nightmares how miserable she'd be without Rosetta."

"Or- just making a suggestion, so hear me out- you could use your Dreamwarden powers to take away my libido, " I suggested in a sheepish tone.

She gave me a deadpan expression. "No."

"You do it for other ponies, " I pouted.

"Other ponies make a case that they are actively hurt by something involving their sexuality. You don't have any legitimate claim for that. You're just going to have to deal with things the same way most people do."

"But-"

"Rebecca, get some regular sleep, or I'll dump you in a dream that makes you squeal so much that sex will be all you'll be able to think about for the first half of the day."

I fled straight back into my regular dream.

Chapter 32: The Next Phase of Life

I woke up before my alarm had a chance to go off, feeling nervous and excited. Move-in day had finally come. This was the last day for a while that I would be waking up in this house. It occurred to me tomorrow was going to be the first time I'd be waking up in a place without at least one of my parents a room or two away. I'd never been away from both of them for even a sleepover or school trip. Sometimes my mom had to leave for a few days, but I still had my stepdad with me. Tomorrow I'd be waking up with Julie and Nightscape.

I was still in bed thinking about the day when the music started playing to start my day. The station I had it set to in the morning usually played bouncy and upbeat songs, which were great for me to dance along to as it set the tone for the day. Today it chose to play something different. Today the somber tones of a Green Day song came over the airwaves. Even though it wasn't my usual fare, I still found myself singing along. It wasn't something to dance to, but it was the perfect song for my mood. I silently thanked whoever the DJ was who chose to shake things up this morning.

"-take the photographs and still frames in your mind."

Yeah, it was the song I needed this morning.

I did a small jump as my phone started ringing. Who could be calling me this early in the morning?

I answered the phone. "Hello? Who's this?"

"It's Jess. Sorry for the early call. I hope I didn't wake you."

I relaxed. "It's okay; I was already up—today's move-in day. Did you already talk to your dad?"

"Yeah, he's nervous, but he wants to do it. I explained to him how it works, but didn't tell him who you are. When is a good time for you to do it?"

That was a good question. "I'm not sure. I'm going to be busy almost all day, and I'm sure there'll be stuff I'm doing even after I'm all moved in. Maybe sometime very late tonight? Perhaps around eleven? I'd generally be asleep by then, but I figure it might be hard to fall asleep anyway tonight, in a new place and all."

"That works. Will your ability be able to reach Phobia's house from your dorm?"

"Yeah, that's no problem. I can reach most places in the city. I'll call you if there's going to be any problems."

"I appreciate you doing this, Rebecca."

I smiled. "I'm glad I can do something good for your dad." I stopped smiling. "Hey, Jess? What's it like? Moving into college and being away from home?"

She laughed. "I think you forgot I'm only fourteen, and thanks for that." Her voice got more mellow and wistful. "I never moved into a dorm. I still live with my parents. I've never been away from my family aside from a sleepover or two. Even when I'm visiting here, I'm still with my brother. I'm also guessing my general college experience with classes would be radically different from what you'll have. Sorry for not being much help."

"I've never even had a sleepover."

I heard her tongue click. "Really? Well, my first one ended with being chased by crazed ponies, having the city blow up, and getting skewered like a pony shishkabob. I think it's safe to say your first time away from home should go better."

City blowing up? I knew what event she was talking about, the Cataclysm. "You must have been little when that happened. Do you remember it well?"

I could hear her licking her lips. "It's funny the stuff I remember and the stuff I don't. I can remember so much of my early childhood- or foalhood, as it were. What I can't remember well is myself as a foal during it. That day is an exception to that. Every detail about that horrible day is preserved, perfectly etched in my memory, including me. I still have nightmares about it that play like a horror movie in my head, and it never gets less frightening. Sometimes, things happen when I'm awake that will trigger some memory of it, and I find myself there again, a scared little foal with my entire world imploding around me."

"I heard they were making a movie about what happened to you."

She let out a long breath. "You heard about that? Yeah, I know. They paid my parents a lot of money to interview me and have me tell them what happened. My parents almost refused to let them, but I agreed to it. They had to have a counselor standing by to help me get through it, but they heard everything from my perspective. I'm sure they'll take some liberties with it, and that's fine. It's not like I'm not going to go see it so I can have a panic attack. My parents needed the money, that's the only reason I agreed to recount what happened to all the writers. My parents sacrificed so much for me; they deserve to get something back."

My ears folded. "I'm sorry all that bad stuff happened to you."

"Bad things happen, and if you're lucky, life goes on," she replied. "That does remind me, I wanted to tell you something about what you and Phobia were talking about the other day that you refused to do. Something from experience. I know I'm younger than you, but I've had an eventful life, and I've been thinking about this since I heard you two talking."

My ears perked back up. "Yeah? What is it?"

"There can come moments where people you care about are in danger, and you have to make hard choices. In those moments, you find you are willing to do things you would never have considered otherwise. That day, I had more than one moment like that. On any other day, I would say I couldn't and wouldn't do what was necessary for those situations, but when you are standing there, with lives on the line, you find you're capable of doing anything."

I looked down. "I can't say you're wrong, because I've never been in that position, but I don't want to believe you."

"I hope you never have to have that put to the test," she replied. "I'll let you go. I know you have a lot to do."

I absently nodded. "Hey, Jess? Remember, the most important thing your parents got for their sacrifices was you, and I'm sure they'd have willingly sacrificed even more if they had to. Never forget how much you're loved."

I could hear the smile in her voice. "I'll remember. Keep up the good work, Miss Future Demi-God. See ya tonight."

The call ended, and I looked around my room. Everything was packed up except my bedding. There were still pictures on the walls, and the furniture wasn't going anywhere, but it still felt somehow empty. I could hear my parents' shower going, which meant they were getting ready. We were going to try to arrive early so we could beat the rush of other first-year students checking in, and planned on picking up breakfast along the way. There wasn't a lot I needed to do to get ready, but there was no point delaying.

I grabbed my toy out from my pillow and shoved it in my bag before I forgot it. A quick sniff of my rump said that it might still be needed again tonight, as well as deodorant for today. I realized I'd forgotten to apply my deodorant yesterday, but thankfully nobody seemed to have noticed. I'd have died of embarrassment if Phobia Remedy had said I wasn't taking care of my hygiene, or if someone had smelled it when we were all crammed together in that van. I know Maggie would never have let me live it down. I could hear it now, 'What stallion are you trying to entice, Bec? I see how serious you are about that whole virgin thing'. Yep, I'd have been a pink pony.

I'd considered before having a fur and mane dye job done to hide my easy to see blushes. I just didn't want to cover up my spots and stripes, even if I am the only one who realizes they are there. Humans are always shocked when they see a pony blush, but pony fur isn't like any other fur. It isn't normal hair; it has small amounts of magic in it that reflects what the flesh underneath is doing, which makes it more like an extra fluffy extension of our skin than fur. If you shaved all the fur off over our cutie mark, you'd see the same mark on our exposed flesh, and it also meant we could blush. Pink and red ponies have it lucky; no one notices when they blush. That's probably why people always assume pink or red ponies are extra bold and brave; it's harder to tell when they are embarrassed. My fur is snow-white, which means it is easy to know if I am blushing.

I trotted into the bathroom and took my morning shower, taking extra time to scrub and groom myself well. Once out of the shower, I gave myself a good preening and remembered to empty my feather bin this time around (although that might only be because I needed to bring my bin with me to school). Deodorant was applied liberally to my rump, and I swallowed the pills that Mom was dead set on me taking every morning. With all that done, I packed all my bathroom stuff into the now conveniently empty feather bin and set it out in the hall.

By the time I finished with the stuff from the bathroom, my parents were already dressed and out in the kitchen. I could smell that they had just brewed a pot of coffee.

"Want some, Becky?" Stepdad asked as he held up the pot.

I stuck out my tongue and shook my head. "Yuck, no. You know I don't like coffee."

"You might change your mind now that you're in college," he replied. "I know it's an acquired taste, but you might find you need some liquid energy with all those late-night study sessions and mornings after being up too late."

"Haven't had any of those yet, and typically I just need a good dance to get the blood moving," I replied, then shook my flanks.

Mom took a sip of her coffee. "You need to be mindful that you'll have roommates and people living below you. You might not be able to do that every morning anymore."

Hold it. It never even occurred to me that my morning routine was going to be thrown so far out of order. Other things started occurring to me. I was going to be sharing a bathroom with five other ponies. There were Julie and Nightscape, but our bathroom was connected to and shared with the next dorm room over. I didn't even know who was there yet. I was used to having a bathroom all to myself; I didn't know how it was supposed to work with five other ponies. I was assuming that we were all pegasi, except for Nightscape; where would all the feather bins go? Were we going to have to schedule shower times? Were we going to drown in preened feathers?

"Having a moment?" Mom asked with a knowing smile. I could tell she knew what I was thinking.

I wasn't going to let that get me down. Sure, my usual routine wasn't going to be possible, but millions of students had gone off to college and dealt with their habits being forced to change before me. I could adapt and persevere. The feathers couldn't be that bad if it were a whole floor full of feathered students that didn't have problems with this before. I'd find some other way of shaking my flanks as well. This was going to be okay.

I smiled up at Mom. "I've got this. No worries."

She smiled back. "Good to hear. There are a few other things we need to go over before you check-in. You probably know most of this, but I want to make sure we are clear. First, I cut off your credit line and access to the family account as of last night. You'll need to survive off your own funds."

I blinked. That was unexpected.

"Second," she continued. "I want you to put in your phone a daily reminder to take your pills."

I rolled my eyes, but nodded in agreement.

"Third, you are always welcome to visit here, but I expect you to give your father or me at least a few minutes' heads-up unless it is a real emergency. At least a few hours' heads-up if you are planning on having dinner here. You're officially shifting to being a guest when here, and I expect you to have the same courtesy as any other guest. You don't need to ask about whether you can spend holidays here, but we expect to know when you plan on arriving and how many days you plan on staying."

That didn't seem like it would be much trouble.

"Fourth, the expenses I'm paying for you are your phone and your medical bills, including prescriptions. I am not paying for any streaming services, extra food, entertainment, or anything else. If you have a financial emergency, you may come to us for help, but I expect you to try to deal with it yourself first."

I'd kinda expected her to tell me a point when I needed to start paying for my phone service as well, so that was more leeway than I had anticipated.

"And finally, if you get into a steady relationship-"

"Mom!"

She frowned at me. "Young mare, let me finish. As I was saying, if you get into a steady relationship, I expect you to let us know. We don't need to know the finer details, like what goes on when the lights go out-"

My face turned a dark red. "Mom!"

"-but I'd like to know who my daughter is dating, so I know who to kill if he breaks her heart."

I laid my ears back. "Really, Mom?"

"She's already planning on getting a shotgun," Stepdad said casually.

"Isn't it supposed to be the father who does that?" I asked.

He shrugged. "We don't discriminate by gender in this family. You know why she feels that way. Don't worry; I'll make sure she doesn't murder any of your ex's."

"There aren't going to be any ex's, so it won't be a problem," I groaned. Why did no one have any faith in my commitment to virginity?

I did understand Mom's feelings, considering what happened to her, but she needed to stop projecting all that. In the unlikely event that I did even consider striking up a relationship with someone, I'd be terrified of introducing them to her because I knew she'd be judging them as critically as possible. My stepdad would be cool about the whole thing, I knew he wouldn't make a fuss, but Mom would scare any guy off after a single meeting. I knew they weren't joking about the shotgun either. Mom might want me to be self-sufficient, but there would be hell to pay if anyone hurt her little filly. Oh, and if a stallion got me pregnant and then left me, every alicorn and Dreamwarden combined wouldn't be able to save him from Mom's wrath.

Yeah, I was going to be a virgin for life, even if I wasn't already committed to being one. At least Mom made it easy for me.

"There's one more thing," Stepdad said with a smile. I glanced at him curiously. He reached up to the top of the refrigerator and pulled down what looked like a Christmas present, which he held out to me. "Sorry about the wrapping paper, we were sure we had some, but then realized it was for the wrong occasion."

I took the present in my forehooves. It was wrapped in bright red wrapping paper, with Christmas wreaths all over it, and was wide and long, but not tall. I set it down on the floor and put my nose down to sniff it. There were no smells of cake or sweets. It smelled kind of like tinsel, honestly. I found an excellent spot to bite into the paper and gave it a good rip. I then proceeded to do a mix of ripping with my teeth and pushing paper aside with my hooves. Once the paper was all cleared, I looked upon my gift.

"Legos?" I asked in surprise as I looked at it. It wasn't just any Legos, though. It was a Lego Architecture Studio Set with over five thousand monochrome blocks, sorting trays for the blocks, a set of specially designed mouth tweezers to make it easier for ponies to grab and place blocks, and a massive book with advice from the top architects in the industry.

I turned the box over, listening to all the pieces inside shift as I did, and by chance, spotted a price tag on the thing. My eyes almost bulged out of my head when I saw it. "You spent this much?! On Legos?! For me?!" I never in my wildest dreams imagined a Lego set could cost half of what this did. It was equal to at least half a semester's tuition.

"I had the same reaction, but your mom pays most of the bills," Stepdad chuckled.

"I asked every architect that I have contact with at PonyCo what were the best gifts for architects, and everyone agreed that this was the best that could be given," Mom explained. "This is a big day, and I wanted to show you how proud I am of you. I can't wait to see the things you do."

I could imagine designing lots of things with this, and couldn't wait to see what was in the book. My eyes welled up with happy tears as I smiled. "Thank you. This means a lot to me."

They both knelt next to me and wrapped their arms around me. "We love you so much," Mom whispered. "I hope all your dreams come true."

Author's Note

Chapter 33: Moving In

I was one of the earlier first-year students to arrive at check-in, but I wasn't the first, nor was I that far ahead of the crowd. My check-in was in the central social area of the female dorms, and there was a line forming by the time my parents had gotten their badges so they would be allowed into the gender-restricted part of the dorm area to help me. It seemed everyone had the same idea of trying to get there early. I wondered if it might have been less busy if I'd checked-in later.

I spotted Maggie checking in right before I did, but didn't get an opportunity to speak with her. It seemed like she was fussing with her father. Her father was often somewhat controlling, and whenever anything remotely official was happening, he tended to try to take over all the talking and treating Maggie like a child, much to Maggie's chagrin. My parents, by contrast, were letting me take the lead on everything, only asking a brief question here and there. I knew Maggie loved her dad, but she was also dying to have more independence.

I honestly didn't have all that much to move in, not compared to humans. Humans had to bring tons of clothes with them, and I was always surprised at how many sets of clothes your average human would wear. I'd worn clothes only a few times in my life, and they'd been strictly for special occasions. Aside from a dress that my mom bought me when I was tiny and still kept as a keepsake, I'd never even owned any of the clothes I'd worn. They'd all been rentals. I suppose I had worn them when I was human since I didn't usually see four-year-old humans running around naked, but my human years hardly counted.

My luggage consisted of my bathroom stuff, art supplies including my easel, my computer, my pony strap with its bag of accessories, my phone, a few decorations, my bedding, and of course, my new set of legos. A human could probably carry all that up to their dorms with ease, but it was a lot for a chubby pegasus. There was plenty I was leaving at my parents, but all of that was going to be packed up and put into storage until I ended up getting my own apartment.

My parents and I had most of my luggage with me as we got in the elevator. I had a full saddlebag, and they each had one of those trunks on wheels. Stepdad grinned down at me as it rose. "I feel like an explorer, venturing into the forbidden realm of the all-female dorm."

I grinned back and raised a feather to my mouth. "Don't reveal all our dark secrets, or we'll unleash our Amazon griffon warriors to hunt you down."

"Amazons and griffons? That's some powerful security. I'd better watch myself," Stepdad replied with a chuckle. Mom giggled at our antics.

My mom's giggling stopped when the elevator opened, and we were all given a view of my griffon RA.

Greta was not waiting to get on the elevator this time. She was sitting a short distance away, next to a box, and had a list at the ready. She looked us over and made a mark on the list. "Rebecca Riddle? Correct? I remember you. Thank you for not crashing into the building this time."

I waved a wing as I trotted off the elevator, leaving my parents to gape behind me. "Hi, Greta! Are you having a good day?"

She gave me a look that I couldn't interpret, but then looked over at the stairwell door. "You won't be the most annoying pony I have to deal with today. I still have plenty of freshmen who are just arriving for the first time today, and at least one of you in the stairwell I want to strangle already."

I noticed then there was a rhythmic pounding coming from it. "What are they doing?"

Greta gave a harsh flick of her cat-like tail. "That brilliant mare decided she was going to haul her stuff up on a cart using the stairs instead of taking the elevator. I'll never know how some of you got into college." She shook her head, disparagingly. "You're noted, are those two humans with you?"

"Yeah, they're my parents."

She nodded. "I've visibly noted them. They may move in between the elevator and your room. They are not allowed in any other student's room. Male visitation is strictly off-limits for this floor, and your father will not be able to enter this area after today. Your mother may enter in the future, but must still get a visitor's pass from the guard on duty downstairs; the same goes for any other female visitor who is either not a currently enrolled student or employed by the college. If you order a pizza or something like that, the delivery will be made to the desk downstairs, and they will call you to inform you it has arrived. Don't try to sneak visitors through your balcony; I will find out. Are you clear about all visitation rules?"

I nodded and grinned. "All clear! I have a question, do I have a curfew?"

Greta shook her head. "No, you can go out whenever you please. Please, try to keep noise levels down, as students may be studying. Also, if you are going to be gone for more than a day, please let me know where you're going and how long you expect to be gone. It makes it much easier for me if someone comes and asks me. I won't give out personal information unless it is the police or something, but I've had students up and vanish without a trace for days before, and all that happened was they needed to leave to see their sick grandmare or whatever, but they left everyone here clueless and worried. My room is marked RA, and if I'm not present, there's a slot in the door to slip notes in."

"No problem," I said happily. However, I did wonder if I was going to have to take off anywhere for a few days because of the whole Dreamwarden thing. What was I supposed to say for that if it came up?

The stairwell door opened and a tired-looking yellow pegasus with a pink mane with green highlights collapsed in a panting heap. She looked at us and gave a weary grin. "That's a lot of stairs!"

Greta narrowed her eyes and lost interest in me as she advanced on the mare. "I'm the RA for this floor. Are you one of mine? What's your name?"

The mare picked herself up. "Sunflower Smiles. I'm supposed to be here. This is my floor. I got the key the other day."

"I'll be checking you off my list as arrived," Greta replied. "Do you have any help with you? Why are you dragging a cart up the stairs?"

Sunflower blushed. "It's just me, nopony else. I'm sorry about the cart and the stairs. I just really don't like elevators. I feel all boxed up."

Greta flicked her tail. "You could have asked someone to take your cart up the elevator for you, and you could have flown up or taken the stairs without causing all that racket. Don't make all that noise in the future."

Sunflower blushed some more. "Sorry. I don't know anypony here yet except for my roommates, and they weren't downstairs. I didn't want to impose on anypony." She then blinked in surprise, as if just realizing who she was talking to. "Hey, you're a griffon! I thought you were just a funny looking pony."

"You Earthling ponies are going to be the death of me," Greta muttered. She then turned back towards me. "I've got other check-ins to worry about. Be on your way."

My parents were already out of the elevator and had been waiting for me. The door to the elevator was already opening up to reveal another first-year student with her parents ready to check-in.

I hurried to get out of the way, and my parents followed behind me with my stuff.

"Sorry I left you standing there," I said to my parents as I walked towards the room. I had to step out of the way as a green pegasus I'd met the other day, Meadow, came trotting down the hall saying something about needing to save Sunflower.

My parents stepped out of Meadow's path before Mom answered. "It's okay. You were just getting things in order with your RA. That's the first griffon we've ever seen, and it was fascinating watching her. I'm proud you seemed so at ease about talking to such a strange creature."

I shrugged. "Greta might be a little different than other students, and I still want to find out all about what it's like to be a griffon, but she's just another person. I also already met her before, so it wasn't as shocking this time around. The first time I saw her, my brain froze, and all I could think of was beak."

We reached my dorm room, and I decided to knock rather than try to fish out my key. It only took a second before the door opened to reveal Julie.

Julie was a hugger, and she didn't take more than an instant to use one of those massive yellow wings of hers to pull me into a tight one. "You're here! Hey, Nighty! Rebecca's arrived!"

"Morning, Rebecca," Nightscape called out from within the hidden enclosure of her bed. She then stuck her head out of the curtain that was drawn around her part of the bunks. "Julie, I know she's nice and squishy, but don't hug her to death. Even squishy ponies need to breathe."

I was released from Julie's powerful feathery grip, and Julie stuck her tongue out at Nightscape, who stuck her tongue out in turn.

"Mom, Dad, these are my roommates, Julie and Nightscape," I said, gesturing to each of them. "Julie's on the flight team, and Nightscape is in the architectural design program like me."

Julie posed and flexed her wings. "Best flyer on the team." She stopped posing and quickly demonstrated her hugging prowess by wrapping her wings around both my parents' legs.

"Um, hi there," Stepdad said as he looked down at my roommate. "I'm guessing you and Becky are going to get along great."

Nightscape emerged fully from out of the curtains and out into the middle of the floor. "Julie's a big softy. Come on in; Greta won't fuss if we leave the door open."

Julie released my parents and went looking for something to prop the door open, finding a textbook, and shoving it up against the door.

My parents stepped in, rolling the luggage behind them. "Where do you want all this?"

Nightscape stepped back and pointed a wing at a big closet-like area. Closet-like because it didn't have any door. It seemed to be subdivided into three sections. Two of those sections were filled with various odds and ends, while the third was empty.

As my parents were getting my luggage into the storage area, Meadow stuck her head in the room. "Hi! I collected Sunflower. It will take a few minutes for us to help her settle in, but when do you want to go over bathroom rules with the newbies?"

"Not sure," Nightscape replied as she looked at the open door leading into the shared bathroom. "Give us around an hour, and then the three of us here will come over to your room. We can get the bathroommate introductions all done with Rebecca and Sunflower then. I'll go to bed late today, so maybe we can all have lunch together to do some bonding or whatever."

"Sounds like a plan. See ya in a bit," Meadow replied, then hurried back on her way.

Seeing both my parents walking around a dorm room designed for ponies made them seem even more giant than they usually did. They seemed big in my room back at the house, but they usually didn't intrude on my private space, so I wasn't used to seeing them in there together. If they felt out of place, they didn't show it bothered them in any way.

I shrugged my saddlebags off near the bed as my parents finished putting my other stuff in place. Nightscape pointed to a big box near one of the three desks. "Those are your textbooks; they arrived yesterday. The desk that they are next to is all yours to use. We can figure out together how to manage the rest of your stuff, even if Julie has to cut back on some of her exercise space."

Julie gave a look of mock horror, then laughed. "I'll live. It just means more time in the gym and the air. I think Nighty and I do most of our homework and studying in our beds. I just dump stuff on my desk when I'm in a hurry instead of using it for what I should. Nighty likes to play with her Legos on hers."

I looked over at the other desks with excitement to see if I could spot what Nightscape was building, but was disappointed when I only saw a big red box.

"I haven't started on a new project yet if that's what you're looking for. I've been kind of lazy since we got back in the dorms. I'll get something going this week," Nightscape replied in answer to my search.

"I just got my own set of Architect's Legos. Maybe you can give me some tips."

Julie gasped. "You better keep a good track of those things. Nighty is pretty good about hers, but our bathroommate who graduated last year had them too, and she let those things get everywhere. Hurts a lot to step on one."

"Studio would spend hours in a single sitting working on a giant lego construction, and then, without fail, she'd end up throwing it off her desk with a wing as she was leaving. Then she'd spend even more hours trying to gather scattered lego blocks," Nightscape recounted with a shake of her head. "That's my first protip, don't go accidentally thwopping the stuff you just built with your wing."

I blinked and tried to imagine having to pick several thousand blocks off the floor. I could be a klutz, so I'd need to be extra careful. "That sounds like good advice."

Mom stepped beside me and touched a hand to my head. "We're going to go fetch your bedding from the car. It should only take a few minutes." She bent down next to me and rubbed my ears. "I never got to go to college, and I'm so happy you've gotten yourself here. I hope you enjoy your time here, and make some great friends and memories."

I hopped up and grabbed her with my forelegs and wings. "Love you, Mom. Love you too, Dad."

"We love you too, " Mom replied as she hugged me back.

"Aww, that's so cute," Julie said in a sappy tone.

"Eh, I'm a night pony to the core, " Nightshade gagged. "It isn't that cute if it doesn't have the mare who was trying to flirt with your stallion crushed under your hoof."

"You night pony mares scare me; you know that, Nighty? You're a bunch of psychos sometimes," Julie said warily. "And you can admit you think it's cute."

"And I'm not going to have any stallion to crush my enemy over," I chimed in.

"Well, if a mare breaks your heart, I'll kill her just as quickly as I'll kill a stallion who does," Mom said as she stood up.

"Mom! I don't look at mares that way!"

Nightscape chortled. "I like your mom. She must have rehumanized from being a night pony."

Mom smirked. "Sorry, I was actually a pegasus."

Nightscape stopped chuckling. "Really? I saw your eye and thought night pony. Rehumanized night ponies always have something about their eyes that isn't fully human, no insult intended. But you never know, people change, and what tribe it picked for you back then might not be what it would pick for you today. You've got the spirit."

"No insult taken, but as you said, we'll never know," Mom replied. She leaned down and kissed my head, then ruffled my mane around my ears. "We'll be right back with your bedding."

I watched my parents leave the room then turned to look at Nightscape. "What do you mean, my mom has the spirit of a night pony?"

"She's highly protective of you, and willing to get very aggressive to protect you," Nightscape replied as if it were obvious. "That's two of the three parameters ETS had in the selection of night ponies. It didn't always get everything from all three of its big parameters, but if one was lacking and the others were extreme, you still got some night ponies for that."

"What were the parameters, oh informed disciple of Phobia Remedy?" Julie asked in a playful mocking way.

"Being very protective by nature, having a propensity for aggression, and having some fear that impacted how you thought of everything," Nightscape listed off. "Some night ponies were lacking in one of the traits but had an excessive amount of the other two. Plus, there were number quotas that kept the overall number of night ponies down, so a lot of possible night ponies ended up becoming other tribes. Plus, old Miss SS thought human women were naturally passive and less willing to fight than men, and to try to correct the imbalance she thought would go to night pony stallions, she had it favor females more heavily; huge mistake. We have a ridiculous gender imbalance the other way around now."

"Huh, that's interesting," I replied. Maybe Mom might have fallen into that category, if not for quotas, or became more night ponish with time. Not that it really mattered, Mom was human and was staying that way. It gave me a different way of looking at night ponies though, and I wondered how Miss Seapony fit into those things. I could definitely see how Phobia Remedy did, but wasn't as sure about Miss Seapony. It made me wonder how well I knew I really knew her.

Chapter 34: The Bathroommates

My parents helpfully put my bedding in place, said their final goodbyes, and just like that, I was officially moved out of the house and into the dorm.

I did a tiny amount of unpacking. A few posters were hung up in my spaces, my box of legos was placed on my desk, and my laptop was plugged in to charge up. I also took a few minutes to investigate my new textbooks. Some of them were much bigger than my textbooks from high school. My calculus textbook, in particular, was a monster of a book, and I was glad that I didn't have any classes scheduled immediately before or after that class, as I was unsure I'd be able to carry much else but that book and the accompanying notebook. I was going to build some muscles from hauling that thing around.

Meadow stuck her head in, this time from the bathroom, and gave a light knock on the door to get our attention. "Ready to do introductions and go over the bathroom rules?"

Julie had been doing wingups (that's like pushups only using her wings) to this point and stood up. "Yep. Time to find out if any of the newbies are going to freak out over the shower rules."

Nightscape giggled. "It was great last year when Meadow screamed."

Meadow blushed. "Hey! Don't embarrass me in front of the newbies! It was an understandable reaction."

"I didn't scream," Julie replied.

"Well, you're weird, and you thought they were kidding," Meadow replied. "Still, it's going great not to be the newbie this time around."

"Want to do the honors, since you've got two newbies in your room?" Nightscape asked.

Meadow looked back towards the other room. "Ashley isn't technically a newbie, just a room transfer, so she already knows. I'll do the honors with Sunflower and Rebecca, and then we can do the meet and greet over in our room."

Nightscape nodded. "Rebecca's all yours then. Rebecca, go into the Den of Fear- I mean bathroom- with Meadow."

This entire conversation had me a little worried. "Am I about to get hazed? I heard about first-year hazing, and this sounds like I'm about to get hazed."

"Naw," Julie replied while shaking her head. "Just going over the bathroom rules. Hazing comes later."

Meadow nervously rubbed a hoof against her leg. "Actually- I think we should lay off the hazing altogether with Sunflower. I don't think she's the type that can take it, and if we don't do any hazing of her-"

"Then it's unfair to do it to Rebecca," Julie finished. "Darn it, I had been looking forward to my chance to be on the other end of it this year, and I was sure Rebecca could take it without any problems. I can tell she's made of sterner stuff."

"Sorry, Sunflower just isn't, and if it is possibly going to hurt her, then it isn't worth it," Meadow replied. "We can come up with some other group initiation thing with them, but we all live together, and that makes us like a little family. We need to look out for each other."

"Fair enough," Julie lamented. "Go on in the bathroom, Rebecca. There are no killer clowns in the drain or anything like that to worry about."

I blinked. "Killer clowns? "

"Old horror movie," Nightscape explained. "We'll be doing a watch of those in a few days. You can let Julie squeeze you during all the jump scares. Hurry into the bathroom."

I hesitantly walked to the bathroom as Meadow disappeared deeper inside. I heard her calling into the other room. "Hey, Sunflower. Come on in here. We need to go over bathroom rules."

I entered the bathroom and looked around. Along one side was a single counter that ran from one-bedroom door to the other, with an available mirror that spanned that entire area. There were three sinks, each with handles to adjust hot and cold water. The counter was big enough for a pony to walk on and had some cabinets underneath. The other wall had two small toilets right next to each other with no privacy divider and a large shower. Everything was in white tiles, and the light was a large fluorescent one. The shower area had a small raised line of bricks at the bottom to keep water from getting out on the main floor, along with a clear plastic shower curtain.

"Welcome to our shared bathroom," Meadow announced. "There's six of us sharing this thing, and there are some rules to make it so we aren't getting on everyone's nerves and each getting our fair use."

She opened one of the cabinets to show a feather bin. "Preening you should do up on top of the counter and be ready to get the feathers in your bin right away. Don't stand around preening in the middle of the walkway, or the shower, and definitely not on the toilet. Most of us, except Nighty, all need to get ready in the morning, and we don't have time to wait for people in the way."

Meadow pointed at the toilet. "That's the toilets. There are two of them and six of us. Do your business on it and go. You should not be sitting on the toilet for more than five minutes unless you're sick with something. If you are sick, you better let everyone know and go to the doctor. We all come in here and all risk getting exposed to whatever you have."

She pointed to each door. "The doors remain open unless we have guests. That means if you're used to privacy in the bathroom, you'd better get unused to it quick."

She pointed to the shower. "There's one shower and no tub. None of us want to go out without a shower, but we all get up to get ready at the same time, except Nighty. So guess what else isn't private? If you get in the shower, be prepared for one of us joining you if we need a shower too. If you have someone in the shower with you and they get out, don't be shocked if someone else takes their place right away. We don't have time to wait. Luckily, I've never seen the shower run out of hot and warm water, even when going for hours."

We had to shower together and couldn't use the toilet without everyone able to see? That was uncomfortable. I'd always had a bathroom to myself. I'd never had to share the same space.

"Each of us rotates who has bathroom cleaning duties each week, and everyone gets a turn," Meadow explained. "Basic cleaning duties are clean the toilet, wipe the soap scum off the shower, empty the feather bins, wipe down the counter and mirrors, and give the floor a sweep and mop. If everyone does their job with that, it stays nice and clean in here for everyone. We'll decide on the schedule for that tonight. Also, it goes without saying, but I'll say it because everyone's got a story about walking into it, please don't be an idiot and go rubbing your marehood in the shower. Any one of us can climb into the shower at any time, and we don't want to walk into that. Keep that under the covers of your bed."

"Rubbing my marehood? What do you mean?" Sunflower asked in what seemed honest confusion.

Meadow blinked. "You indeed are the most innocent, sheltered pony I have ever met. College life is going to be a whole new world for you. I'll explain it to you later, or find you a website or something to explain it."

Sunflower's ears fell. "Sorry, I guess I am kinda sheltered. Is that bad?"

Meadow looked at me, and I shook my head. Then Meadow turned back towards Sunflower. "No, nothing wrong with that at all. It just means you're going to be getting a lot of new experiences. Don't worry, Ashley and I will look out for you, and I'm sure our bathroommates will too. Hey, you got through the whole bathroom rules without getting upset about the lack of privacy, that's great. I about had a panic attack last year when I got this talk."

Sunflower looked confused again. "But, back home, everypony on the farm had to shower and take dumps together. Is that not normal around here?"

Meadow coughed. "Um… it wouldn't be normal for me."

"Or me, " I added.

"You wimps never had to shower in a gym!" Julie called out from the room.

"Those wimps don't go checking the drain for clowns," Nightscape called out in turn.

"Will you lay off that? It was just that one night!" Julie replied in outrage.

"It sounds like a great time to do introductions!" Meadow announced. "Everybody, into the room."

Sunflower and I followed her into the adjoining dorm room. The room was a mirror of my room, with the only exceptions being different decorations and a set of three easels in a row near the balcony doors. I still needed to unpack my easel.

There was also Meadow and Sunflower's other roommate lying in the bottom bunk, watching us. Ashley was a light grey unicorn with a dark grey mane. Her cutie mark was a sketch pad with a knife drawn on it, which was somewhat weird and disconcerting. Ashley also had scars along her muzzle, neck, and along her flanks. They looked like they were old, scars she had for years. I did a quick look at Sunflower's cutie mark and saw it was a sun with a simple flower with white petals in the middle (but not a sunflower). Meadow's mark had nothing to do with meadows or leaves; it was a brush and a wooden ruler crossed over one another.

"I thought this floor was all winged ponies," I said as I looked back at Ashley.

She shrugged at me. "Enough of the students on the lower floors don't like me that I asked to get moved up here."

"And we're going to make sure no one gives you a hard time!" Meadow said proudly. "Time for introductions. I'll go first. Hi, I'm Meadow Leaf. I'm working on becoming an art teacher. I was born and raised just outside of Orlando, and I LOVE Disney stuff. My parents used to take me to Disney World all the time since it was practically in our backyard. Both my parents are earth ponies, and they changed my name from Samantha to Meadow Leaf after ETS, because they thought it was pretty, and I'm green. Some ponies claim I'm kinda motherly, so if I get too motherly, just tell me. My family are all proud Blessingists, and having said that, I really hope none of you are Shimmerists."

"Not a Shimmerist," I replied.

"Not a Shimmerist either," Ashley replied.

Julie snorted. "You already know I'm not."

Nightscape bared her teeth. "I converted to Shimmerism over the summer. All Blessingists are blood traitors!" She then laughed as Meadow's eyes went wide. "Just yanking your chain. I'm definitely not a Shimmerist."

Sunflower just looked confused again. "What's a Shimmerist, or a Blessingist?"

"Um… I'll tell you later," Meadow answered. "How about you share some stuff about yourself, Sunflower."

Sunflower blinked. "Okay. Well, my name is Sunflower Smiles. I'm from a little farming pony community in Kansas that doesn't even have a name. We just got internet and electricity about a year ago. I've never really been anywhere. This is the first city I've ever been in, and it is so big- and loud. I suppose I came from one back when I was human, but I can't remember that. I want to be an illustrator. I've always enjoyed art more than weather stuff and copied the illustrations off of old novels that were lying around, but I do original work too. My parents encouraged me to apply to art schools since there wasn't much of a future for an artist in a no-name farming community. I honestly don't remember even applying to this school, but they gave me a full scholarship when other places wouldn't. So here I am. I guess that's everything."

"No electricity until last year? Do you even know how to work a computer?" Nightscape asked.

Sunflower nodded. "Yeah, we have a library back home, and they have a computer. Dewey Decimal- that's our librarian- showed me how to use one. That's how I did all my applications. I'm not great at it, but I'm getting better." Sunflower's ears perked up as she looked at Nightscape. "I just got the ability to dreamwalk, since I wanted to talk to my parents back home while I'm here, and they don't have phones or email. Can you teach me about that?"

"Eh, I'm not asleep at the same time you are," Nightscape replied, then pointed at me. "But Rebecca here can dreamwalk too, so maybe she can teach you a thing or two."

I blinked, surprised to be put in a mentor role about anything. "Sure, I don't mind. It's not that hard. I've been doing it since I was a little filly."

Sunflower beamed at me. "Thanks a lot! It will help me so much to have somepony teach me who knows what they are doing. I suppose I could ask the Dreamwarden that I asked the ability from, but I don't like to impose, and they must be so busy."

I chuckled. "They don't mind, depending on which one you asked. Which one was it?"

"The one that looks like a seahorse, she has a funny name, but I can't remember it," Sunflower answered.

"Yinyu Wu Yan," Ashley answered before I could. "I know all the Dreamwardens, except for the newer guy, the Warden of Order. I even met the ones that are gone now; Sha'am and Krik. Ghadab's my favorite. I don't dreamwalk though, thought about asking for the ability, but don't really feel a need to. Although I only met Yinyu for the first time last night."

She knew all the Dreamwardens? I didn't even know all the Dreamwardens! Why had she talked to all the Dreamwardens and didn't even know how to dreamwalk?

"I talk to Yinyu a lot, I call her Miss Seapony," I said. "What were you talking to her about last night?"

"Possible job opportunity, can't really talk about the details," Ashley replied.

It was like there were red flashing lights and alarms going off in my head. Was Ashley my competition for the Dreamwarden job? Was that why she was here? Miss Seapony said she was meeting my competition last night, and becoming a Dreamwarden certainly counted as a job opportunity. Ashley also said Ghadab was her favorite, and he was one who liked whoever Miss Seapony was talking to.

I'd never been competitive, but that competitive pegasus spirit decided it was time to rear its head for one time in my life. Why was Ashley here? What did she have that I didn't? Had she guessed I was her competition already?

I grinned at her. "How about you share next. Finding out how you met all the Dreamwardens sounds like it is quite a story."

The unicorn frowned at me. "I guess we can go ahead and get this over with. A quick warning; Dreamwardens never get involved with ponies when they are young foals unless there's a reason, and it usually isn't a happy one."

She took a deep breath. "My name is Ashley Santos, and the story of how I met Sha'am Maut and Ghadab begins when I was just a little filly, living in Houston… "

Chapter 35: The Other Candidate?

We were all staring in rapt attention at Ashley.

"I'm only saying this because you'll either keep staring at my scars and be afraid to ask, you'll hear things about me, or you will finally break down and ask at a time I can't bear talking about it," Ashley explained. "I’d rather get it over with now rather than watch you stare for weeks before you get the nerve to ask. I'm also mentally prepped to do it right now. I might not be later."

We all nodded in understanding.

"My brother, who was just a year younger than me, and I were playing together out on the public playground," Ashley recounted. "There wasn't much we could do, other than chase each other around the equipment, since it had been built for humans. Our mom was talking to some other ponies a short distance away from us, and only half paying attention. It was all ponies around that day, and everyone knew you could trust other ponies, or at least that's what we had believed.

"A unicorn stallion came up and talked to us. He had a funny beard and had a weird way of talking. When I told him my name, he called me Ash-Lee like it was two different words."

Nightscape abruptly turned towards the bathroom and started walking away. "I'm not sure I want to hear this story. Pretty sure Sunflower should skip it too if it is going to go the way I think it will."

Meadow looked nervous and uncertain. "Is it going to be that bad?"

"I'll leave out the worst of it," Ashley replied. "But it is going to be very unpleasant even then."

Meadow laid her ears flat and looked at Sunflower. "Maybe you should go to the other room until she's done with this story."

Sunflower shook her head. "No, I want to stay and listen. I want to know about the ponies I'm living with. I can take it."

"If you need me to stop at any point, just let me know," Ashley said in a low voice. Sunflower nodded, and Ashley continued. "He asked us to follow him so he could show us something. We did, and he led us away from the playground. About the time I started to think it was a bad idea, the world went black, and I was waking up somewhere else."

She took a deep breath before going forward. "I woke up in a dog cage. It was a big room, and there were lots of cages. Each of them had two or three foals in them. All the foals seemed hurt, hurt bad. I won't say the things I saw, but most of them had worse done to them than these scars. Many of them were already dead, and he had just left the body in the cage with the other foals."

The four of us who remained listening all whimpered in chorus. The story had hardly begun, and it was already one of the most horrible things I'd ever heard. I wanted to leave. This was too terrible. I sat still instead. I needed to know how she had escaped.

"I thought I was going to die there. I watched so many foals die in terrible ways," Ashley said, barely above a whisper. "I lost a lot of blood, and he never bandaged us up. He always just let us bleed to death, and left us in our cages rotting even after we died. We weren't allowed to make noise, or he'd hurt us more. So in my dreams, I called out to anyone to help us, since it was the only place I could. Finally, she came, the Warden of Death herself, ready to give us our last rites, and some final comfort."

"Wasn't the Warden of Death a monster?" Julie asked fearfully.

Ashley shook her head. "I know what everyone says she did, and I believe them, but she was the only kind face we got to see in there. She said life is filled with misery, but no foal should have to endure such misery and pain. She gave us comfort and good dreams. She was the main reason why those of us who lived through it didn't end up crazy. I'll never say an unkind word about Sha'am Maut. Whatever she may have been to others, she was a hero to us."

"How did you get out?" I asked, wanting just to get the story to a happy ending. There had to be a happy ending to this. After all, Ashley was here.

She licked her lips. "We pleaded with Sha'am to tell anyone where we were, and get help. She couldn't reveal information only our tormentor knew- such as exactly where we were, but we were allowing her to reveal all we knew. She brought in Ghadab, who was enraged at what had been done to us. They listened to all the foals, and gave that information to every night pony in the Houston area. The night ponies went to the police, and using our descriptions of our surroundings, they were able to figure out where we were being kept. They raided the place, freed all of us, and caught the bastard."

Ashley went silent, and I could see her eyes were red with tears. She'd made herself ready to tell this, but that didn't make it an easy thing for her to do. I couldn't imagine going through something like that. The other three were crying, and so was I.

"I met Phobia Remedy because we all had horrible nightmares after that, and she tended to them. Psychic Calm did the same. One time Krik accompanied Phobia Remedy into my dreams and just watched," Ashley explained. "Arbiter I met soon after she became Dreamwarden. She told me that the pony who had done those things to me and the other foals had been the last thing she saw while alive, and she wanted to tell us that he would never hurt anyone ever again."

Ashley turned her head and looked at her cutie mark. "I did get my cutie mark soon after I was freed. I learned about how they had people draw things that we had described and used those drawings to help figure out where we were. I knew that was what I wanted to do too. I wanted to help other people just like that."

Julie was on top of Ashley's bed in an instant, and had the unicorn wrapped up in a feathery hug. "That's the saddest story for a good cutie mark I've ever heard!"

A glow enveloped Julie, and she was pulled away and set gently on the floor. Ashley took a deep breath. "Thanks for the affection, but I don't feel comfortable being touched that much. Sorry about that."

Meadow wiped a tear from her eye. "We'll respect your boundaries. I'm sure we all understand."

Sunflower was still whimpering and crying. "I can't believe a pony could do something like that."

I was crying as well, but I hugged Sunflower, and she cuddled into it. I looked over at Ashley. "You said Ghadab was your favorite. I guess it's obvious why."

She nodded. "I still talk to him all the time. He's got a mouth on him. He can say things that hurt my feelings sometimes, but he's always honest with me and helps me work through my problems. He's my best friend."

"Well, we're all going to be your friends too, so you have some actual living ponies for friends," Meadow declared, then her eyes went wide. "I didn't mean-"

"It's okay; I know what you meant," Ashley replied, smiling softly.

Meadow looked around the room. "Maybe we should delay the rest of the introductions for a little while. Let everyone calm down. I think it's a good time to have lunch together, and hopefully, they'll have some ice cream. They did last year during first-year move-in day. I know that Nighty will be glad if we go to lunch sooner so she can get to bed before it's late in the day for her. I think her first class of the year starts tonight, and she'll want some shut-eye."

"I could definitely use some food and ice cream," I said as I released my grip on Sunflower to rub my tummy.

Sunflower stopped crying to look up. "I've never had ice cream."

I turned to her in astonishment. "You poor soul!"

"I think we can all tell you've had your fair share of ice cream before," Ashley said. Everyone gasped, and she looked around. "Hey! I hang out with Ghadab all the time. I picked up being blunt. I didn't mean to be mean."

"It's fine," I giggled. "This marshmallow is round and lays on the pounds! I'll probably lose a few pounds living off just cafeteria food. I might try going to the gym with Julie too."

Julie pumped her wings. "Woohoo! Workout buddy! I'll help turn you from a beach ball to a bowling ball!"

I cocked my ear. "Huh?"

Meadow and Ashley both looked equally confused. "Are you saying you'll make her heavier?" Ashley asked in confusion.

"I feel stupid asking all these questions, but what's a bowling ball?" Sunflower asked timidly.

Julie looked around at all of us. "Muscle is heavier than fat and is more condensed. So, if she is filled with fat, she's like a beach ball, but I'm going to tone her up and replace that fat with muscle so she'll be smaller and more solid. Maybe this wasn't the greatest analogy."

"I think that might be the first time I've ever heard comparing a person to a bowling ball as a compliment," Ashley replied. "I'm not sure it works, but I'll remember that one. If only to watch people trying to figure out if they've been insulted or complimented. Ghadab gets a kick out of that kind of humor."

"I'll go get Nightscape," I announced, and started back towards the other room.

Nightscape was seated at her desk and pulling out her legos as I walked in. "Hey, Nightscape, we're all planning on going to lunch now."

She glanced back at me. "Okay, I'll be right out."

I came up closer to her. "Are you alright? You left in a hurry."

She frowned. "I still heard it from here. I just didn't want to be in there with you guys when I heard it."

"Why not?"

She shook her head. "You're not a night pony, so you wouldn't understand. Hearing that kind of thing makes my blood boil. It's in our nature to be protective, and when we hear about things like that, all we want to do is find whatever was hurting whoever and attack."

"But whoever did that is long gone," I replied.

Her shoulders and ears slumped. "Still makes me go on edge. I don't want you all seeing me like that," she said in a soft voice.

"But it's part of who you are," I said as I touched a hoof to her.

"Not something I want to be defined by," she explained. "Don't get me wrong; I'm not ashamed of it. I wouldn't be doing what Phobia Remedy asked me to do if I was ashamed. I just don't want people to have their first impression of me being me hissing and spitting because I want to maul something."

I wasn't sure I had fully formed an impression of Nightscape yet. She seemed like she enjoyed poking fun at Julie, although it seemed good-natured. She was one of my bodyguards- like my personal bodyguard since she slept in the same room. Just like me, she wanted to be an architect. She was marrying a Dreamwarden's godson. Even knowing all those facts, I still hadn't gotten a full feel of her personality yet.

"I think you should be next up to share in the introductions when we start doing them again," I said in decision.

She chuckled. "Might be late tonight. I've got my computer modeling class starting tonight. Three hours straight of listening to a guy talk about computer stuff. I'm nocturnal, and I still worry that I'm going to fall asleep tonight. Especially since Professor Thomas is notoriously dry. At least it is a one night a week class."

My ears folded. "Am I going to have to take that class?"

She nodded. "It's part of the major. However, you might have a little more freedom on what time of day to take it. I had a choice between late night once a week and early morning three times a week. I'll suffer through once a week."

I needed to look over and plan out my future classes. I hadn't even spoken to my advisor yet, or looked to see who it was. I should probably do that soon. Was I being negligent not having done that yet? Now I was worried I was being a bad student.

Nightscape hopped down from her seat. "Let's go eat. I want to get into bed in the next two hours. You can call me Nighty if you want, everyone else does."

I smiled. "And you can call me Bec or Becky if you want. A lot of my friends and family do. Or you can just call me The Marshmallow, with a capital T."

"Well, The Marshmallow, I think I'll just call you Bec most of the time. Now let's get some grub."

Chapter 36: Cafeteria Antics and Table Talk

Going to lunch together had some early hiccups.

Ashley obviously couldn't fly down from the balcony, and while she did have a teleport license, it only allowed her to do what people called blinking unless it was an emergency. Blinks were extremely short-range teleports of no more than four feet. Some unicorns, at least the ones who could teleport- a minority, used blinks to get to difficult to reach locations around their homes. The balcony to the ground below was more than four feet, and it wasn't an emergency. In addition to this, Sunflower was very uncomfortable riding elevators. We would turn to the stairs, but there were lots of humans, earth ponies, and unicorns on the stairs by this point, enough to make Sunflower now feel claustrophobic even in the stairwell. Sunflower needed to fly down.

In short, we needed to divide up as we went downstairs. It wasn't a big deal, but it was a short delay to us going off to lunch as a group. By the time we made it to the cafeteria, it was packed. As I looked around, I couldn't help noticing how humans and ponies kept separate from one another.

"Everything seems segregated here," I observed, as I was waiting my turn to be served. Even the lines for food were divided between ponies and humans.

"It's like that the first few days every year," Ashley explained. "It's because the dorms are segregated, and people tend to hang out with their roommates and bathroommates a lot the first few days. It doesn't last that long, maybe a week. Once people start getting to know their classmates, it desegregates fast. As for the lines, they serve different food. You don't want the food in the human line, believe me, and they'd probably get sick just thinking about eating our food."

"Oh, that's good then," I replied. I wanted to spend some time with Maggie, but she might be spending time getting to know her new roommates. She didn't have many human friends, since our high school was mostly ponies, so I couldn't begrudge her getting to spend time with her new human roommates.

I got near the front of the line where I could grab a tray. It was a relief to see they had the friendly easy to carry trays for ponies that had a mouth grip on them. I watched as my bathroommates ahead of me were served. There weren't a lot of choices. There was a choice between rice or potatoes, with or without gravy. There was a choice between one or two daisy sandwiches or a small salad. There was also a small selection of different types of fruit. On the bright side, there was an ice cream machine set up at the end that gave options for chocolate, vanilla, strawberry, or combinations of either two or all three flavors. I was the last of our group in line, with Ashley directly ahead of me.

Sunflower blanched as the server gave Nightscape gravy on her rice. "Isn't gravy made from meat?!"

Nightscape licked into her gravy right away, eliciting a shudder from Sunflower. "Just the juices, so it won't make you sick," the night pony explained as she licked her lips. "It's mostly water, cornstarch, and onions. It's calories, and you need your calories."

Sunflower gave the gravy another long look, and turned to the server waiting for her selection. "Um, rice with just a tiny bit of gravy, I guess, just enough to taste it, a daisy sandwich, and an apple."

"You don't have to get gravy if you don't want it," Ashley said. "Lots of ponies don't care for it."

"I want to try new things," Sunflower replied, though she still looked a little queasy as the gravy was added to her rice and added to her tray.

"No problem with that," Ashley replied as the server got ready for her. She turned to the server. "I'll have some potatoes with no gravy, a salad, and can I get two bananas?"

I was almost bouncing as I eagerly awaited my turn. The second Ashley's food was set out in her tray; I launched into my selections. "I'll have the rice with plenty of gravy, two daisy sandwiches, an apple, and an orange, pretty please!"

Ashley chuckled. "Someone's hungry."

I grinned at her. "It's a lot of work maintaining this physique."

"Extra work for Julie to turn you into a bowling ball, I guess," Ashley replied as she picked up her tray with her magic.

I couldn't give any witty reply, since my mouth was now occupied carrying my tray. I instead followed the others out towards the tables.

There were a lot of people, both ponies and humans, walking around the cafeteria. Meadow and Julie were already sitting and waiting for the rest of us at one of the tables. I tried to look around to see if I could spot Maggie. With so many people moving about, it was hard to get a good look.

CRASH! SPLAT! CLATTER! RARARA!

Maybe I should have kept my eyes forward.

I was on the floor; my tray was on the floor; my food was now a mess on the floor. I was now the center of attention, and it wasn't positive attention. Other ponies might be deeply embarrassed in this situation, but I had a long history of crashes, slips, trips, and splats. I knew exactly what to do.

I got to my hooves and raised my wings and head up high. "Let me present my newest piece of abstract art! I call it Oops!"

Laughter rang out all around me, and I just grinned and laughed along with them.

"You okay there, Rebecca?"

I looked at the person I walked into and smiled when I saw it was Russell. "I'm great. Told you, I crash a lot." I looked at his pants and saw a mess on them. "Um, let me wipe that off."

He beat me to it by lifting his leg and brushing it off. "Nah, don't worry about it. How bout I do you a favor and get you another tray of food."

I blushed. "You don't need to. It is my fault for not looking where I'm going."

He and I stepped out of the way as a janitor came over and started cleaning up the mess.

"It's all good," he replied. "I'm friends with the staff. My mom provides fruit for them. They'll let me cut in line to help you out."

"Well, if you're sure. I guess that's alright," I said and pointed over at the table with the rest of my friends, minus Ashley, who was still standing by me. "I'll be sitting over there."

He looked over the food to see what I had gotten and nodded. "No prob, be over there in two shakes."

As he headed off, Ashley came over to me and grinned. "Your tail's up, your wings are up, and you're pink, Beach Ball."

I turned a deep red, put my wings to my sides, and whipped my tail between my legs as Ashley giggled. "It's nothing!"

"Sure," Ashley continued to giggle. "But let's go take a seat before your boyfriend comes back with your food."

"He's not my boyfriend!"

She didn't answer; she just started walking to our table with a smirk spread from one end of her face to the other. I had little choice but to hurry after her. He was just really nice to me, and I appreciated that. It didn't equal attraction. He was just really nice to the klutz that he felt sorry for, that was it.

I took up a seat between Nightscape and Meadow. Ashley took a seat opposite me between Julie and Sunflower. Nightscape gave me a smirk to match Ashley's. "So- committed virgin or just didn't have to worry about foals because you're into humans? Nothing wrong with being into humans."

"I'm not-" I started, but stopped myself as I saw him coming over already with a fresh plate of food.

"Here you go," Russell said as he set it down in front of me. "Server remembered you and made sure I had everything right. They were already making a fresh tray, honestly. I stopped and picked up some ice cream from the machine for you. Didn't know your preference, so just got chocolate; can't go wrong with chocolate."

He got me ice cream too? I put my full pegasus willpower into not blushing. Hopefully, it was working. "Thank you. That was very sweet of you. Especially since I ran into you like that."

"Becoming a habit," he replied with a chuckle. "Hope to see you around tonight for the big get-together party out on the green. This time with no crashing."

"I'll be there," I answered without thinking. I didn't know there was a big party out on the green till that moment.

"See ya then, and try to avoid any big crashes," he said, and walked away with a smile and a final wave.

All the faces at the table turned to me and batted their eyes.

"He's not my boyfriend!" I said flusteredly. "He's just a guy I met the other day."

Nightscape whistled. "Day one, and she's already wrapping a guy up in her tail."

"Not wasting time at all," Julie agreed.

"Do you have any tips? I wish I could get a stallion that fast," Meadow said half-wistfully, half-playfully.

I wasn't going to let this continue any further. "I can't help that I'm big and sexy. Anyway, it's Nightscape's turn to share."

Nightscape blinked. "Hey! I thought we were doing this later! And you know we're just twisting your tail about the guy, right?"

"Nope, your turn now," I replied, and dug into my gravy covered rice.

She rolled her eyes. "Fine, I'm keeping it extremely quick and brief."

She cleared her throat. "Hi, I'm Nightscape. You all probably heard of me, since I live with you. I'm a third-year student. I'm originally from Florida, like Meadow, but from Pensacola. There weren't many other night ponies around, and they were all older than me, so I spent a lot of nights just sitting out on my roof by myself, staring at the city. They were always doing construction, and every night I'd see all these new things that went up in the day, like magic. That's how I got interested in architecture. I came here because it had the program I wanted, and it was near a Dreamwarden and lots of other night ponies, which is a big plus. Oh, and I'm engaged to the Dreamwarden's godson. The end."

"Just tacking that on at the end, huh?" Julie asked.

"Yep. Got a problem with it?" Nightscape asked.

Julie shook her head. "Nope. Rebecca, you're up."

It was my turn to blink. "Actually, can we wait till tonight for me? I need to show you all something, but I can't do it right here, right now. It has to do with my magic. It's normally a big secret, but if we're living together, I need to let you see, so you don't freak out or anything."

"It's not going to involve any crashes, is it?" Julie asked.

I shook my head and grinned. "Just the crashes of you dropping to the floor in shock and awe before my mighty powers of pudge."

Julie snorted. "Okay, just as long as it doesn't get us in trouble with Greta. Don't want the RA coming down on us. I guess it's my turn by default then."

"Yep," Meadow confirmed.

Julie sat up straight. "I've lived here most of my life, even back before the Cataclysm. My family is originally from Augusta, but the humans in Augusta kicked all the ponies out after we transformed."

She took a quick sip of water before continuing. "I remember the day of the Cataclysm, and the days after. There were all these clouds of smoke and ash. They were so thick in the sky that they caused lightning strikes. The streets were so choked with the stuff that you couldn't see five feet in front of your face. It was like that movie Nightscape made us watch last year, Silent Hill."

"That movie was the one that gave me nightmares," Meadow mumbled.

"Huh, that one didn't bother me as much. You'd think it would trigger some PTSD about the Cataclysm, but it didn't do anything to me," Julie said thoughtfully.

"Maybe because you lived through the real thing and the movie was just a bad imitation?" Sunflower suggested.

Julie shrugged. "Could be. Anyway, I noticed how sad and depressed the weather made everyone, and how frightened they were of everything. I thought to myself. Hey, if the weather can cause all these bad feelings, can it do the opposite too? It turns out; I wasn't the only one thinking that. They started up this whole cloud shaping industry to help impact moods. I wanted to get into that. This school had one of the few programs for it, it was local, and they gave me a full flight team scholarship. So here I am. I'm on the flight team, and going to be a professional cloud shaper."

"What was it like, being here when it happened?" Sunflower asked timidly.

Julie rubbed her head with a wing. "Well, school got canceled earlier that day. There were a lot of protests going on or something. I remember there was this big announcement that started playing on a loop that you could hear everywhere. It was telling us to abandon our homes and run. My parents were fussing with things and running behind, and a bunch of humans drove up to our house and told us there was no time, we needed to get in the car with them and go. My parents were going to argue, but then there was this big quake. I could see what happened from my house. This whole area we are sitting in now, and out by the monument, was under this huge magic dome, and inside the dome was just fire."

Meadow whimpered, and the rest of us leaned in intently to hear the first hooved account of the Cataclysm.

Julie looked down. "My parents didn't argue anymore. They got right in the car, and practically shoved me in. There were lots of cars to help ponies flee, lots of ponies running, and the sky was filled with pegasi flying away. It was scary."

"But you got away?" Sunflower asked in a low voice.

Julie nodded. "We'd just gotten clear of our old neighborhood when it happened. Wild Growth had already gone super Saiyan and started reinforcing the barrier before that, even if we didn't know what the heck was happening at the time. Roots, the size of houses, started popping up in the area behind us. There was another massive quake, and when I looked back, it looked like a volcano had gone off, a volcano made out of trees instead of rock."

We all held our breath as she took another deep breath of her own.

Julie closed her eyes as she finished her story. "Then we could all feel it. Wild Growth's magic was just pouring out of her like crazy. I don't even know how to describe what it felt like. It was like she was in everything, even us, and we knew she was fighting the blaze. It seemed like it just kept going forever, even though it must have just been a few minutes. Then it all just stopped, the magic, the eruption, the shaking. All that was left was the embers raining down from the sky, the smoke, and the ash. I spent the next four months living in a tent after that, out where the farmland used to be. Our home was gone. If Wild Growth hadn't been there, all of us living in the city would be gone too."

On that somber note, we all turned our attention back to our food. It was one thing to hear about tragedies like that on the news or read about them in history, but it was another to listen to a friend who went through it tell about it. I hoped I never had to see such a thing happen.

Author's Note

The event has been brought up a few times, and has had a big impact on many of Rebecca's friends and family. Link to the even is provided below. Although there is nothing cute, funny, or heartwarming about it. It was a major in universe tragedy. Chapter below covers viewpoints of the last living moments of Tonya (Arbiter), Wild Growth fighting the inferno, and Jessie (Jess)'s moment of heroism.

The Cataclysm of Riverview

Chapter 37: A Brief Interruption

"I'm going to ask you to pause your recollection of moving into college to ask a question."

I sighed with relief. The little man had been just sitting there for hours without saying a word, while I just talked and talked and talked. He was honestly kinda creepy due to how silent he was. The fact he was wearing a medical mask, glasses, and gloves made me feel like he was a doctor getting ready to dissect me. We were in a metal room with no decorations or windows, which didn't help me feel any more at ease. It was so hard to tell what he was thinking or feeling. I liked Luna better than the Warden of Order; even Phobia Remedy wasn't this uncomfortable to speak to.

"What is it?" I asked.

He had turned his recording device off right before he spoke; so, whatever this question was, it was off the record. "Do you feel closer to humans than you do your fellow ponies?"

One of my ears laid back. "I don't think so. I don't think I treat humans and ponies any differently."

"Yet, you were raised by humans," he replied in a neutral tone. "Most of the places you lived as a foal had you surrounded primarily by humans; your best friend is a human; you connected quite quickly with Jessica Middleton; you also showed arousal at a human man. I am wondering if your foalhood dispositioned you to engage more with humans."

I considered my answer. "While a lot of that is true, I think it is more a case that I like the outsiders. Jess is unusual, and Maggie was a human surrounded by ponies. Sure, my parents are humans, and I spend a lot of time around humans, but I like to think of everyone just being part of the whole."

"And the arousal?" He questioned, in the same dead tone.

I blushed and was tempted to lie about it, but this was part of my extended interview. I was flustered by the subject, though. "Give a mare a break. I was on my time of the month, and Russell'd been sweet to me more than once. It's not that hard to feel a little attraction in that case. If he'd been a stallion instead of a man, I'd have reacted the same way. I don't see a difference between the two."

"I see." His tone never changed. The only thing I could pick out of his voice was he was from Eastern Europe somewhere, based on his accent.

I tried to figure out what he was thinking, but I couldn't even properly see his face due to his dark glasses and mask. "Do you think there's a difference?"

He clasped his hands together and set them on the desk. "I think humans have many concerns that ponies do not. While the world may seem normal to you, for those of us who are human and older, we see a world barely recognizable to the one we were born into. Even now, fourteen and a half years after ETS, there is much fear and uncertainty. I advocated for humanity's concerns among the Dreamwardens since I am the only one of us who was never a pony, and the only one who can truly understand what it is like to be someone without magic wondering how forces they can't master will continue to change the world further. As an advocate for my species, I am inquisitive about your feelings regarding us and our concerns about how ponies are continuing to change our world."

I could only shrug. "Humans, ponies, whatever, we all have things we struggle with and worry over, but we all share this world and need to be able to get along with one another. If one group persistently has concerns about something, it is worth talking about those concerns. Persistent concerns about something means there's a problem, and we need to figure out together how to fix it. That doesn't mean just changing things back to the way they were, because we can never go back, but we can find ways of helping everyone feel safe and secure."

He nodded. "That is a fair answer, although not one I thought you would have so ready to give with no hesitation."

I blushed. "I spent a while talking to Lántiān, and she has a lot to say about that stuff."

He reached over to his recording device. "I assume you will get to that later in your tale. Are you ready to continue?"

I groaned internally but smiled. It wouldn't be over till I caught him up to date. "Yes, please."

He started the recording again.

After lunch, Julie and Meadow took Sunflower and me on a tour around the school. Nightscape had gone to bed since she had her first class that evening. Ashley needed to visit her advisor about an issue with one of her classes and said she would catch up with us later.

We wandered around campus for at least two hours. It would have gone faster, but both Sunflower and I kept stopping to look at the murals that seemed to decorate every inch of space on every wall. The entire campus was like one giant painting that displayed the history of Skytree and Riverview. Julie, as a living witness to this history, ended up acting as our guide to what all was depicted, and we ended up getting an extended history lesson about the city and the notable ponies and humans that lived here. Meadow, who probably got this same tour last year, took it all in stride but seemed a little bored by it.

"I've seen this unicorn in a photo at Phobia Remedy's house. Who is she?" I asked as we came up to a mural depicting a red unicorn standing at a podium.

Julie walked over and looked at the mural. "That's Sunset Blessing; she practically built the city, at least the old city. She was the old mayor, a skilled mage, and the preacher that canonized many Shimmerist beliefs. She also had a huge role in the Cataclysm."

"Was a big-time Shimmerist," Meadow corrected and looked at the mural with admiration. "She abandoned Shimmerism after the Cataclysm and laid the foundations of what became the Blessingists. She's a great mare."

Julie's face hardened. "Meadow, I don't have anything against Blessingists, but Sunset Blessing is part of the reason my home was destroyed. I'll never forget that, and others shouldn't either."

Meadow raised her nose and sniffed. "You wouldn't have even had your home to begin with without her. I know her past is a little spotty, and I'm not going to deny she played a role in what happened, but she has done everything she can since then to make things better. You should forgive her."

"Never," Julie replied, nearly spitting. "I don't want to fight about this again. Let's agree to disagree and move on."

"I still don't know what a Blessingist or a Shimmerist is," Sunflower complained.

Julie and Meadow looked at one another, and Julie gave a shrug and pointed a wing at Meadow. Meadow took that as a sign she was to explain.

The green pegasus smiled. "Well, I'm a Blessingist. We believe that everyone, humans and ponies, should have access to magic and that we can make the world a better place by advancing our understanding of magic. Honestly, I think that it is so obvious that everyone should agree with us, but a lot of people don't. We believe everyone has a right to magic and support all efforts to bring magic to everyone."

Julie stepped forward. "Shimmerists, in contrast, are a bunch of speciesist bastards that think everyone needs to be a pony, and humans are inferior. Most of the first Blessingists were Shimmerists, but they figured there was no need for everyone to be a pony if you could give humans magic too. Most Shimmerists didn't accept the idea humans gaining magic was a good thing. I can deal with Blessingists, even if they are named after the pony that blew up my home. Shimmerists, I can't stand, though."

Meadow hung her head. "My parents used to be Shimmerists and were part of the original group that broke away. They didn't originally think they hated humans, but Sunset Blessing’s confession made them realize looking down on humans was a form of hate. They said they tried hard to convince their fellow Shimmerists to give up their hatred for humans, but they were rejected. I don't understand how ponies can cling to hate like that. They hated us too, and call us traitors."

Julie grabbed Meadow and pulled her into a tight hug. While they were hugging, I gave the mural one last look. Sunset Blessing was Lántiān's godmother. Did that mean Lántiān had similar beliefs? I wanted to be friends with her, and anything I could learn might help.

After being released from her feathery bonds, Meadow looked around. "Maybe we should go see if they have set up for the campus party. We could spend all day looking at all the art on the walls and still have to go looking at the galleries."

Sunflower perked up. "There are galleries too?"

"It's an art school; we have art everywhere," Julie replied with a chuckle. "I'm in favor of taking a break. It would take forever to show everything, and you're going to be here all year. There's plenty of time to see everything."

The layout of the campus had all the buildings surrounding a central large reflection pond. The pond was a vast square with an area equal to the largest buildings on campus. It wasn't deep, any adult pony could easily wade through it without it coming up to their shoulders, and it had a large fountain in the middle. There were green grassy areas on all sides, with benches and a few scattered trees for students to relax among. I spotted a human on one of the benches, who looked like they were sketching the pond. I also saw a fair number of one of the most dreaded creatures to walk the Earth, geese.

I apprehensively stared at the devil birds. "Um, is it safe to be around the pond?"

"Yeah, it's perfectly safe," Julie assured me.

At that moment, a human started running as a pair of geese pursued. They were flying up and attacking his head.

Julie chuckled sheepishly. "Just as long as you give the little raptors their space." She looked up. "And whatever you do, don't be eating food by yourself out here. The gulls will come, even if the coast seems to be clear. It is as if they can smell food from miles away. They don't care if you're holding it; they'll try to snatch it right from you. They avoid large crowds, though "

Meadow fluffed her feathers, and I could tell she was reading the weather. "It's going to be a cold winter this year. We might even get snow. Hopefully, that will make all the monster birds migrate down to Charleston for the winter."

Julie also fluffed her feathers to check the weather. "Well, the party should be crowded enough that they'll all leave us alone. They have no problem going after one or two isolated people but will avoid hundreds."

The vendors and clubs were still setting up their stands all around the green areas, and there weren't many other people about yet. The four of us decided to walk around the pond, keeping our distance from the geese. After walking down one side, we stopped at a bench with a nearby tree to admire the view. I sat on the edge of the concrete border of the pond and gazed out at the fountain.

Something small, possibly goose-sized, came up and touched me, making me do a startled jump away from it.

SPLASH!

"Hi, I'm Drizzle, and you're wet!"

Water dripped from my soaked mane into my eyes as I looked at who had scared me. To my surprise, it was a little pegasus filly, maybe somewhere between five and seven years old. She had blue fur and a black mane and reminded me a lot of Lántiān.

"You okay, Rebecca?" Julie called out from the bench.

I climbed out of the pond and shook myself off. "I'm fine!" I then turned my attention to the little filly who was still smiling at me. "You shouldn't sneak up on people like that."

She didn't seem perturbed by being chastised. "Okay. Look at the bug I found!" She then bent down and used her mouth pick to up the most gigantic roach I had ever seen in my life by one of its wings. It was still alive and squirming to try to get away.

"Qīng Yǔ! I told you to stay by the table." Lántiān came up and glared down at the filly. "And put that thing down; it’s dirty."

The filly dropped the bug and pouted. "Call me, Drizzle, Mama!"

Lántiān huffed. "Of course, my mistake, Drizzle. You still need to stay by the table, as I told you. You can't go wandering every time I turn my head."

Drizzle pointed a wing across the pond. "Can we go look at the big birds? I wanna see the big birds."

"No, you may not," Lántiān said firmly. "Those birds are mean and will peck at you. Stay by the table, or I'll take you home, and you won't get any cake."

The filly looked put out, but turned and started walking. "Okay, Mama."

Lántiān followed her daughter's progress with her eyes until another pony, standing by a table, took command of the filly. Lántiān then turned and looked at me. "Apologies, Rebecca Riddle. My daughter is inquisitive and has a touch of wanderlust, always on the move. I would not have brought her, but her foalsitter canceled at the last minute."

"She's definitely-" I tried to find the right word. "-intrepid."

Lántiān frowned and fluffed her wings irritably. "She needs to learn to be more cautious and not wander off. There are still those who would happily foalnap her for my homeland, and they have tried before, yet she is too young to understand the danger."

Julie walked over and grabbed Lántiān into one of her patented hugs. "Hey, Sour Wings, ready for our first day of practice this weekend?"

Lántiān, somewhat surprisingly, returned the hug. "Dirt Nap, I shall be, if Drizzle's foalsitter doesn't cancel again."

Sunflower looked at the pair curiously. "Dirt Nap?"

"That's my flight team nickname," Julie explained. "We all have them, just for use among the flight team members. They're all kind of insulting, but it is a show of affection and friendship."

"Julie got her nickname because she tried to hug the captain in midair, missed, and ended up on the ground taking a nap," Lántiān explained.

"And Lántiān got hers because she reached to pick up an apple to eat and grabbed and bit into a lemon by accident," Julie continued. "Or so I've been told; it was before I started here. Don't be calling us those names; it is for flight team members to use among ourselves."

I noticed then that Meadow was standing back, away from the rest of us. She was looking fearfully at Lántiān's flank. Lántiān took notice of her around the same time as I did, and covered her flanks with her wings. "I must be going. I shall see you at practice, Julie. Apologies again for you getting soaked, Rebecca Riddle."

After Lántiān walked off, Julie glared at Meadow. "Why'd you have to go and scare her off? She gets self-conscious about her mark."

Meadow chewed her lip for a second. "It's a Shimmerist mark."

Julie gave an exaggerated sigh. "Do you know who her godmother is? It's that unicorn you hero-worship so much. She's not going to get on you about being a Blessingist. Even if she would have, which she wouldn't, she has no way of knowing you're a Blessingist."

Meadow's eyes went wide as she stared off in Lántiān's direction. "Her godmother is Sunset Blessing? The Sunset Blessing?!"

"Yeah, so don't go judging a pony by their mark," Julie scolded. She then turned back towards me. "Sounded like she already knew you. You two friends?"

My ears folded. "Well, I'm trying to be friends with her. I'm not sure she likes me that much yet, or if she'll ever like me. I just met her the other day, but we kinda have a history I just found out about recently. It's a long story."

Julie blinked. "Alright, well, I'm sure she'll get over it, whatever it is. Lántiān's a good pony, even if she's always busy with her art, her club, and her daughter. She's also the best cloudbuster on the team, probably one of the top five best cloudbusters in our conference. If she had time to practice as much as the rest of us, she could probably make a go at the top cloudbuster, but as I said, she gets busy."

"I hope so," I replied. There'd been signs of hope that Lántiān might decide she liked me, but it wasn't at a point yet where I was sure of it. I really shouldn't have been bothered by it because not everyone was going to like everybody, but her reasons for not liking me stung. I wanted to make things right.

Meadow pointed off in the distance. "Hey, I see a food vendor that just opened to start taking orders. Let's get some. It's time to party and enjoy ourselves, because come tomorrow we'll all be busy with classes."

Julie grabbed me into a one-wing hug. "Come on, eat while you can. Starting next week, we start workouts!"

Chapter 38: Not the Only One With Secrets

As early evening came, and the light outside began to dim, the grounds around the reflection pond came to life with students. Everyone had come out for one big party before the school year began. Well, almost everyone, a few evening classes were starting at the same time, but they were very few. Julie had wandered off to catch up with some of her teammates, leaving just me, Meadow, and Sunflower as a group.

"Wow, there's so many ponies—and humans," Sunflower said as she stepped out of the way of a girl who didn't seem to be paying attention to where she was going.

I looked around; it was a big mass of people, and it reminded me of the crowded halls of my old high school. "How many people did you say lived out in your hometown?"

"Forty-one, at least before I left," Sunflower replied. "Sometimes we would get together with the two closest towns, to celebrate a harvest, then there'd be over a hundred ponies in one place. That seemed like so many, but since I left home, that doesn't seem like that many anymore. There seems like a lot more than that out here right now."

"I think there were more than a hundred in the cafeteria when we were in there," Meadow said as she eyeballed a stand with some guessing games with prizes to win. "Think there are more ponies on our side of the female dorm than that. Is it too much for you? We get it if you need to go back to the room and recharge."

"I'm alright," Sunflower said quickly. "I wish Ashley would come back soon. I feel better with her around. She said she'd keep me safe."

Meadow blinked and gave Sunflower a sideways look. "When she say that? I don't doubt she would say that, but I've been around you the whole time she has, and I don't remember that."

Sunflower fluffed her wings. "Oh! Um—we met before I moved in, somewhere else. Not that long before."

I fluttered my eyelashes at my shy bathroommate. "Do you have a crush on her?"

"Please say no," Meadow groaned. "Relationships between roommates are too much drama!"

"What?! No!" Sunflower shouted in shock. "I like stallions, not mares. She just promised to keep me safe, and I trust her."

Meadow giggled. "Sounds like you don't get to dish out any payback yet about us reacting to your human boyfriend, Rebecca."

I fluffed my wings. "He's not my boyfriend!"

Meadow smirked and pointed a wing. "Well, loverfilly, your not boyfriend is right over at that stand."

I turned around to look, and I heard Meadow laugh loudly. "Your tail just flagged!"

"Meadow, stop it. You're picking on her too much about that. You're going to make her feel bad," Sunflower protested.

I hadn't located what stand Meadow had been pointing at and decided that she must have been just trying to get a rise out of me… or at least my tail. It was kind of embarrassing that my tail shot up. We ponies have a hard time disguising our emotions due to our body language with our ears and tails. It also made us almost always lose to humans at poker.

I turned around with a massive grin on my face. "I was doing my patented tail lifts. Got to keep that tail in shape."

Meadow gave me a flat look. "Seriously? That was the best excuse you could come up with?"

I shrugged. "Best that I could come up with on the fly. Not my best attempt to play something off." I let myself relax. "Okay, I admit; I'm a little aroused, but I'm at that time of the month. I'm surprised you didn't get a strong whiff of my lavender fresh deodorant when my tail pointed towards the Big Dipper."

"Deodorant?" Sunflower asked in confusion.

I blinked. "You do wear deodorant when you're on your time of the month, don't you, Sunflower?"

Meadow looked concerned. "We don't want to embarrass you, Sun. We just don't want you getting into an embarrassing situation."

Sunflower turned her ears flat and looked downward. That told the other two of us all we needed to know. I looked at Meadow. "You want to do the tail check, or should I?"

Meadow stepped forward towards Sunflower and put her nose right up next to Sunflower's rear, then withdrew. "She's clear! No monthly pheromone funk."

"I'll lend you some next time it's needed," I assured her. "I keep way more than I need."

Meadow looked out past me. "Hey, I was yanking your chain last time, but he really is over there now… if you wanted to go say hi."

I looked over and saw him. He was right at the stand where you had to guess how many jelly beans were in the jar, and whoever was closest at the end of the night won the candy.

"I don't know," I replied. "I don't want to get involved in a relationship. I always intended not ever to have sex or anything, so I don't have foals. I worry about getting too close to people like that anyway."

"Um, he's human; you aren't making any foals with him," Meadow replied with a snort, but then softened her tone. "But if you aren't comfortable flirting with the idea of getting involved with anybody, I can respect that. I don't understand what's to be afraid of, but I don't need to in order to respect it."

"I kinda understand," Sunflower said slowly. "A lot of the fillies I grew up with got pregnant and started raising families already. My mom says it's like we ponies have a greater compulsion than when we were humans to have families and multiply. She said that it could get in the way of me trying to become more than just a backwater bumpkin if I did that too early, and always told me to avoid getting involved with anypony like that until after I was done with college."

"You two are no fun," Meadow lamented. "I don't mean that literally. I get day-dreamy about finding the love of my life while here, and going into my second year coming out still single. Julie doesn't do the dating thing either, and Nightscape already found her special somepony." The green pegasus looked over at Russell. "Hey, if you aren't interested in him, mind if I go try to flirt?"

"You're into humans?" I asked, a little surprised.

Meadow shrugged. "I've never given humans a fair shot. The majority of us were human once, even if it was a long time ago, and we can't remember it anymore. So I figure humans are pretty close to us, and it's worth the shot to see if there's any chemistry. There's no harm in experimenting a little; the worst-case scenario is there isn't any spark."

"Go for it," I said with a big grin. "You're right; no harm in trying."

Meadow took a deep breath. "Okay, but you two need to scram. I'll lose my nerve if you're watching."

"We're scramming," I quickly replied as I put a wing on Sunflower and directed her to start walking away. Sunflower and I started walking, and I glanced back and saw Meadow was indeed approaching Russell.

Sunflower was looking around the crowd nervously, and I could tell she was uncomfortable. Ponies are social creatures, but that didn't mean we couldn't get distressed dealing with more massive crowds than we were accustomed to being around. She was also too proud to say that she wanted to head back to the room now that her circle of safety had dwindled to just me. I needed to convince her that going back to the room was alright.

"Hey, I'm pretty clumsy, and I'm afraid that I'm going to run into someone or get my tail stepped on if I hang out in this crowd too long. You saw what happened in the cafeteria," I said as I pointed around at the crowd. "Want to fly back with me to the rooms? I'd go back alone, but I tend to crash—a lot, and it is generally safer for me if someone is around in case I get myself into trouble."

The relief on Sunflower's face and the way her shoulders picked up told me that she was thankful for a legitimate excuse to get away. Technically, everything I said was true. I had a high probability of doing something klutzy in this crowd, and ponies were always safer traveling in groups. I wished I could hang around some more, but Sunflower was going to be sharing space with me for the next few months, perhaps even years, and that meant I needed to look out for her.

We walked for a short distance to get out of the crowd. It is exceptionally rude to try to take off flying in a packed crowd because it is very easy in a group to smack someone with a wing during takeoff. Once we were clear of the mass of people, we took to the air.

Sunflower turned her head and looked at me as we flew. "Are you alright? You're wobbling."

I tried harder to straighten up my flight but to no avail. "I'm not a great flyer. I'm not making things up when I say I crash all the time. I can keep in the air, but I can't do the same speeds everyone else can or have as easy a time at it. Even night ponies can outrace me in the air and fly higher with no problems. My weather magic is pretty much non-existent as well. I've had tons of flying lessons and instructions to try to correct it, and it is better than it used to be—if you can believe that, but my flying is never going to be great."

"I heard there was a famous Equestrian pegasus named Scooter or something like that, who can't fly at all, but she still ended up famous for other things," Sunflower replied. "It's alright if you can't fly well. At least you can fly, which is better than whatshername."

We reached the dorms and came in for a landing on the balcony for Sunflower's room. Sunflower landed perfectly fine, me; I caught my legs on the balcony railing and did one of my more colorful landings.

KRUNK!

It wasn't a bad crash, at least by my standards, but I'd landed in just the right way that I now had dampness and coppery smell in my nose.

"Oh, no! You're bleeding!" Sunflower said in shock. "Can you walk? I should get you in the bathroom, or maybe I should call a doctor."

I pulled myself to my hooves and almost shook my head before I caught myself. Shaking my head would just spread my blood around. Instead, I put a wing up to my nose and applied some pressure. "I'll be okay, just a bloody nose. If you get me a damp towel to hold on it, it will be fine in a few minutes. I don't want to drip blood through your room."

Sunflower opened the sliding glass door for her room—which was unlocked, probably not a good idea, and hurried in. I heard water running a moment later and then shut off. She then came back in a rush with a damp white towel.

I took the towel in a hoof and held it on my sore nose. "Thank you. I'll hold this for a few minutes, and everything will be fine."

She still seemed fretful as she watched me. "Why did you fly here if you could get hurt flying?"

I shrugged, still holding the towel to my nose. "Every pegasus can crash and get hurt when they're flying, even the best flyers. I could get injured just walking. Flying, even clumsy flying, is part of me, and I'd be miserable if I never flew. Sometimes you have to risk getting hurt to be happy."

Sunflower hung her head. "I don't know. I get so nervous lately that it seems like it gets in the way of being happy. Coming here was about fulfilling my dreams, but so far, I've been so anxious that it's hard to enjoy anything."

"You need to have a little confidence," I replied. I was smiling but doubted she could see it around the towel. "Since we're just sitting around. Do you have any examples of your art? I'd love to see what you've done."

Sunflower blinked. "Yeah, I have a little portfolio. Give me a minute." She then retreated into the room and began looking through her still mostly packed luggage.

I waited patiently for her, and after about two minutes, I removed the towel from my nose and checked to see if I was still bleeding. The white cloth now had a big scarlet spot on it that made me wince to look at it, but my nose seemed to have stopped. I took a second to wipe up a few drops of blood that had landed on the ground, and by the time I was done, Sunflower was returning with a folder clasped under her wing.

"Here you go," Sunflower said as she passed me the folder. "My quality varies a lot. My copies of book covers are generally pretty good, but most of my original work… it needs some work."

I cupped the folder in my wings and used my hooves to open it and start flipping through drawings. The first few drawings were clearly copies of illustrations from books, a few of them I had even seen before, and several others I could guess what book based on the image. They did look excellent, and I assumed I would have a hard time telling them apart from the original artist's work. The next several looked like still-life sketches. They were good, but nothing exceptional. Following that were several landscapes; these looked more amatuerish, and had some issues with perspective and shading.

As I finished flipping through the landscapes, a very different drawing greeted me. My first thought was that it might have been another illustration copy, but the angles were all wrong for something like that, as it didn't seem to have a defined subject. It was also a significant break in style and content from the other drawings. The drawing was a pencil sketch of a woman sitting cross-legged on the ground with a big black ball in her lap. It looked like her shoulder was injured, and looming in the background was some sort of monster. Everything looked far more lifelike than any previous drawings, almost like a black and white photograph. It felt out of place.

"What's this?" I asked.

She looked at which drawing I had in front of me, and her ears sagged low. "Oh… that. I didn't realize that was in there. I normally keep those drawings separate. My mom and dad call that, and the others like it, my magic drawings."

I looked at her and studied her face. "It is really good, the focus could use some work, but everything else about it is great. Why do you look so ashamed of it, and why do they call it a magic drawing?"

She looked at the piece of art like it was an angry snake. "Because I don't choose to draw those. I go into almost like a trance, and it's like I attack the canvas with my brush or pencil or whatever I'm using. I just start drawing so fast, faster than I can force myself when I'm trying, and I'm not aware of what I'm doing. It's only when I'm done, and I'm staring at a drawing I have no memory of doing that I realize that it's happened."

I looked at the drawing again. "And you don't know why?"

She shook her head. "No, it just happens, and I never know when it will. I've done a bunch of them over the years. They're all different; some are just pictures of places, some of them are weird things like this one, some of them are pictures of just a pony or human. I hate that they happen, but they're my best work."

That was strange, and sounded like magic at work. Was she having visions? "When did this start?"

"Years ago, a few days before the Cataclysm," she replied. "I was doing a normal drawing, or at least trying—I was just a little filly and my art at the time looked like it came from a little filly. The next thing I knew, I was staring at this picture of ponies attacking other ponies. It was this kind of quality, even back then. I was barely out of drawing stick figures at the time. The image was so violent, and I was scared. It happens on and off since then, it can go months with nothing, and I have no idea what triggers it."

That could be very frightening, especially for a young foal. "Well, it seems like you have a unique gift. I don't know what to make of it, but I'm sure you'll find a reason for it, someday."

She reached out with her wings and grabbed the folder back. "Maybe. Right now, it just makes me weird."

I laughed. "Hey, I still have to show you all my magic. I think I have you bested in the weird department. When Nightscape and the others are back, I'll show you, and perhaps you'll feel a little less unusual."

She didn't look convinced, but nodded. "I'd like to feel less like a freak. Could you do me a favor? Can you not mention my trance drawings or anything about them? I probably shouldn't have told you about it. I was told it would be a bad idea if lots of ponies knew. Can you keep this a secret, please?"

I briefly bit the inside of my lip for a second before answering. "I'll keep it secret, just like I want you to keep mine secret after I show you later, but I think you should show the others. If you can't predict when this happens, it is a good idea to warn all of us about it before it happens, or you'll make the others worry. I could alert them that everything is alright, but that's supposing I'm in the room and not in class or whatever at the time."

She sighed. "You're probably right. Ashley already knows about it, but I'll tell everypony else. Just don't let it go past our two rooms, okay?"

"Cross my heart and hope to fly, stick a cupcake in my eye!" I said, going through the gestures as I did and avoiding smacking myself in the face.

Sunflower arched one eyebrow at me. "Um, what is that?"

I giggled. "It's something Yinyu taught me. She says she learned it from Princess Luna of Equestria, and that Luna learned it from the Element of Laughter. It's their version of a pinkie swear—which is great because we don't have pinkie fingers, or any fingers, so pinkie swears are normally pretty hard to do. It's me giving you my promise."

The door to Sunflower's room opened up, and Ashley stepped in and smiled at Sunflower. "Good, you're here. I couldn't find you when I went out to the party and was a little worried about you." Her eyes fell to the bloody towel by my hooves and widened. "Is everything okay?"

"Yeah, we just needed to get away from the crowd," I replied. "I ended up doing a crash landing on the balcony and bloodied up my nose."

"She needs to be careful with her landings," Sunflower added on.

Ashley gave a relieved sigh. "Alright, I was just worried. I get a little paranoid sometimes."

"Well, we're okay," I said, then looked at the towel. "You wouldn't happen to know where we do laundry, do you? I want to get this towel washed up so it won't stain."

Ashley nodded. "Sure, just follow me."

As I gathered up the towel, I noted that Ashley's focus had been mainly on Sunflower, and remembered that Sunflower had mentioned the two had met prior. "Hey, by the way, where did you two meet before moving in?"

They both froze and looked at one another. Ashley gave Sunflower an almost scolding look like she'd done something wrong, and Sunflower looked like she'd just taken a bite out of an onion as she turned back towards me. "The dream realm."

Chapter 39: The Marshmallow Comes at Night

Sunflower, Ashley, and I were engaged in a game of two truths and a lie when my roommates and Meadow were heard coming in together through the other room.

"How'd it go with the human?" Sunflower asked as Meadow came back into her room through the bathroom.

Meadow gave a dejected shake of her head. "No spark, but not because he's a human, and I'm a pony. He didn't respond to my flirting at all, but it might not be a joke that he could be interested in Rebecca, though. He seemed genuinely disappointed not to have seen her at the party." Meadow turned her attention to me. "What're you doing that I'm missing? I tried all last year to find a special someone, and no one seemed interested."

I shrugged. "I don't know. Maybe you're trying too hard. I'm not trying at all."

"You might want to lay off some of the Blessingist talk too," Ashley added in. "It's great you're so devoted to your beliefs, but if you talk too much about it, you end up sounding like a fanatic. That's a huge turn-off."

"Unless your preferred partner is a die-hard Blessingist fanatic, in which case, keep it up," I decided to add in as well jokingly.

Meadow flew up to her bunk and flopped. "I attend the Young Blessingist meetings held on campus every month, haven't had any luck there either."

I blinked. "I was sorta kidding. I could tell that stuff was somewhat important to you, but didn't realize you really are that passionate and into it. In that case, keep going to those meetings, let your passion for your beliefs shine, and stop trying so hard to attract a guy. If they're attending those meetings too, then they'll be more impressed by your convictions than you trying to flirt."

"Yeah, focus on being you and letting everypony see you for who you are," Sunflower agreed.

"Everybody," Meadow corrected. "More than half the people at the meetings are humans. You're all probably right. I need to step back and stop trying so hard to impress guys."

Nightscape wandered into the room. "While all of you were partying and whatever, I was sitting through class. The professor was as boring as I expected him to be, and I'm ready to move around. I'm probably going to head out again soon and go check in on Robby. His dad is in town for the night, getting ready to take Robby's sister back home. I wanted a chance to say hi, I'm your future daughter-in-law. It seems like a good thing to do while I've got a chance."

I flicked an ear. "I may be taking up some of their time if you do. I promised to do something for Jess and her dad. Something that I'm the only one around here who can do it."

The night pony gave me a quizzical look. "I'm guessing this has to do with your secret special magic that you were going to tell us about? Maybe you should get to showing us that. It's your turn to share anyway, Marshmallow."

I nodded and stood up. "We should all go to the other room. It is best if I do this while in bed."

"Aww! You mean I have to leave my nice comfy bed to go watch you be comfy in bed?" Meadow lamented.

"Just as long as you don't make a habit of it. That would be weird," I replied as I started walking through the bathroom.

"That's my job," Nightscape said with a chuckle. "I watch you all sleep."

"That's creepy, and I didn't need to be reminded of that!" Meadow shouted.

Nightscape ignored being called creepy and turned to me as we entered the other room. "Are you going to be flying out with me, Rebecca? I don't mind since I can track you in the dark better than in the daylight, but I worry about you trying to fly back here at night when you're tired since you are prone to crashing as it is."

I walked past Julie, who was looking over her class schedule, and hopped up on my bed. "I'll be fine. I'm not going to be doing my normal flying. In fact, I don't think even Julie would be able to keep up with me with the type of flying I'll be doing."

Julie whipped her head away from her schedule to look at me. "What?! I understand a bit of pegasus ego, but no offense, there's no way you could outpace me in the air."

I pulled my headphones over to myself. "You'll have to see what I'm talking about, and then you'll understand."

Julie snorted. "I'll believe it when I see it."

I put on my headphones but didn't start my music. I took a deep breath and launched into my monologue. "I owe you guys my story first since everyone else gave their stories. I'm Rebecca. I have two human parents. I'm planning on being an architect and was inspired to be an architect when I first saw that monument across the street. My mom is an executive for PonyCo, and I spent most of my foalhood moving from place to place due to her job. I'm a dreamwalker, and I started dreamwalking at a young age. So young that it ended up making my magic go all screwy. That's why my pegasus magic isn't very good. I have other magic as a result, though. That magic is what I'm going to show you. Please, don't tell anyone about it. It could cause me problems if you did. I have to show you because sooner or later you'll end up catching me doing it and freak out."

"I've seen some pretty freaky magic before, so don't count on it," Ashley replied, unconvinced.

I started flipping through my playlist. "I have an easier time doing this when listening to music. I can do it without, but it's much more challenging. It will take a moment or so to happen. Don't distract me, or it will take even longer."

I turned on an old Disney song from Treasure Planet and let myself get lost in the music as my friends all watched. A moment or two later, I was staring at myself, and my eyes immediately fell upon my mane.

"Hey! Why didn't anyone tell me I have yucky duck pond leaves stuck in my mane?" I flusteredly asked. "Can someone pull them out? I can't touch anything right now."

I turned around and was greeted by five mouths hanging open.

"How are you doing that?" Julie asked. "You aren't a unicorn. You can't cast illusion spells."

I floated away from my body, and my friends backed away. "I'm a projection. It's like my mind gets up and goes where it wants to go." I stuck a leg through a bedpost. "I'm not all here. I can't touch anything. I can turn my projection invisible or change shape. I can move really fast like this since it doesn't depend on my wings, and there's no air resistance or anything. Now, can someone get the leaves out of my mane?"

"So, you can go through walls?" Sunflower asked. The ordinarily timid pegasus got brave, stepped forward, and put her wing through my belly, and wiggled it around.

"Do you have a limit on how far you can go?" Meadow asked.

"What else can you turn into?" Ashley asked.

"How fast can you move? Is it legal to use for the flight team?" Julie asked eagerly.

I shook my head. "I'm pretty sure it breaks some rule for me to use for flight competitions. Can we focus on priorities, like getting the wet gooey leaves out of my mane?"

Ashley lit her horn, and the leaves in my mane were yanked out one at a time.

I smiled gratefully at her. "Thanks. I need to take a good shower in the morning." I then turned to look at all my friends. "Okay, lightning round of answers. Yes, I can go through walls. I can go many miles away from my body. I'm not sure how fast I can move, but it will take me less than a minute for me to fly from here to Phobia Remedy's house, and that's on the edge of town."

"And the shapeshifting?" Ashley prompted.

I considered what to do for a moment and decided to have fun with it. After picturing my new shape in my mind, I shifted.

Nightscape burst out laughing after I changed shape, but the rest of my friends looked horrified.

Ashley gave me a dubious look. "Is she supposed to be a crazed stuffed animal, or a ghost, or a—"

"A marshmallow…" Julie said breathlessly.

Meadow looked like she wanted to upchuck her last meal. "I'm going to be having nightmares about giant smiling marshmallows that want to eat me."

"Me too," Sunflower said as she closed her eyes and shook her head. "It's just something about the big empty sockets for eyes and the mouth that just opens into a dark void, like something out of a scary movie."

"Can you please stop that? I need to sleep in the same room as you, and you're going to have me looking for monster marshmallows as I try to sleep," Julie whined.

Nightscape just kept laughing. "Oh my god! I don't know why that's so funny, but it is! The marshmallow has ascended to ultra-marshmallow. The queen and alpha marshmallow! All shall tremble before the marshmallow and despair. I've got to turn away. I'm going to bust my gut laughing!"

Ashley seemed to have recovered from her initial discomfort. "Okay, Miss Stay Puft—" She paused as Nightscape went into a fresh round of laughing and continued again after Nightscape waved a wing and walked away, still chortling to herself. "—can you turn back to normal now?"

"Please!" Meadow whined.

"Oh, okay," I grudgingly said before shifting my shape back to normal. "Anyway, I have a promise to keep. I'm going to turn invisible and go project to Phobia Remedy's house." I pointed at my gently swaying physical body. "My body is still going to be doing that the whole time. Um, you can pull my curtain closed around my bed, so you don't have to look at it."

Ashley didn't waste any time lighting up her horn and pulling the curtain closed. The others looked slightly relieved after it was shut, except Nightscape; Nightscape was still getting her last few mirthful laughs out.

I grinned at my friends. "I'll be out late and will immediately go to sleep when I get back. I'll see everybody in the morning. Have a good night!"

I didn't wait for a reply. I just turned invisible and started moving. Within a second, I was high above the school and trying to orient myself to where Old Town was. It didn't take long, and I immediately took off in the appropriate direction. Within another few seconds, I was across the street from Phobia Remedy's house.

The night ponies all around the outside of the house gave me pause. While I was telling more ponies about my powers, I was only telling my friends, not the whole world. Some night ponies were able to spot me when I was invisible—not all of them, or even most of them, but enough of them that I needed to be cautious. It had something to do with being more aware of dreams.

After spending a moment judging the distance to the house, I dipped down underground and zoomed forward so I would come up from underneath it. I rose through the earth and found myself in the living room, under a couch.

I did a quick glance around, and the coast looked clear. Then I decided to rise a little higher up, which turned out to be a big mistake.

It all happened so fast. First, there was the sound of a mare screaming. I turned quickly enough to see Phobia Remedy jumping over the edge of the couch. Crystal came rushing into the room and focused on me, still invisible, and I started to feel woozy as the crystal pony started to glow. The next thing I knew, I was back in my body, in my room, with a splitting headache.

"Owwww," I moaned and fell over into the curtain of my bed, getting tangled in it.

"Rebecca! Are you alright?" Nightscape yelled with worry from somewhere nearby.

Someone was working on getting me untangled, and I didn't struggle while they worked at it. It turned out to be Julie, who immediately pulled me into a hug upon getting me free. I saw the other three come hurrying into the room.

"What happened?" Sunflower asked.

"She cried out and fell out of bed," Julie explained, not letting me go.

"Oh, no! Poor Rebecca!" Meadow cried out and came over to start checking me for bumps and bruises.

Nightscape came closer and gave me a concerned look. "Are you actually hurt?"

"No, just a big headache," I replied with a wince.

She nodded. "Let me guess, you went into Phobia Remedy's house unannounced and invisible? Crystal nailed you, didn’t she?"

"Uh-huh," I moaned weakly.

Nightscape started laughing again. "The crystal pony came through on her job. Everyone jokes that Tempest is still Phobia's physical bruiser, and Crystal is just there to deflect magic threats. She finally got to show she's useful. She'll be proud as a pufferfish about this."

My phone started ringing, and Nightscape stuck her head forward to look at the screen. "Hey, that's Jess calling you. Want me to answer it, or do you have it?"

My head was still pounding. This felt much worse than crashing from a flight or tripping. "Answer it for me, please."

Nightscape reached a wing around and tapped it. "Hi, Jess. It's your future sister-in-law. You'll be glad to know Rebecca isn't dead. She just has a little headache."

"She scared Phobia half-to-death," Jess replied. "We're still trying to calm Phobia down, but she's at least slowed her breathing and letting Charlotte and Arachne touch her."

"I was in-invisible," I said with difficulty. "I didn't know she was there."

"Do you think a Dreamwarden wouldn't be sensitive to that kind of thing?" Jess demanded. "She didn't see you-see you, but she sensed something come up right under her, and she has high anxiety while awake. Crystal and I had to figure out that it was you because she only knew something terrified her. You should have called first!"

"I'm sorry," I replied quietly. "I'll apologize to her personally. I'll be back over there in a little while, as soon as I take some aspirin. I'll come through the front door this time if someone can stand by to look for me."

"You're still coming over?" Jess asked in a shocked tone.

"I promised I would," I answered and winced again. "I might have to tone it down to being a go-between or try something else. I don't think I can keep focused enough right now for proper mimicking. I came up with another idea on how to do it anyway. It should work and require less concentration on my part."

"Alright, but take a few more minutes so we can finish settling Phobia, and call before you leave this time."

Nightscape leaned forward again. "Hey, I'll be heading your way now. I'll keep the marshmallow in line when she gets there."

"I'll see you soon then," Jess replied. "Let me go so that I can go help with Phobia. Talk to you later."

The line went dead, and I groaned again. "Does anyone have any aspirin?"

Chapter 40: Demonic Agreements

I took my time floating through the air this time, rather than zoom straight to the Dreamwarden's house. I was still projecting, but I was taking things easy. I was also making a show of pretending to be flying while still visible. My headache had receded down to a dull throbbing, and I felt confident I could complete my promise.

Nightscape flew beside me, and I made sure that I didn't leave her side. She intended to walk me in.

"Now, when we get there, you need to stay clear of Charlotte, Arachne, and Nightmare Moon," Nightscape explained. "They're going to be in full protective mode after you scared their mother. I know they whine about her not being fair, but she's still their mother."

"But they're just a bunch of teens. I don't think they're that scary," I replied.

Nightscape snorted. "The three of them may only be thirteen years old, but they are three of the most dangerous thirteen-year-olds you'll ever meet. Tempest and Crystal have trained them since they were small to fight, and they can kick the flank of any night pony in town, including mine. We all make fun of Crystal, but she is tougher than any of the guards except Tempest, and I know Charlotte at least has fought Crystal to a standstill before. And that is impressive."

"I'm not even really here, so I don't think it’s going to matter," I said as I broke the illusion of flying to float just ahead of her for a moment.

She blinked. "Right, forgot that. Hard to adjust to."

I resumed my fake flight next to her. "When they aren’t ready to jump me, what are Phobia’s foals like? It seems like they have a hard life. Ever since I first learned I might become a Dreamwarden; I have been scared of having a family of my own."

She turned her head and raised an eyebrow at me. "Is that what the whole committed virgin thing is about?"

I gave a sad nod of my head.

She frowned and then looked forward. "Huh. That's the first time you've come out and said you might become a Dreamwarden to me. I knew, and I knew you knew that I knew, but it feels good having that out in the open with us. Just keep it between us, okay?"

"Yup! You know, Jess and Robby know, my parents' new neighbors who moved in to guard them know, Wild Growth, and my parents. That's it."

"Tempest too," Nightscape replied. "She was there when Phobia was assigning me the job of watching you. Tempest vouched for me being a strong enough fighter to defend you. I'm not sure who your parents' new neighbors are. I assume they're Yinyu's guards for you. I know she had some."

"So what are Phobia's foals like?" I prompted again.

She shrugged, which was always interesting to watch while a pony was flying. "Charlotte and Arachne are very competitive with each other. Arachne can make bugs and spiders do what she wants, mainly spiders, which is creepy. She can be a bit of a snob, thinking she's better than everyone else because of her family connections. She'll also sometimes act like she's a ditz without a brain in her head, but it's just a manipulative act she does to get people to think she's all innocent and do what she wants. Don't buy it for a minute. She's made it clear that she wants to make a name for herself since she has a famous mother, grandmother, and aunt, and doesn't want to always be overshadowed."

"So, she's conniving and ambitious?" I asked.

Nightscape nodded. "Yep, a regular chip off the old before she reformed Sunset Blessing's block."

"That sounds bad."

Nightscape tilted her head in agreement. "Maybe she'll grow out of it. As for her twin sister, Charlotte is a fighter to the core. She'll get into verbal sparring matches with her parents, so she’s kind of a typical angsty teen in that regard. Charlotte and Rosetta—that's Phobia's spouse, spend a lot of time talking together, and Rosetta usually can calm her down if Charlotte gets upset about something. Charlotte is kinda a mommy's filly, fights with her parents, but also goes running to them if she needs to cry."

"And the colt?" I asked curiously.

"Nightmare Moon, or call him Moony. He's quiet and hates seeing people get hurt. Even keeps bandages and stuff around to help patch anyone up right away. He wants to be a doctor. He's a real sweetheart."

I arched an eyebrow at her. "That seems different than what I saw. I saw him doing a duel with Jordan, and he seemed—I guess the word is savage."

Nightscape laughed. "It's an act. It's like a pegasus fluffing their feathers to look more intimidating. Yeah, he goes in growling like an animal and looking like he's going to tear someone apart, and he's going to be an ox of a stallion when he's all grown up, but he pulls his blows if he thinks they might connect. Charlotte and Arachne don't know how to tell when enough is enough; they only understand doing whatever it takes to win; he understands when it's gone too far."

I sighed. "It sounds horrible; having them have to get better at fighting constantly."

"Night ponies take pride in being able to fight. It's what our tribe does," Nightscape said defensively.

"You're an artist and an architect. That's a creator, not a fighter," I pointed out. "And it sounds like they get drilled on fighting far more than other night ponies."

"I still learn to fight. Tempest puts the rest of us through drills, too," Nightscape grumbled. "I've had Charlotte and Arachne bloody my muzzle more than once."

"But is that how you define yourself, or do you define yourself as an architect?" I asked. "We shouldn't be like that, treating our tribes like they’re all we can be."

"Would you feel the same way if you could do weather magic?" Nightscape retorted, then her eyes went wide. "I'm sorry, I shouldn't have brought that up. That was rude and unkind."

I gave her a small strained smile. "It's okay. You're right; I might feel differently about it if I could do everyday pegasus things. Heck, I still love to fly, and I can't even do that well—but I wonder if me not being able to define myself that way opened up other doors for me, and I'm not just talking about this magic I have. When we don't fit a definition, we have to find a way of defining ourselves on our own, and there's something special in that."

She shook her head. "I define myself. I include being a night pony, and all that entails in that definition. Just because I'm one thing doesn't mean it says everything about me, but it does say some things about me."

"Maybe it doesn't have to be any part of your definition, or you can define what being a night pony means differently," I suggested. "Phobia Remedy doesn't learn to fight."

She gave a loud snort. "Phobia Remedy is one of the most feared ponies on the planet. She technically has the power to destroy a pony's mind with a thought. When she enters a room, everyone gets wary. Phobia Remedy doesn't need to know how to fight."

"Yet, silly little me can about cause her a heart attack," I countered. "I didn't mean to, but the fact remains that for all that frightful image people have of her, she's still not someone you could define under standard night pony terms."

"Is there a point to this?" Nightscape asked.

I shook my head. "I don't know. I'm just figuring things out loud for myself. Sometimes hard to define thoughts work better if you talk them out."

"Well, we're about to land. You can think about that stuff later. You're the one who might end up a Dreamwarden, not me, and I'll leave the big questions to Dreamwardens and preachers."

Nightscape came in for a landing in front of the house, and I descended with her, doing my best to keep up the illusion of a regular landing from a flight. It wasn't a perfect imitation of a landing in my case, since my typical landings involved a lot more tumbling and people dodging my rolling body, but it was a believable landing.

Crystal came marching out the door and straight to us with a scowl on her face, and her eyes fixed on me. I involuntarily cringed as she approached. She was still translucent and glowing from when she sapped my magic.

She pointed a hoof at me when she was only a pace or two away. "You! What kind of nerve do you have using magic to enter a Dreamwarden's home unannounced and scaring poor Phobia like that? You're lucky I only shorted out your crazy spell and didn't do some permanent damage to you because I was ready to try to suck you dry. You don't invade our home or make my boss feel threatened; you got that?"

"Um, yes, ma'am," I said meekly, hoping she didn't decide to banish me again. I wasn't sure if she could drain more than just whatever held the projection away from my body, or if she could reach across whatever thread tied me to my body and drain me directly, but I didn't want to find out.

None of the night ponies on the roof were making a peep. Several of them were staring nervously at Crystal. I understood why. There was some primal fear all ponies shared of having their magic ripped away, and Crystal had just absorbed another pony's magic. It may have been in defense of their beloved Dreamwarden, but it was still an act that made any pony want to squirm away in fright. Plus, there was the fact they no doubt were worried about being chewed out for somehow letting a fat little pegasus get by them into the house unnoticed, and then get out of the house and away with just as little notice. They were probably going to be wondering how I did it.

Jess and Robby exited out of the house together. Jess took the lead with her brother close on her heels. She had a determined expression on her face as she approached us.

"She's learned her lesson, Crystal. You don't need to scare her or threaten her," the human said firmly.

Crystal turned and glared at her. "It's not your concern or place to tell me what I can and cannot say to her. It's my job to see to Phobia's defense and the defense of everyone in this family. I'm not going to let her off the hook without at least making it clear that it will not be allowed to happen again."

Jess didn't flinch away from that glare. "Do you want me to go get Tempest?"

Crystal gave a mirthless laugh. "I thought you were a genius. Do you think Tempest is going to be any more forgiving than me? She's lucky it’s me and not Tempest who is out here right now."

"She's right, sis," Robby quietly said as he laid a wing against his sister's leg while looking up at her. "Just let her get it all out cause the longer you interfere, the longer this is going to take."

Jess blew at a stray strand of blue hair and crossed her arms. "Okay. I still think it's a pointless waste of time, though. Rebecca isn't dangerous. Phobia just spooks easily. True, she should have announced herself rather than just wafting in, but what's done is done, and she got a nasty migraine to teach her a lesson."

"You did get her good," Nightscape told Crystal. "She fell out of bed, moaning and crying. Our other roommate had to hug her tight to comfort her."

Julie would hug me if any excuse were given, so that wasn't worth mentioning, and I was pretty sure I wasn't crying. I wasn't going to contradict the pony who was my friend, roommate, and bodyguard. Maybe she knew some ancient secret bodyguard code that could smooth this over faster with Crystal.

Crystal grimaced and gave me a measured look. "No more sneaking in. You're to come through the front door, invited and announced, or you won't be allowed on this property again in any shape or form. I don't take kindly to trespassers. Do I make myself clear?"

"Crystal clear," I replied meekly. I briefly considered shifting shape to something smaller and cuter, but all the night ponies were watching. As far as they knew, I was standing here for real.

She snorted and stepped to the side. "You may follow Robby and Jess inside, don't go wandering off."

Nightscape and I followed the Middleton siblings onto the house. There was no sign of Phobia in the living room, but her three foals were all sitting together by the stairs and watching me with predatory gazes. A human man was sitting on one of the couches that I assumed was Mister Middleton.

Jess looked over at the three teenaged night ponies. "This is kind of private, you three. Do you mind going somewhere else for a little while?"

"It's our house, so why should we?" Arachne answered flippantly.

"She hurt Mom," Charlotte said while glaring at me.

Jess groaned. "Rebecca didn't hurt your mom. She just startled her. Something I know each of you has managed to do far worse at one time or another. I've done it myself at least once. You know how your mom gets when someone comes up to her unexpectedly or too quickly."

"You aren't a stranger; she is," Moony said grimly.

"I assure you, she's not a stranger to your mom, even if she's a stranger to you," Jess said calmly but firmly. "You trust me, right? All of us have been friends for years. Believe me when I tell you she isn't a threat, and she didn't mean any harm."

The three siblings looked at each other in silent exchange before Arachne turned back to us. "We trust you, Jessie, and Robby, of course, but that doesn't mean we should have to get up and leave. How about you trust us with letting us see whatever is going on here?"

"You're really going to do this?" Robby asked in exasperation.

"Mom's in her room," Arachne replied.

"And Tempest is with her," Moony added on.

"Crystal is outside, and Mama is away," Charlotte continued.

"And none of you are the boss of us," Arachne finished.

Jess looked at her brother helplessly. "You're an adult that lives here; you can't overrule them?"

Robby shook his head. "Nope, my authority in the house begins and ends in my room. Dad doesn't live here, and neither do you."

"Jessie is only a year older than us anyway," Arachne reminded us smugly.

"Only if you're counting linear time," Jess snapped. She then looked over at her dad, who promptly put his hands up as if to say he wasn't getting involved. She then put her hand up to her face and pinched her nose.

A moment later, there was a knock that seemed to have no source.

"Who is it? The Dreamwarden is busy," a disembodied voice asked.

Jess replied without taking her hand from her face. "It's Jess. I'm not actually up there; I'm just twisting sound around. The demons want to stay down here and watch."

"Not my problem," the voice replied.

"But Tempest—" Jess whined.

Tempest cut her off with a stomp on the floor that could be heard in the living room. "My duty is to Phobia Remedy, not Rebecca Riddle. You're a big girl; resolve your problem yourself."

Jess huffed and lowered her hand. "Fine." She then turned to me. "This is going to be your call. We can either do this thing with them watching, or we can try taking off somewhere and trying to do it someplace else. What do you want to do? I can say they are trustworthy, even if they’re a pain sometimes."

"Hey!" Charlotte objected, but her sister put a wing over her to shush her.

I looked at them. They stared blankly back at me—except for Arachne, she grinned. I looked back at Jess. "I guess so, if they can keep this to themselves and not tell anyone."

Charlotte spread her wings. "Who would we tell? We get homeschooled and spend ninety percent of our life cramped up at the house."

Arachne slapped her sister with a wing. "Will you stop before she decides not to show us?"

"Don't you slap me! How about you stop grinning like an idiot before she thinks she's dealing with some madmare?" Charlotte shouted.

"I'm not an idiot, you bi—" Arachne instantly had her sister's hoof in her mouth, blocking out the curse word. Moony shook his head and looked down.

"How do you deal with your sisters and keep sane, Moony?" Robby asked in amusement. The colt just shrugged his shoulders and shook his head in exasperation again.

"You really are quiet," I observed.

He looked up at me and raised his head high. "Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak and to remove all doubt. From Abe Lincoln, it's my favorite quote. Getting involved with their fights is nothing but trouble and only escalates things, so I keep my mouth shut."

Nightscape leaned over and whispered in my ear. "He's going to be quite the charmer with the mares when he's older. Instantly the most eligible bachelor the second he turns eighteen. There's already some of the older fillies eying him."

"Would you have eyed him if you hadn't gotten me?" Robby asked.

Nightscape smirked. "You bet your tail I'd have gotten in that contest if I were still single in five years. I think I got the better option, though, unless you dump me."

"Not planning on it," Robby replied. "It's so hard to find night ponies who are interested in art."

"So you're stuck with me then," Nightscape giggled.

The twin sisters were grinning at their brother's evident discomfort at being discussed in such a way. "Aww, look at little brahter blush," Arachne teased.

"He's only a month younger than us," Charlotte corrected.

Arachne shrugged. "Still our little brother, just like I'm still the oldest."

Charlotte flapped her wings. "By thirty seconds!"

Arachne gave her twin a level look. "Thirty-two, and don't you ever forget it."

Moony shook his head again. "Should have kept my mouth shut."

Chapter 41: Angel in the Mirror

With the three demons now sitting quietly off to the side, it was time to focus on the task at hand.

Jess stepped over to her dad and motioned me to follow. "Dad, this is Rebecca." She bent down and reached her hand through me. "She isn't here right now. She's halfway between the dream realm and the waking world. She's able to see Aunt Arbit— she's able to see and hear Aunt Tonya while like this."

I looked around. "Who is kind of absent at the moment. Hey! Arbiter! Where are ya? It's almost showtime. Oww!"

I rubbed my head where I had just been thonked by her staff. Even with me only halfway in the dream realm, that thing hurt! She was standing in her angel-partial form, right next to Jess's dad, even though he was unaware. She immediately turned her attention to looking at her brother and examining him closely.

"What was that for?" I asked, still rubbing my head.

Arbiter ignored me, but Jess's dad gave me a baffled look. "What was what for? I didn't do anything."

I shook my head. "No, your sister. She bonked me on the head with her staff thingie. Even if it is just a dream, it still feels real. She's next to you, examining you. She can only see what I can see."

Arbiter turned away from her brother and looked around the room. It was like everything was fascinating to her.

"She's here?" Jess's dad asked, almost disbelieving.

I watched Arbiter looking around the room. As I turned my head to follow her, it seemed like she was constantly being distracted by something new that came into my field of vision.

"Yeah, she's here," I answered. "I'm not sure what she's doing, though. She's just looking at everything. She's like a kid in a candy store, or me in an art gallery."

Arbiter turned from examining the creepy doll and looked at me. "I'm sorry. I just don't get to see the waking world like this. I see memories of it, impressions in dreams, seeing it again like this—even if I can't touch anything, even if I can only see what's in your field of vision, I can't describe how much I've longed for it. You aren't trapped in the dream realm, so you wouldn't understand."

She turned and looked at her brother with a blissful look on her face. "And here's Paul, as in him actually being right here, in real life. I don't know what he's thinking, and it's wonderful."

I blinked and looked at Jess's dad, Paul. "Um...okay, she's just enjoying herself. She told me once before that being dead is a miserable experience for her, and I guess she's thrilled to be seeing all this stuff and you for real again."

Arbiter nodded. "That's a very understated way of saying it. Do you mind turning around for a moment? I'd like to see my nephew and niece, and all of the demons. I can see them all in their dreams, but not like this."

I did as she requested—Arbiter just flowed with my field of vision as I turned around. Once everyone else was in my line of sight, she started examining them each in turn.

The Dreamwarden frowned at Jess and the others, seemingly musing to herself. "Hmmm, it's fascinating to see the differences between real life and how they picture themselves in their dreams. They can be minor things, but things worth noting. These are insights I normally wouldn't have. Phobia is so lucky." She shook her head. "But this isn't why I am here. I need to think like family instead of like a Dreamwarden."

"So… what's she doing now?" Robby asked as he looked around himself as if he expected to find his aunt lurking.

"I think we can begin what we intended to do," Arbiter said before I could respond to Robby. "I know you had changed how you wanted to do this. I'm not sure if your new idea will work or not, but we can try it."

I nodded to Arbiter, then turned back to Paul. "Alright, she's done with her looking around. Here's what I'm going to try. I'm going to turn into a mirror."

"You mean you'll be miming Aunt Arbiter, like you practiced," Jess clarified.

I shook my head. "No, I mean, I'll be turning into a mirror."

"A mirror-mirror, like what Arachne spends an hour posing in front of every morning?" Charlotte asked from behind me. I immediately heard her get slapped by a wing. "Well, you do! You hog the bathroom to yourself while I'm waiting to go pee! I don't know who you think you need to practice posing to impress."

"I'm practicing applying my makeup!"

"You don't have anyone to impress, and you've got a vanity mirror in our room for that!"

"It's not as big!"

"Will you two shut up!" Moony bellowed, and his voice came out far deeper and more stallion-like than before. It even made me jump, but it brought an end to the argument.

"Let me just do the thing, and we'll see if it works," I said quickly, and then immediately shifted shape and moved off to the side of the room away from everyone.

I was a wide and tall mirror, stretching as wide as one side of the room. I had eyes and my mouth up on top so I could talk, but I was reflecting everything that I saw—Paul, Jess, Robby, Nightscape, the demons, and Arbiter. It took everyone by surprise when I changed shape, but there were gasps as the others all saw Arbiter in the reflection. They turned and looked at where it was reflecting she was at, next to Paul, and back to the reflection again, and then to the empty space beside Paul again.

Paul reached out a hand to his side while looking at the reflection, trying to grasp at his sister, but it just passed through her. She was even less in the room than I was. She stepped forward and put a hand up to me to touch her reflection.

"It's almost like I'm here," she said breathlessly.

"I can't hear what she's saying!" Charlotte yelled.

"Oh," I said sheepishly. "Um, I'll try to reflect that too, somehow. This might have a slight delay and not line up with her lips."

Arbiter stepped back from me and stood beside her brother. "Can you hear me now?" Her voice echoed back from me a second behind each word. It was a little disorienting on my end, but the rest of those present probably couldn't hear anything but my echo.

Paul covered his mouth as he looked at Arbiter into me. "I can hear you. This is happening. This is really happening." He looked like he was going to cry.

Arbiter shifted shape, and she was back in her pony form. "This shape is more familiar to you. It's not my true shape anymore. I don't have a true shape, but it is one I still use sometimes." She gave a frustrated shake of her head. "I apologize if I seem off to you. Being a Dreamwarden and stuck in the dream realm—it does things to you. I feel like I lost so much of myself and had the holes stuffed with things I could never explain to anyone."

Paul tried again to grasp at his sister and failed. He looked back at the reflection in me and addressed it. "It's alright; you don't have to apologize. You've been...dead...for years. I wouldn't expect you to be the same. Even if you hadn't died, it's been so long; you were bound to change anyway."

She smiled at him. "Thank you for that. I wish Dusk were here. I never got to see him after his birth. He must be so big now as well, and already started school." My echo of her voice was still not lining up right, but I was afraid I'd mess something up if I tried to fix it. I was lucky it was working this well.

Paul smiled. "Yeah, he's getting big, and he drives his sister crazy sometimes."

"Well, he needs to learn to stay out of the garage when I have projects in progress. He could get hurt or mess something up," Jess said in an annoyed tone as she crossed her arms. She then seemed to realize she was interrupting. "Ignore me. I'll keep quiet. I'm just part of the scenery."

Paul smiled. "He does go looking for Jessie in the garage when he knows he shouldn't. He adores his sister and tries to see all the things she is doing. She's practically his hero. I keep intending to get her a large shed with a lock for her projects, but haven't gotten around to it."

Jess grimaced. "You need to hurry up and do it. It's not a little thing. Dusk could get hurt. It isn't even safe for you or mom to come in while I'm working. I need a secure space." She shook her head. "I'm just going to go check on Phobia, so I don't keep interrupting. This time is for you, not me; we can talk about the garage and shed later."

Jess walked out of the room and up the stairs. Arbiter looked sad at her leaving, which confused me. Jess had magic, so it wasn't like Jess was someone the Warden of Song never got to see.

"She's a good girl," Paul said. "I don't understand any of the stuff she works on, but I know she is doing important work."

Arbiter turned her attention back to her brother and smiled. "Yes, she has been a godsend to us all, and I know how dedicated she is. You have good reason to be proud of her. I know I'm proud to have her as my niece."

Paul rubbed his hands together. "I spent many nights hoping that I would suddenly get magic through some random happenstance, and then I would be able to see you again. Now that I can talk to you, I don't know what to talk about."

Arbiter tried reaching out to touch him, and her ethereal hand passed through him. She scowled and withdrew it, and forced her smile back to her face. "Well, I have things I wanted to tell you."

He looked at her eagerly. "What did you want to say?"

She sat down. "That I forgive you, for all the stuff that happened when we were growing up, and for not being there for me in those years leading up to ETS. I understand. I was challenging to deal with, and not someone that even family would have sought out. You had no way of knowing how much trouble I was in, and I didn't do my part to reach out to you. I want to tell you that I forgive you and love you. You're my brother, you'll always be my big brother, and I need you to know how much I care about you. You may have understood that I had forgiven you, but I needed to make sure I said it."

Paul started to cry. "What really happened that day, Tonya? What happened the day you died? I heard the official line, but I want to hear it from you. I want to know what went on in your last hours."

Arbiter steeled her expression and looked around at all present. "This doesn't leave this room. I'll know if any of you tell anyone. I'm not compelling anyone to keep it secret—I can't do that from here anyway, but I want to hear everyone promise."

There was a chorus of promises given, including mine. Arbiter looked around herself. "I know you're listening, Jessie. I know you too well; give me your promise."

"I promise," Jess's disgruntled disembodied voice replied.

The Dreamwarden nodded to herself and turned back towards her brother. "The official line isn't entirely true. Poly Glot did get out; he did set off that mist spell, and he did commit carnage throughout the facility. What he didn't do was make the facility explode; that was me, and it wasn't an accident."

Me and everyone else gasped at the admission. Paul took a few steps back from his sister. "You? Why would you— how could you… why?"

Arbiter sighed. "I had no real choice, at least not any reasonable one. Poly Glot was going to get into the Chorus room. The Chorus was something that held an unimaginable amount of magic. He was planning on doing something far worse than blowing up a city. None of you would have likely survived the long-term fallout of it, and you'd probably be driven mad early on. It wouldn't have just impacted Riverview; it would have directly affected the entire eastern half of the continent, and indirectly everywhere else. Billions would have died. I couldn't let it happen. I was the only one standing between him and that future, and I made the only choice I could."

"How did you do it?" Arachne asked.

"I'm not telling you that," Arbiter said in quick response, while laying her ears flat. "That's a secret I will keep even beyond my grave. Not all knowledge is good, and there are things out there that have no beneficial application. True evil is rare, but it exists."

"Yet, you used whatever this knowledge was for good if it stopped the bad guy from doing worse," Arachne countered, not backing down.

"That's enough, Arachne," came a soft voice from the stairs. The group turned to see Phobia Remedy, followed closely by Tempest and Jess. Luckily she was in my field of vision since I wasn't very good at turning to look right then—being a big bulky mirror. Phobia stepped into the room and looked at Arbiter. "You have me at a rare disadvantage. I'm fully awake and less aware."

Arbiter smiled back. "Hardly a disadvantage. I envy you."

Phobia gave her fellow Dreamwarden a regretful look. "And I mourn for you, and Yinyu, and Ghadab." She turned her attention back to her foals. "Arachne and Charlotte, you two need to be more respectful, especially you, Arachne. You dream of being a leader? Then you better learn not to disrespect those you want to have listening to you. Even if you aren't trying to get someone to listen to you, others can still see how you treat those around you and know your character by that. I expect better of you."

Arachne hung her head in shame. "Yes, Mom. Sorry, Mom."

Phobia then turned her attention to her son. "And you; I expect you to apologize for yelling at your sisters the way you did. I heard that from upstairs. Intimidation is only to be used as a last resort before violence, and you should never be on your last resort with those you love. Those who regularly turn to intimidation inevitably find themselves turning to force, as it's the only way to go further. That's a lesson I had to learn the hard way, and don't want you to have to learn in the same manner."

Moony hung his head. "I'll try to be better, Mom." He looked over at his sisters. "I apologize. I shouldn't have yelled like that at you."

Phobia walked forward and hugged her son. As soon as she released him, she walked over to her daughters and hugged each of them. Everyone was quiet as this went on. Even with Arbiter in the room, and even knowing how easily frightened the Warden of Fear was, Phobia Remedy still somehow had the most commanding presence. Phobia might have scolded her son about intimidating others, but she passively did precisely that to everyone around her. Although I understood that she wasn't doing it on purpose, it was merely the reputation she held, whether it was fair or not—that it wasn't done on purpose was an important distinction from those who did.

When she finished her hugging, she turned to Arbiter. "I did not interrupt merely to chastise my foals. I needed to remind you that Paul and Jessie need to sleep soon, as they have to leave early in the morning. Rebecca has also been very gracious in helping you, but she is starting her classes in the morning and needs her sleep. Your conversation had made a turn into territory best not discussed anyway."

"I am getting tired," I admitted. Holding the shape of a mirror and making the sound from Arbiter come through was much more draining than my normal projecting. "I'd be happy to do this again. It feels good helping people."

Arbiter looked disappointed but nodded. "You're right, Phobia, and thank you, Rebecca. You can also add that I'm also having to all but restrain our brother and sister from joining in, so for those reasons, we need to bring this to an end. They're only keeping out of sight out of respect, for the moment, but I think them getting involved would turn this into chaos."

"Ha, yes, it would, " Phobia replied. "Wrap this up, and perhaps you can do this again around the holidays, if Miss Riddle agrees. Perhaps we can even work out some time for Yinyu and Ghadab in the future so that they won't be chomping at the bit for their chance."

Arbiter turned back to Paul. "I guess I'll hopefully get to talk to you again in a few months and get to meet Dusk as well. I'm sorry this was so brief."

Paul was still crying. "I'll be looking forward to it. Goodbye, Tonya."

"Goodbye, big brother," Arbiter replied. Then she simply vanished.

With no reason left to be an inanimate object, I returned to my normal shape. It was a relief since the strain of maintaining that had been growing increasingly worse. I'd never felt that when projecting before, but I'd also never tried holding my shape as a mirror and trying to make all the sounds I was hearing get repeated back. I didn't immediately return to my body, but I was ready for some real sleep.

"Thank you for doing this, Rebecca," Jess said as she went and laid a hand on her dad's shoulder while he was busy wiping tears from his eyes.

Paul sniffled and looked over at me with a sad smile. "Yes, thank you very much. I know Tonya's not entirely gone, but after her death, she may as well have been for me. I couldn't even remember the last thing I said to her before it happened. This feels better."

I giggled. "Anything I can do to make things better is worth it. You don't have to thank me for that. I love seeing people happy."

"Dad?" Robby said as he stepped forward with Nightscape walking beside him. "I wanted you to meet Nightscape, the mare I intend to marry."

I watched the trio with a smile on my face until Phobia Remedy stepped over to me.

"Um… sorry about scaring you," I said as penitently as I could. "I didn't think anyone was there and didn't realize that if there was, anyone would notice me."

She took a deep breath before replying. "I forgive you for taking two years off my life. Jessie is not wrong when she says I can startle or frighten easily. I've been trying to get over that, but I might never get completely better. We'll put the incident behind us. My first thought was that one of Arachne's spiders had gotten loose again and was under me. I don't have arachnophobia, but having Goliath crawling under you can frighten anyone. He would probably send my mother—who is deathly afraid of spiders, into a panic for hours."

"I'm guessing that if it is named Goliath that it is big," I said, cringing a little.

She nodded. "Oh, yes, he is big. He also doesn't eat bugs; he eats birds."

I involuntarily shuddered. Nope, nope nope, with a cherry on top, nope!

Phobia shrugged. "Arachne keeps many spiders, but it is just Goliath that manages to get out. He's bigger and stronger than the others, and I swear he's more intelligent than a spider has a right to be. I've been tempted to contact Fluttershy in Equestria to come look at him. It may be good to contact her no matter what, since my daughter's magic at least partially resembles Fluttershy's."

"She's the nice quiet one that likes animals, right?" I asked.

Phobia nodded. "Correct. Anyway, I didn't want to waste your time discussing my daughter's abominable pet. I wanted to say that I was impressed with your usage of your powers, and that you were far better and capable with them than I expected. That mirror idea was creative, and I admit, I am intrigued about its possible future application."

I blinked. "Um, thanks. What do you mean, future application?"

The Dreamwarden looked around at the others then leaned forward to whisper to me. "If you were to get a particular job perhaps, I think that your ability that you displayed today might become even better, and gives us a way of safely and effectively communicate and make appearances where we couldn't before. Allowing Arbiter, Yinyu, and Ghadab the ability to address waking world authorities directly, and allowing the rest of us to meet with those same authorities without needing to travel, which is always a safety concern."

I frowned at her. "I'd have to travel still. I don't have an unlimited range. I would need to at least be in the same metro area, and I'm still not sure how much a crystal pony can hurt me. "

She waved it off. "The OMMR would cover your travel expenses. You'd probably get paid a higher salary than me. I also think that what Crystal did to you today is likely the extent of what they can do to you, although we will have someone run some tests."

"I'll think about it. It isn't a requirement that I do that, right?" I asked. I wasn't eager to have crystal ponies testing their magic sucking powers on me.

"No, it is not," she replied with a shake of her head. "Although your willingness to do so might factor into other decision-making processes."

Her meaning was clear. If I was unwilling to use my powers as she wanted, she might vote against me becoming a Dreamwarden. In principle, I had no objection to it. Still, I worried that I wouldn't be able to work as an architect if I was busy traveling around acting as a meeting service between Dreamwardens and average non-magical humans. That was asking me to give up my goals and aspirations to just act as a go-between for others.

"We can talk about this some other time, in greater privacy," Phobia said as I was still wondering how to respond. "Go back to your body and get some sleep, and good luck with your first day of class tomorrow."

I let myself smile again. "Yep, going to be exciting! Have a good night, and watch out for giant spiders."

I saw Phobia Remedy nervously looking underneath herself just before I let my projection go.

Chapter 42: First Morning of School Jitters

I let out a groan as my alarm went off with a loud and obnoxious tone. Normally I set it to music, but I didn't know how my roommates would take my selection. I also set it earlier than I usually would because I didn't want to be late for my first day of classes. I could have just hit snooze, but I managed enough self-control not to do that. My next big test of willpower was getting out of bed, even with no music there to motivate me. Was I a strong enough willed pony to do it?

CRASH

An additional roll in my bed had ended with my willpower not being an issue. Note to self, sleep closer to the wall next time and farther away from the edge of the bed.

The room was still dark, and the sun wasn't up yet. I noticed quickly that not only was Nightscape still gone from the evening before, Julie was already up and out of the room—that or she had been abducted by aliens overnight, but I didn't think it that likely. I gave it a ten percent chance aliens had abducted her. Was my math and figuring accurate? I doubted even Jess could dispute me.

Bathroom, that was the next destination I needed to get to. I needed to move from the floor to the bathroom. The floor didn't seem that bad to lay on, now that I was here. My left wing was at an odd angle, which might start to hurt if I didn't get up. The shower would help wake me up too. I pulled myself to my hooves and promised myself no more late-night excursions. I couldn't wake up this tired every morning.

I slowly made my way to the bathroom and flipped its light on. Across it, I could see that Sunflower, Meadow, and Ashley's room was still dark, which meant they were probably all sleeping still. I was the first one up, except for Julie. I wondered where Julie was. Maybe she was one of those pegasi that started the morning with a flight. She was an athlete, after all.

I quickly did my business with the potty to avoid any intrusions and then went for the shower. Climbing into it and pulled the curtain closed, and gasped as I turned the water on and got blasted by freezing cold water. It didn't remain freezing long, and I had a small cloud of steam going in no time at all. I grabbed my shampoo and got to work, humming Piano Man to myself as I scrubbed and giving my mane an extra through scrub after I remembered that I had icky duck pond stuff stuck in it just yesterday.

I jumped in fear as the curtain opened, and Ashley climbed in. "Move over, Marshy. The shower is built for two. Don't stand dead center in the middle and hog it all to yourself."

I stepped aside, and Ashley lit her horn and started lathering herself up with soap. It was going to take me a while to get used to sharing the shower. I was mostly clean now and just needed to make sure all the shampoo was rinsed off. Fur felt awful if you failed to rinse all the shampoo out of it.

The curtain opened again, and Ashley said some words in rapid succession that my mother would have washed my mouth out with soap for saying. Sunflower was standing there looking abashed.

"Close the curtain, feather brain!" Ashley shouted. "Just two ponies at a time! Wait for one of us to get out."

"I'm done!" I yelled and started trying to exit the shower, which is more challenging when there is another pony in it and at least one other pony standing just outside it. I got twisted up in the shower curtain, though, and the next thing I knew, me and the curtain were coming down on the floor.

"Ack! Water is getting all over the floor!" Ashley yelled. The next thing I knew, I was being picked up and unrolled from the shower curtain. Ashley set me down on the counter using her magic and quickly put the curtain back up before exiting the shower. She then looked around the bathroom and grumbled. "I don't suppose one of you can gather this all up in a cloud and dump it outside, can you?"

"It would take several pegasi to do that quickly, and we would need more room," Sunflower explained as she hurried into the shower.

Ashley shook her head. "Well, there is a drain in the middle of the floor. Hopefully, that will get most of it. Just watch your step, and don't slip."

Meadow came wandering in, blinking sleep out of her eyes. She paused and stared at her hooves in confusion for about thirty seconds after stepping in. "Why is there so much water on the floor?"

"Because we were trying to build a lake in the middle of the bathroom," Ashley sarcastically snapped. "You must have heard everything. Rebecca took a tumble and pulled the shower curtain down."

Meadow blinked a few more times, then flew up to me. "Are you hurt? The floor isn't padded or anything in here."

I had just oriented myself completely after being magic handled and wanted to get over to the dryer ASAP, but Meadow was blocking me. "I'm fine; I take harder falls getting out of bed. I am starting off well today, two crashes before breakfast."

Ashley blinked up on the counter—blinking as in short teleport— and beat me to the dryer as Meadow finally left the counter and headed to the toilet. I only then remembered there was a dryer on either end of the counter and turned to get myself a hot air blast from that side.

"Someone needs to loan Sunflower some deodorant. She's fragrant!" Ashley announced.

"You sniffed my butt!" Sunflower shouted in outrage from the shower. "When did you even get a chance!"

"When you were getting into the shower," Ashley answered. "We need some deodorant on you. Can't have you going all-natural first day of class."

I already had my bathroom bag up on the counter next to me and dug through it. I gave myself a sniff first and determined I didn't need anything. I put the deodorant out next to one of the sinks. "I have some next to the sink here; just don't lose it."

"Thanks, I guess," Sunflower said as she started getting out of the still running shower.

"Go ahead and turn the shower off. I showered last night," Meadow called out from her seat on the toilet.

"What about Julie and Nightscape?" Sunflower asked.

"Julie normally showers in the gym, and Nightscape probably isn't even here right now, and if she were, she would have showered sometime like two in the morning," Meadow answered before flushing the toilet. "I recommend waiting till evening to preen. If you do it now, you'll probably miss breakfast."

"But we're up so early," I protested.

"So is everyone else," Meadow explained. "There is going to be a line for breakfast. By the time you're through the line and eat, you'll barely have time to get to class."

Miss breakfast? This pudgy pony would not miss her breakfast!

As soon as I was suitably dry, I left the bathroom and gathered up my saddlebags, making sure that I double-checked my schedule and made sure I had my correct books for the class.

Today was Wednesday, and first up was Calculus One with Professor Torres, followed by English Literature One with Professor Higgins; then Introduction to Architecture with Doctor Morris; then lunch; then Art History One with Doctor Toussaint. I also had an evening class listed for this day of the week, but it was listed as not starting till next week—it was the lab that coincided with Astronomy with Professor Moon, which was the first class on the day tomorrow. Most of my classes were Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, and Astronomy was Tuesday and Thursday with the rest of Tuesday and Thursday to myself.

The schedule seemed straightforward enough on paper, but it ended up with me having to carry a lot of books around for the busier days, and today was one of those days. I had a problem; my saddlebags couldn't carry all the books and supplies I needed for all my classes lined up for today. If I left my Art History book and supplies in my room, I could fit the rest, but that would mean making an extra trip by the room during lunch, which cut into my eating time.

There was no real choice, I'd have to reduce my lunch hour to switch out my books, and I might have to do that every time. That was depressing. Hopefully, the cafeteria wouldn't be too busy at lunch, and I could still get through and eat before class. There wasn't a lot that got me extremely frustrated, but the prospect of missing a meal was one of those things.

"Why in the year twenty-thirty-seven am I still having to lug tons of textbooks to class?!"

I set the Art History textbook and my notebook close by the door to grab them quickly later on and loaded up the rest. I briefly considered taking a flight down from the balcony to save some time, but the weight on my back told me that would be a terrible idea. I had already crashed twice today; I didn't need to add a third one before breakfast. Plus, if I crashed while carrying all my books, they might get scattered everywhere.

The last thing to grab was my room key, which was on a convenient chain. I went out the door, locked up behind me, and hurried over to the elevator. Luckily, most students on this floor were inclined to fly down from their balconies rather than come this way, so there wasn't anyone waiting.

"Hold the elevator, Marshmallow!"

I was already on the elevator when I heard the yell and blocked it from closing with a leg. Ashley came hurrying on, and I let the doors shut.

She lit her horn and pushed the button for the ground floor. "Thanks," she breathed, maybe slightly out of breath from her sprint for the elevator while carrying her bags. I looked at them, and they didn't seem nearly as full as mine. In fact, It didn't look like she had any textbooks at all, from what I could tell.

She looked at my bags and raised a brow. "I guess you didn't hear me telling Sunflower not to bother bringing your textbooks to the first day of class."

I gaped at her. "Why?"

She smirked. "The first day, at least on three-day-a-week classes, the professors spend the entire class going over the syllabus, introducing themselves and telling you why you should be honored to have them in particular teaching you, and there isn't any lesson. Half the time, the professors end up telling you they aren't using their textbook. There will be a lot of people trying to trade their textbooks in for cash this afternoon."

Well, at least I could get lunch if I didn't need to worry about my Art History book this afternoon. I'd have to haul all this stuff around, but that was manageable.

The elevator arrived at the ground floor, and we got off.

As we were trotting towards the exit of the dorm building, Ashley looked over at me. "Hey, just to let you know, you don't need to worry about teaching Sunflower dreamwalking skills. She ended up having another teacher, lined-up. I asked Ghadab if he was willing to help her out, and he said he'd do it. You might be good at dreamwalking, but I'm pretty sure you can't top a Dreamwarden as a teacher."

"Isn't Ghadab kinda rough around the edges?" I asked. "It seems like if you were going to ask a Dreamwarden to help, you'd ask Arbiter, Psychic Calm, or Miss Seap- Yinyu. Sunflower might get freaked out by Ghadab or Phobia Remedy."

"Ghadab and I close friends, and he knows how to tone it down. Sunflower will be fine," Ashley explained.

Dawn was breaking as we came outside. "If you say so. I don't know him that well, but he seemed like someone you needed a thick hide to deal with the one time I met him."

"You get used to it fast, and then he's no worse than a dirty-mouthed uncle," Ashley replied.

I still wondered if she was my competition. Her reasons for knowing all the Dreamwardens was believable, so it could only be a coincidence that she happened to be good friends with one of the two Dreamwardens that had someone else listed ahead of me. It shouldn't matter. I only needed to be worrying about what I was doing, not who my competition was. Ashley couldn't dreamwalk anyway, which anyone expecting to be a Dreamwarden should be expected to be already doing.

We chatted about nothing in particular as we walked to the cafeteria. I learned that if the professor's name didn't say doctor next to it, they only had a master's degree, and it was insulting to address a doctor as a professor instead of a doctor. I kinda already knew then that they were very proud of that title and wanted it used, from dealing with Jess and her insistence on being introduced as a doctor. Ashley said that many professors for departments we didn't offer majors in—like the sciences, English, foreign languages, math, and all that non-art stuff, only had master's degrees. The ones in major areas almost always were taught by people with doctorates.

I also found out Ashley was in my Art History class with me later that day. It would be nice having someone I knew in class. We could study together when we had tests coming up. History had never been my best subject, pre-magic Earth seemed so bland, but this was going to history revolving around art, so maybe it would be better than expected.

We got into the cafeteria and found there was indeed a long line. Meadow and Sunflower had beat us here and were already in line far ahead of us. I checked the time and frowned. I had a little less than forty minutes to get to class, and I had planned on arriving five minutes early.

"I'll do you a favor, Marshmallow," Ashley said as I looked despondently at the line. "You go find us a place to sit, and I'll grab food for both of us. That way, you don't have to try balancing a tray while carrying all those books. Even if you weren't clumsy, that sounds like a recipe for an accident."

I smiled. "Thanks. Not having to worry about another spill would be great. I'll go find a table right away."

The cafeteria tables were mostly filled at the moment. I did manage to find one, though. It had pieces of eggs and breadcrumbs scattered all over the surface, along with a little spilled milk, but it was open. I took my seat and began to wait for Ashley and the others.

"This seat available?"

I turned, and my smile grew larger as I saw Maggie standing close by. I hadn't picked her smell out through all the food and people smells around me.

"Sure thing! It's great to see you. How was yesterday?" I asked as she wiped some crumbs away before setting her backpack on the table. From the looks of her pack, I wasn't the only one who missed the notification that our books wouldn't be needed on day one.

She blew out a long breath. "Hectic. First, my dad made everything about getting checked-in harder than it needed to be. He even got into an argument with the RA. I was so embarrassed. I love him, but I was about ready to scream at him before the morning was over."

I nodded. "That sounds stressful."

"Oh, but that was only the start," Mandy continued. "My roommate decided out of the blue that she was going to drop out—just decided yesterday, the day before classes start! So she was busy moving all her stuff out all afternoon. I have barely seen the girls in the room that shares a bathroom with me; they got back to the room late yesterday and are still asleep now. I'm avoiding the RA because she is pissed at me over my dad, and trying to figure out basic things on my own with no one to help."

I reached a wing out and touched her. "That sounds like it has been rough."

A tear leaked from her eye briefly, but she wiped it away as fast as she could. "It has been, but hopefully, it is just a bumpy start for what will end up being a great time. Hey, at least I get to have a little privacy with a room to myself."

A tray with cereal, some toast, a glass of milk floated in front of me and set itself down in front of me. I glanced to my side and noticed Ashley standing there, looking cautious.

Ashley pointed a hoof off to her right. "The rest of us are over there. Meadow and Sunflower didn't want to intrude, and I don't want to either. It seems like you two are having a personal conversation, and you don't need us butting our tails in. We'll catch up with you tonight."

"I appreciate it. See ya later," I replied with a smile. Ashley nodded and walked away.

"Is that your roommate?" Maggie asked.

I shook my head. "No, she's a bathroommate. The three of them are in the room that shares a bathroom with me. One of my roommates is a jock, and she was probably out flying before I woke-up—takes her workouts seriously, but she's also one of those ponies that HAVE to hug everyone. The other one spent the night with her husband-to-be. That one's a night pony and doesn't take many classes during the day. The ponies that share a bathroom with us are like our extended roommates."

"So you've made a bunch of friends already," Maggie replied. She sounded disappointed for some reason. It took me a second to realize why.

"Hey, I'm not going to lose touch with you just because I've made a bunch of new friends," I assured her. "How about we get together and do something this afternoon? I'm out of class at a little before three.

She shook her head. "I have class at three. How about five? That gives me time to get my books back to my room first."

I nodded. "That works. We can meet in the social area of the dorm. Are you going to eat? It's almost time for class."

"I'll eat in a few minutes. I don't have my first class, English Lit, until just after nine. I just headed out early because I was already up," Maggie explained.

"English Literature with Professor Higgins, right? We'll be in class together. I have my Calculus One first thing in the morning before that, though," I replied and started digging into my toast.

She gave me an odd look and looked up at something on the wall. "What time is that class?"

"Aeupht," I mumbled around my toast.

"You might want to hurry," she said with a smirk, pointing to a clock on the wall. "It's ten till right now."

I jerked my head around to look at the wall clock so fast I nearly took a tumble but caught myself before what would be crash number three on the morning could happen. It did say ten till eight. I had planned on showing up early. By the time I was done eating and put my tray away, I might only have a minute or so to make it on time, and that was if I rushed.

Rushing was my only option. I picked up my cereal bowl with both forehooves and both wings to help steady it and lifted it to my mouth to start gulping it down.

"Woah, Becky! I know you can be a little bit of a sloppy eater, but you're going to choke yourself," Maggie said in dismay.

I finished gulping down my cereal. I wanted to gag but sat there for a minute— one that I couldn't spare, waiting to swallow every last bit that had been waiting in my mouth. "No time! Um… can you do me a favor and put away my tray for me? I'm going to grab my remaining toast and run."

"Sure thing, just don't choke on your food!" Maggie exclaimed. "Grab your toast and go. I'll see you in a little over an hour."

"Thanks," I said, right before grabbing my toast with my mouth. I left my seat and hurried to the door, chewing my toast as I ran.

Chapter 43: Hanging Thoughts Early in the School Day

I stopped to catch my breath after running hard and glanced at my phone. Three minutes. I was three minutes late to class and adding time to it. Curse my stumps for legs! My first class of college and I was starting off tardy.

I was standing next to the image of Sunset Blessing, and I imagined her looking down and judging the freshman that couldn't get to class on time. I didn't know if she went to college when she was younger, but if she did, I imagined she wasn't late for her classes. She was such a judgemental drawing.

There wasn't enough air in my overly burdened lungs to keep running. If I tried to keep running, my insides would turn to gelatin, and my parents would be collecting whatever life insurance they had on me. I would have to walk the remainder of the way. How far did I still have to go? I checked the closest door number.

Oh, one more classroom over.

I walked to the next room and cautiously opened the door before trying to creep in like a ninja stealthily. Yeah, I'm the marshmallow ninja. You think you see me, but you can't see the marshmallow through the s'more ninja—play Mission Impossible music.

Okay, I have no idea where I was going with that—none of that made sense, except s'mores. I could do with a s'more right now. Maybe my brain had been deprived of oxygen from running. I just did everything to keep quiet as I entered the classroom. Mind, forget I ever came up with any of that. This is why pleasantly plump ponies should not go running while carrying a metric ton of textbooks.

After entering the classroom, I was met with everyone staring at me. So much for stealth.

"Don't think that's the professor either," someone muttered.

My ears perked up. I was late, but the professor wasn't here yet!

I didn't waste time. I moved to the closest empty seat I could find. The one I found had a unicorn stallion ahead of me, a human to my left, an earth pony behind me, and the wall to my right. These seats didn't have backs to them, which fit ponies just fine, but I wondered if it took a toll on human backs not to have support. That was a mystery for another day. Right now, I was just happy I wasn't getting marked tardy.

The door opened wide, spilling daylight into the artificial light of the windowless room. A night pony mare came in, with two saddlebags bulging with papers. She pulled the door shut with a wing and looked around the classroom with wide eyes.

"Not the professor either," another person muttered.

"Um, actually, I am!" the night pony announced, then started hurrying to the front of the room. "Give me a moment to set this stuff down, and we'll be ready to start."

I watched her unpack her saddlebags, laying out stacks of papers. Ponies tended to age gracefully after reaching adulthood up until middle age, but I didn't think she was that much older than the students in the room. Her cutie mark was some sort of mathy-thing involving the moon. I guess it fit; it seemed a little odd to have a night pony math teacher. Now that she was easier to examine, I could see that her wings were tattooed and covered with what looked like complex math problems.

She finished unpacking and gave us a beaming smile. "Hello! I'm Professor Layla Torres, and all of you get the honor of being my first ever class! I'm not taking straight attendance right now, but I need to do a headcount. I'll figure out who was missing based on who doesn't sign their contracts today."

"Contracts?" someone across the classroom asked.

Professor Torres flapped her wings to do a low hover and began to count to herself. "Twelve—I'll get to that part— seventeen, twenty-three, thirty! I think everyone that's supposed to be here is here—or someone is missing, and I have someone not supposed to be here. Everyone here is here for Calculus One, right?"

A human guy near the back of his room raised his hand. "I'm here for underwater basket weaving."

The night pony landed on the front desk and arched an eyebrow at him. "I see. Well, Wet Weaver, as you henceforth be identified, if you decide you are here for Calculus One, I would like you to come hand these syllabi out and make sure each person in class gets one."

The human now known as Wet Weaver got up and went about his assigned task, seeming completely at ease with his new designation as he walked among the desks handing out a syllabus to each student in the class.

"While he is handing those out. I will give a brief introduction about myself," Professor Torres announced. "I am a local native, originally hailing from Augusta, but part of the original migration from Augusta to Riverview. I'm not sure how many of you know this, but the location that this school is built upon is the same site the old school building Wild Growth stood upon during the Cataclysm. I attended that school, and I was in the building when Wild Growth was standing on the roof. That was how my senior year of high school went; school ended with a bang."

I was given my syllabus and lined it up on my desk to read, but paid attention to the professor, just in case she decided to give a pop quiz to see if we were listening.

"As for my professional qualifications," Professor Torres continued. "I have recently completed my master's degree in mathematics from the University of Colorado. I'm planning on working on my doctorate, although I might not begin that until at least this summer. I thought I was going to get the distinction of being the first night pony professor at this school, but it seems I need to share that honor with Professor Moon."

The professor seemed mildly annoyed at the fact she had to be co-first of her type. I found the news interesting, though, just because Professor Moon was my astronomy professor. In hindsight, it should have figured that a professor with the last name of Moon who taught astronomy was probably a night pony, but assuming things like that could get people in trouble.

Professor Torres recovered her smile. "My most notable achievement so far to date is from when I still was in high school, I helped edit the paper that laid out the foundations of what is now recognized as Middleton's Law in physics, and I happen to be a longtime friend of Doctor Middleton. So if any if you ever have to read that paper for some science class, you'll see my name attached."

"That's cool," someone across the class replied.

Professor Torres nodded. "Yes. Now, you've all got your syllabus in front of you. Both pages of it are the same. You'll be signing one and returning it today to indicate you understand what expectations are. I will be posting a copy of this online as well, but you will be reading over the physical copy today."

I looked over the paper. It gave a brief breakdown of what subjects we would need to know by finales, how we were graded, and when tests and quizzes would be. I also noticed that most dreaded of things mentioned—homework.

"I have a few points of news," the professor continued. "You'll notice there is no D grade. You'll all either get a passing grade of A, B, or C, or you'll fail with an F. There is no almost good enough. You either know the information well enough, or you fail. You also won't be required to bring your book to class if you do what you are supposed to be doing, but you do need it because homework is part of what you are supposed to be doing."

There was a collective groan at this announcement.

The professor smiled. "But don't worry. It won't be a lot of homework. I chose this book because every chapter ends with a hundred to a hundred and twenty problems to solve. Each of you will have four numbers that only you will have, and you will be expected to do the corresponding problems in each chapter. That means there is no copying your friend's homework, but it also means you only have to worry about four problems instead of a hundred or more. You can even work ahead if you feel you understand the material well enough. If you fail to do your homework, you will need to bring your book to class, as I may call on you to solve your problems in front of the class. Everyone will be called at some point over the semester. Failure to be ready with your completed homework when called upon will hurt your participation grade."

I guess I would make sure my homework was done every day because the textbook for this class was the heaviest of the bunch. Plus, this was a must-pass class, as I had to pass this class to move onto other math classes needed for my degree.

"This should be one of your easiest classes if you do your homework and pay attention," the professor concluded. "There are no subjective answers here. You are either right or wrong. I can't make any judgments about your opinion because there is no opinion to give."

It shouldn't be that hard. Having homework to do before every class was rough, but I'd taken calculus in high school and done well. I figured this was going to be mostly a review of things I had already done before.

"I don't have much else to go over today," the professor explained. "Since everyone in here can read, you can review the syllabus on your own. I want each of you to sign a copy of it, confirming you understand it, and turn it in before you go. I keep office hours from nine-thirty to ten-forty-five each weekday morning. I have a separate class of this subject that I teach first thing Tuesday and Thursday, and I have a more advanced class I teach Monday evenings—if any of you are going to need more math courses, this will not be your last course with me. If you have questions and can't catch me at my office, then email me the questions at the address listed on the paper in front of you. There is also a learning center on campus where you can request tutoring. Read over the syllabus, sign it, turn it in, and then you are free to go, and we'll start working Friday."

Early dismissal from my first class meant I was way too early to go to my next. I ended up just sitting outside it, waiting for the previous class to dismiss. I was listening in, and I highly doubted that was my professor or class, not unless cloud density had something to do with English literature. It sounded like something to do with Julie's major, and I wondered if she was in there right now.

"Hi again."

I looked up with a grin as I saw Maggie coming up to me. She checked her phone and then sat down on the ground next to me with her back against the wall.

"Out of your first class early?" she asked.

I nodded. "The professor arrived late, introduced herself, passed out the syllabus, explained that everything was in the syllabus, told us we were going to have daily homework, collected up our signed copies of the syllabus, and said she'd see us Friday. Oh, and that she didn't give out D's. We either pass or fail."

"Straight to the point and no-nonsense, huh?" She said with a smirk.

I shrugged. "Well, she did say some of her background. She told us the campus site used to have a school before the Cataclysm, and it was the building Wild Growth stood on when she went all superpony. She also told us she was a longtime friend of Jess's, which is apparently an impressive thing. I guess Jess is kinda a celebrity among science and math folks."

"You're planning to be an architect, so doesn't science and math folks include you?" Maggie asked.

"I doubt physics laws about magic impact my field much."

She pointed off in the distance at the trees of the Monument. "If you ever want to make something like that, you might need to know that stuff."

I chuckled. "I doubt anyone could make something like that on purpose. That is a freak accident that got turned into art."

"Maybe someone will figure out how to fuse magic and art together deliberately," Maggie suggested. "Don't discount what people can figure out in the future. It's a brave new world, after all. Things have changed so much, and will only continue to change. Imagine going back in time and telling our parents when they were our age, about the world we live in now."

"When they were our age, there were no ponies, so mine would probably freak when they saw me," I replied in a bemused tone.

"Right. So who's to say that in ten or twenty years, we won't all have magic buildings?" Maggie concluded.

"The world is full of possibility," I agreed.

I relaxed some more. This was nice, sitting back and just talking about stuff ordinary people talked about and imagining what might be coming with the same expectation as everyone else. It was a pleasant break from worrying about Dreamwardens and my weird powers. The world was an extraordinary place as it was, and I enjoyed it for what it was.

Lately, my life had been divided between real life and a world of secrets. There was no separating myself from one side or the other. They were both parts of my life. My plunge into the secret world was only going to get deeper as the time neared when Psychic Calm retired. It was somewhat bittersweet knowing that, as that secret world at times seemed such a darker place, a place filled with dread and worry. It was the place I could make the most impact, but at the expense of a little bit of the optimism that Maggie and I expressed now.

My thoughts were getting gloomy, and I turned them into happier ones. I was here with my friend, and I had met lots of new friends this week and would meet many more to come. My adventures were not confined to the shadowy world that others rarely saw. I would have many more here in college, and thinking about that brought a smile to my face.

Chapter 44: Why We Do Strange Things

English literature was not a much more productive first day of class than Calculus One was. The professor showed up on time, though, and the class didn't dismiss early. The professor spent almost the entire class discussing how great a writer James Joyce was, and I had a feeling that at the end of the year, there would be an extensive essay question on the final exam about the said author. The professor barely got to cover expectations or hand out the syllabus because of how focused he was on reciting the gospel of James Joyce.

Unfortunately, I was going to be required to bring my textbook to class every day, and they took the term English lit to refer to anything initially written in English. I also was required to read an entire assigned book and write a report on it every other week. Reading a book and writing an essay within two weeks regularly might not be a big deal if this were the only class by itself, but add in daily homework from calculus, and whatever the other classes assigned, it could become a burden.

Maggie and I said our goodbyes after class since I wasn't taking Intro to Graphic Design and she wasn't taking Intro to Architecture.

I had to pass by several paintings of various famous people from Riverview. I passed by Sunset Blessing, who didn't look nearly so judgemental at this point. I also passed by one of Wild Growth depicted with an outline of wings and a horn done in what I assumed was the artist's depiction of magical energy. That wasn't the first time I had seen that depiction. It was popular to fantasize that Wild Growth could have been an alicorn based on what happened during the Cataclysm. I'd even heard a nickname for her— The Alicorn that Wasn't. I wondered how she felt about people saying that.

I was one of the first to enter the classroom for Intro to Architecture. I took a seat near the front and settled in as other students began filing in. I did notice I was the only winged pony in class, which backed what Nightscape said. Everyone else in the class was either a human, earth pony, or unicorn. Well, almost everyone, there was also one crystal pony stallion. The professor, a human man, was there on time. He arrived with enough time to unload the syllabi from his briefcase, and he sat at the desk checking his watch every minute or so, even though there was a clock on the wall.

Right when it struck eleven, he stood up and stepped in front of his desk. "I believe it is time to start. I'm Doctor Damian Morris. I'm going to say this upfront, after today tardiness will not be accepted in this class. You will be expected to arrive on time or not arrive at all. If you have a legitimate reason you will be tardy, I expect you to contact me before class is to begin and let me know. If you fail to do so, I will not acknowledge you as present on the attendance roster, even if you are there for forty-nine minutes and fifty-nine seconds out of the fifty minutes. I expect all of you are aspiring architects, and I expect you to treat class attendance as seriously as possible."

So no hanging around after English lit each day to talk to Maggie. Hopefully, that class wouldn't run over at all.

He clasped his hands together low in front of himself. "This is an introductory course. In it, you will be introduced to all the main aspects of a career in architecture. Your future courses, if you advance, will go more in-depth with each of these aspects, in addition to some others."

He walked over to the whiteboard behind him and grabbed a dry erase marker, and began writing as he spoke. "The main aspects we will cover are drafting, urban planning, preservation, building codes, environmental impact, and design." He wrote each aspect out, then turned to face the class again. "There will be other subjects covered, but these will be our main focus. We will not get incredibly in-depth about each, but by the time you finish this course, you should have a good idea what to expect when you begin studying each in further depth."

He picked up the stack of syllabi and began counting out enough for each row of desks and passing them out. "I am passing out your syllabus. I do grade with A, B, C, D, and F. However, if you wish to advance to future courses in this department, you must pass this class with at least a B. If you fail to make a B, you may retake the course one time for a better grade, or you can reconsider your career options and change your major. I hope you all make A's and B's, but every semester some don't. I won't call any of you out, but there are some students here I saw last semester."

Okay, so my entire future depended on how I did in this particular class. No pressure.

He finished passing out the papers, and I passed my stack backward with my mouth to the student behind me before sitting back correctly in my chair.

"It is not my intention to make things harder than they need to be," Doctor Morris continued. "The grading policy is a department policy, but one I support. If you don't exit this class with a good enough understanding of the material, you will only struggle and fail at the coming courses in the department. Advancing you when you aren't ready is setting you up to fail. If you are borderline near the end of the semester, there will be extra credit available to demonstrate you truly understand concepts that you might have struggled with earlier in the semester. If your grade has no chance of being improved by at least a grade level with the final and extra credit, you are exempt from taking the final. Everyone who takes the final and passes it will get at least a C, regardless of how low your grade was before that point."

A unicorn stallion sitting next to me raised a hoof. "Can you clarify that?"

Doctor Morris nodded. "If you are making an A in this class going into the final, you don't have to take it. If you are on track for a low B or low C, you don't have to take it. If you have a higher B or C grade, or a D or F, you must take the final. I am not giving a final to people who it can only hurt. If there is a chance it can help your grade, you must take it. I will let each of you know a week before finals if you need to take it."

Having one less final to study for was a good incentive to do everything I could to make an A in the class up to that point. Being in a position where I had needed to take it sounded incredibly stressful. It sounded like some students that were on track for a B might deliberately sink their grades slightly near the end just to make themselves still on track for a B, but not where they would need the final. I couldn't see myself doing that, but I could see others doing it.

Doctor Morris then proceeded to discuss his achievements. I thought it was interesting he was one of the architects who helped design our school. He had also done the city hospital design, which was one of the few buildings near the center of town that had survived the Cataclysm intact. That second one seemed like a good credential that he knew how to make a sturdy building. I didn't know if I liked him or not. He sounded stern, but also made it clear he didn't want to waste anyone's time—including ours. He was listed as my advisor, so I had no choice but to get used to him.

In the last part of the class, he pulled out some pictures of various buildings that graduates of the college had helped design. My guess was for it to be an encouragement, but even though a few of them did look pretty or high class, none of them had the wow factor I wanted to design.

Oh, and I would have to bring my textbook to class each time. That was two out of three classes so far—three if I missed a homework assignment in calculus.

Lunchtime couldn't come soon enough, and as soon as class let out, I was out the door, moving as quick as my chubby legs could carry me to the cafeteria. Food was an excellent motivator for me, and I made fantastic time to the cafeteria. I saw Sunflower and Meadow hurrying out of the building as I came in, which must have meant they had classes around noon and ate lunch earlier. They were in such a rush I barely got to say hi before they were gone.

Inside, the number of students was sparse. Just those who didn't have any classes scheduled at the moment, but that wouldn't last long at all. I was quick enough to beat the coming crowd, but they were coming, and I wanted to have my food and get a table before they arrived.

My lunch wasn't fancy—a sunflower sandwich, some mashed potatoes and gravy, some baby carrots, and a mug of orange juice. The sandwich made me mirthfully wonder if my bathroommate considered eating it an act of cannibalism. I was disappointed to see that the ice cream machine was down. That meant I had no dessert available.

I made it to a table, one much cleaner than this morning, and sat down with no trips, slips, or falls. That might be because I had fewer people to dodge and was paying attention this time, but it was something to be positive about. The two little mishaps back at the dorms had been my only ones so far on the day, and I hoped to keep it that way. There weren’t many classes left, just Art History, and the day would be mine.

"I wonder if Sunflower eating one of those sandwiches counts as cannibalism. What do you think?" I heard from beside me.

I looked over and saw Julie taking a seat next to me. I gave her a big grin and giggle. "I was thinking the same thing."

"Great minds think alike," Julie replied. She took a sip of her orange juice through a straw and smiled at me back. "How is the first day of class treating you?"

I shrugged. "Nothing spectacular so far, but nothing terrible either, other than I didn't know I wouldn't need all my books on the first day."

"Oh, I forgot to tell you that," she said with a blush. "Let me correct that. Guess what? You don't need your books on the first day."

"Thanks for the advice," I said with a chuckle. "How has your first day gone?"

"Prototypical," she answered. "Flight team has class early, an hour before all the other classes start. It's just a conditioning class, really. I get elective credits for doing workouts I would have already been doing anyway, so no complaints about that. Then I moved from that to my Spanish class, and then into The Psychology of Clouds."

"Do clouds have a lot of deep thoughts?" I asked, as straight-faced as I could manage.

"They seem like they contemplate some high-level stuff, but it is mostly all just fluff and vapor," she replied with just as straight a face.

"I made cloud friends in my dreams when I was younger," I recounted. "I gave them top hats because everyone looks smarter and more spiffy with a top hat. You should give clouds top hats."

"I don't think that would work out too well," she chuckled. She then frowned. "I did have one downer thing happen today. Lántián told us she is out yet another sitter. That's a real drag on the team. We need her in top shape, but her kid keeps her away from practice. She didn't miss class, but that's only because her Drizzle is in school weekday mornings and early afternoons. We have practices every weekend, and that's when she has a hard time finding a reliable sitter. If she keeps missing practice, we'll have to replace her. I'd hate for that to happen; she helped me out a lot last year when I was trying to get my bearings."

That sounded like an opportunity for me to help Lántián out. If I could help her out, maybe she wouldn't be as hostile to me. "I wouldn't mind foalsitting for her on weekends. I doubt she could pay much, but a little income is better than no income."

"That would help the flight team out a lot," Julie enthusiastically replied. "I don't know her phone number, but I know her address, and she already seems to know you. She should be at home, taking care of Drizzle tonight, if you want to go check this evening."

That would cut into my time with Maggie, but I could do something with her and then go visit Lántián. "I'll do that."

As if summoned, I saw Maggie walk into the cafeteria, and I waved at her. She waved back but hurried to get in line while it was still short.

"We need to do some initiation things with you and Sunflower over the weekend still," Julie said after finishing off a bite of food.

Oh dear, there was still a threat of hazing. "What kind of things?" I asked.

"Nothing too bad," Julie assured me. "Nightscape has a bunch of scary movies that she makes us watch. We also need to take Sunflower to get her traditional Skytree eighteenth birthday initiation. I figured since you're from around here, you've already done it, but you still need to come along."

I scrunched up my nose. "Yeah, I did it. I guess I can bring some extra deodorant and stuff for right after. I never understood why everyone in town goes there on their eighteenth birthday."

She blinked and looked at me, incredulously. "I thought you'd know. Before the Cataclysm, Riverview was divided into districts—old crazy Sunset Blessing made a big deal about a place for everything and everything in its place. The entertainment district was one of those districts, and it became mildly famous for its large number of hookah bars. After the city was mostly leveled during the Cataclysm, only a few districts didn't get any significant damage. Those were the industrial district, the entertainment district, and the old towns."

"That doesn't answer the question," I replied.

"I'm getting there," she answered. "The people that didn't leave would spend lots of time in the entertainment district and sing songs about how the Bastion has fallen, but the Skytree still stands while in the hookah bars. Since then, it has become a tradition for all the adults in town to go there at least once and sing the lyrics of The Skytree Still Stands while smoking the hookah. It's a right of passage."

"It's a really stinky tradition, and it makes me cough," I said warily.

She shrugged. "Hey, there was smoke from burning trees and buildings everywhere for days after the Cataclysm. Consider it getting to relive what those of us who were here went through—without worrying as we did about whether a building or flaming chunk of a giant tree is going to collapse on you at any moment."

One of my ears flattened as I looked at her. "The trees were on fire for days after? I thought they put them out with weather teams."

"They were mostly out, but a lot of them were still smoldering," Julie explained. "You can't set that much wood on fire and not have some still burning long after. Even the wood that was reduced to char was still dangerous. Back then, there were many more trees than those four out by the monument, and a lot of them were in bad shape. Their burnt-up branches would break off—and many of them weren't tiny little twigs; they were big. They could fall and just crush any person or car unlucky enough to be in the wrong place."

I gulped. I was used to smacking into trees but wasn't used to trees making an effort to smack me.

It also occurred to me that people tended to assign new meanings to things over time. The four trees that made up the monument were an inspiration to everyone now, but it seemed like they were something to be terrified of in the immediate days after the Cataclysm. The same could be said of the old hookah bars. Before the Cataclysm, they were a diversion, but they became a symbol of pride and gratitude to have survived in the time after. Even what people thought of when they thought of people changed, as was the case of Sunset Blessing. I wondered what ways people might think of things in the future that I would find strange. Would everyone be toasting prune juice in remembrance of the Great Plum War sometime a hundred years from now?

Whatever I might feel strange, things like the hookahs meant a great deal to some people. I could tell that it meant a great deal to Julie. For her, this wasn't some random stupid thing people did, it was something done in remembrance of when the world seemed to be ending, but despite that, life continued. It didn't matter if I felt as strongly about it. It was something small I could do to say I respected her and what she endured.

"I wasn't here for the Cataclysm," I finally said. "My family moved here after the rebuilding efforts were at least halfway done. I always thought about how that particular day must have been frightening, but never realized or considered it wasn't over after that one day. I'm sorry I didn't understand where the traditions come from, but I'll show them more respect in the future."

Julie gave me a sad look. "They wouldn't even let us dig through the wreckage of our home because it was too dangerous. We lost everything. I had some ferrets that I didn't have time to take with me when we ran, and I'll never know if they survived. I want to think they did, unlikely as that is. All my stuffed animals from when I was a small foal, pictures, all the stuff my parents saved from when we were humans, all of it was gone in a blink of an eye, but we survived, and Skytree still stands."

I raised my mug of orange juice. "Skytree still stands."

Chapter 45: Revelations

I arrived at Art History with a minute or two to spare and grinned as I spotted Ashley with an open seat next to her. I quickly took the chair and greeted her.

"Last class on the day for me. How is your day going?" I asked.

Ashley shrugged. "Typical first day. This is my last class today as well. If what I heard about this professor is true, it is going to be a real snooze fest, but an easy A by the end of the semester."

I blinked. "What did you hear?"

She smirked. "Oh, if it is correct, I don't want to spoil it." She stopped smirking. "But if it is true, it is kind of sad, really."

"Sad?" I asked in confusion.

"You'll see," she said knowingly, then leaned in close to me. "By the way, did you notice your boyfriend is in this class?"

I didn't have a boyfriend, but I instantly knew she was talking about Russell. I looked around the class and saw him sitting on the opposite side, near the middle. He saw me spot him and gave me a wave. I did the only thing I could and waved back before sinking back down in my seat. It wasn't that I disliked Russell; it was quite the opposite. He was charming. However, my friends continually taunting me about him made me nervous about talking to him too much. That wasn't fair to Russell since he didn't do anything to deserve me avoiding him, but the boyfriend talk made me uncomfortable.

My concerns about Russell were cut short when an old human man who had to be the professor walked in and went to the front of the class, carrying a stack of papers. His hair was white, not grey, but straight white. It was also long on all sides but left him completely bald on top. His suit looked wrinkly and was an ugly avocado green—something that looked like it was from the nineteen-seventies and had been worn regularly for the last sixty years, and perhaps slept in regularly as well. He was also wearing a pair of horn-rimmed glasses that were taped together. His face was heavily lined, and I wondered exactly how old this guy was.

He turned towards the class before setting down the papers. "This is Art History, correct?" he asked, almost breathlessly.

A chorus of affirmation from the class greeted him, and no student decided to give a smart remark. He blinked a few times before continuing. "And you are supposed to have me as a teacher, right?"

"Um, what's your name?" I asked, loud enough to be heard by the whole class.

He blinked a few more times and adjusted his glasses as he looked at me. "I'm Gabriel Toussaint, Doctor Gabriel Toussaint, or just Doctor Toussaint. Am I supposed to be here?"

"Yes, unless there is a different Doctor Toussaint that teaches Art History," another student answered.

Doctor Toussaint looked at the student that answered and gave a few more confused blinks. "I don't think there is. I guess that means I'm supposed to be here."

He finally set his stack of papers down on the front desk, but they ended up falling over. He grumbled as he bent down and started picking them up. It immediately became evident that his bending down took a lot of work, and a human girl near the front of the class got up and began picking up his papers for him. He didn't seem to notice and continued trying to pick up documents as she finished. When they were all picked up, he looked around the floor, seeming unsure why he was bent down or what he had just been doing.

"Looks like rumors were true," Ashley whispered while shaking her head.

Oh dear… this was sad. Why was the college still having him teach? This guy needed to be retired and possibly have a caregiver watch over him.

The class did not improve as it progressed. Doctor Toussaint did tell about his background. He was a former curator for a major art museum in London and had done restoration work on many paintings over the years. That sounded great until he mentioned that when ETS broke out years ago, he had been forced to retire in a budget crunch by the museum. He had been one of the first faculty members at this college and stated that this was his final semester. The last part seemed a mercy. He clearly had some mental impairment that had developed in old age, and I wondered if it was Alzheimer’s disease.

Unlike all the previous classes, he began lessons on day one, and I was shocked when he took the textbook and just started reading it aloud in front of the class. What kind of lesson was that? I could read the book. What made it worse was he read extremely slow and would stop to sound out words—not the words you might expect, like hard to pronounce places and other names; no, he needed to stop each and every time to sound out the words America and Europe. His way of saying Europe came out more like something akin to e-ore-pe, and each time he said it, I flattened my ears. Surprisingly, the names of painters that I would probably struggle with he didn't have any issue with whatsoever.

It felt like the longest fifty-minute class I had ever been in, and I dreaded that I would have to sit through this three times a week. Art History was a mandatory course for all students at the college. Still, I considered dropping it and signing up for something else and just retaking it in a later semester when a new professor was teaching it. I wasn't sure what I would take in its place, but if every day was going to be like this, then I would die of blunt force trauma to the head from slamming it against my desk repeatedly. I was ordinarily optimistic about most things, but even I had my limits.

I felt terrible for being so frustrated about the class as Ashley and I exited it. I was sure the doctor would have been an excellent teacher a few years ago, and him not being great now wasn't his fault. I resolved to go to one more session before deciding if I needed to switch to another course.

"Well, that was different," Ashley observed as we walked back towards the dorms. "I heard that his mind was going, but I didn't expect all that."

"Poor guy," I said sadly. "I don't know if I can stand to sit through that class. It isn't just that he shouldn't be teaching. I feel like there's no chance I can learn anything."

"From what I heard, he is very lax about attendance. Doesn't even check it," Ashley replied. "His tests are all multiple choice, too. He doesn't give essays or fill in the blanks. If you just read the textbook and show up for tests, you can breeze through the class."

"Feels like cheating," I muttered. "And it still feels like I should be getting more from the class. I can't believe the college is letting him teach right now. I'm sure he was distinguished and respected in the past, but this just makes him look bad."

"He's got tenure. It's hard to make a person with tenure retire, even if it is obvious they should," Ashley explained. "But enough worrying about him. What're you doing for the rest of the day?"

I shifted the weight of my saddlebags. "First, I'm unloading these books. After that, I'll give my mom and stepdad a call to tell them how things are going; then I'm going to hang out with my friend Maggie for a while—maybe have dinner with her, then I'm going to go check on a possible foalsitting job to earn some money. How about you?"

"I've got to trade some books in that I won't be needing, then I'm going to go check on Sunflower to see how she's doing after her first day," Ashley replied. "We'll be heading out for most of the evening. I have an acquaintance who wants to meet Sunflower in person, and I'm going to take Sunflower to go see her."

"Oh, it's nice you are helping Sunflower meet new friends," I said with a big smile. "She seems nice, but gets nervous easily. Having you introduce her to people one at a time will help her."

Ashley shook her head. "This isn't a friendly trip, more business-related. Tell me; you said you were going to Phobia Remedy's house last night. I haven't been there. What should I expect?"

I stopped walking and gaped. "You're going to Phobia Remedy's house?"

Ashley rushed over to me. "Keep it down! I don't want that being common knowledge. I wouldn't have brought it up if I didn't know you already as a person that works with the Dreamwarden. The Warden of Fear has a personal interest in Sunflower, and it is best that doesn't get around."

My mind raced. Why would Phobia— it hit me then. I had been looking at the wrong pony as my competition. Ashley wasn't the pony I was competing with; she was guarding the pony I was competing with and had been deliberately placed to be able to do so. Sunflower had said that she didn't remember applying to this school, but they gave her a full scholarship. Someone had pulled strings from behind the scenes to get her here. Like me, Sunflower had a unique gift, her odd drawings that she went into a trance to do. I wasn't sure what they meant, but they must be useful to the Dreamwardens somehow. She also had the disposition that the Dreamwardens were looking for—non-threatening.

Ashley gave me a concerned look. "You look like you are deep in thought. What are you thinking about?"

I looked around. There were lots of students walking close by. "I'll tell you when we get back into our rooms. I want to keep it private."

"If you want to keep it private, that might not happen," Ashley replied. "Nightscape should be back, and even if she is probably sleeping right now, she could wake up and overhear."

I considered that for a second. "If I am right in my guess, it won't matter if Nightscape hears. I have a feeling that you and Nightscape have a lot in common. It might just be Meadow and Julie we have to keep things from."

Ashley licked her lips and looked around before turning back towards me. "Are you and Nightscape eyes on Sunflower too?" she asked in a whisper.

That was the final confirmation I needed. I shook my head. "No. I didn't know about Sunflower till just now. Nightscape is eyes on me if you get my drift."

Ashley's eyes widened as she looked at me. She stared for a long moment before she replied. "Oh, fuck. Both you and Sunflower… damn."

"We have to tell Sunflower," I said as I decided in my head. "It's unfair if I know about her and she doesn't know about me."

Ashley bit her lip and nodded. "And Nightscape and I will need to talk, so Nightscape knows there are two of you."

"I don't think we were supposed to know. Do we tell Phobia Remedy?" I asked nervously.

"They will know as soon as any of us go to sleep; we can't hide it from them," Ashley replied. She gave an angry stomp, which made me cringe. "This is my fault. I got careless by asking you that question. I need to be more careful from now on. I just hope that I didn't mess up either of your chances. You both seem to like you would be great… you know. They must have put you two together to see how you do under similar circumstances."

I shook my head. "I have no idea, but we still need to tell Sunflower. It's only right."

"I'll talk to her tonight when we go to—"

"Hey, Becky, wait up!"

Ashley immediately hushed up as Maggie came running over. The unicorn gave the human a brief suspicious look but quickly wiped all expression from her face.

Maggie had been running with her heavy backpack and had to catch her breath after she caught up to us.

"You alright, Maggie?" I asked as I saw her laboring to breathe. "I thought you had class at this hour."

She took a few more breaths before answering. "I'm going to talk to my advisor and the register and get some things changed around. I decided that I want to switch majors."

I raised an eyebrow at her. "You aren't through your first day yet!"

"I know, but after sitting through the Intro to Graphic Design class, I couldn't help but feel my dad was right. There were over sixty people in the class, Becky, just my class—there are others just as big! Too many people in the same field."

"It is the largest major at the school," Ashley commented. "No other major has half as many students. Hi, I'm Ashley, by the way. I share a bathroom with Rebecca."

Maggie held out the palm of her hand to Ashley, and Ashley hoof bumped it. "I'm Maggie. Rebecca and I have been friends for years."

"So, what are you going to major in instead?" I asked. "You aren't dropping out, are you?"

She shook her head. "I don't know, that's why I need to go by my advisor and the register. I figured I could switch to just doing things that are liberal arts core this semester, and either decide on a new major next semester or transfer my core credits I complete to a different college that has other major options."

My ears fell. "I would be disappointed if you went elsewhere, but if that's what you feel you need to do, then you have to do it. It's your future on the line, after all."

She brushed her hair back from her face. "I have time to decide. Anyway, I wanted to catch you and let you know I won't be available until later. I'd say at least eight, just to be safe, but still want to do something. I am going to just go drop off my books, then head to my advisor."

I nodded. "I'll be in the common area around eight, or you can just call me. I figure you'll be on the phone with your parents for a while too. Hurry up and go do what you got to do."

She nodded. "Yeah, that's going to be an uncomfortable conversation, but my dad might take it well. Nice meeting you, Ashley. I'll see ya later, Becky."

And with that, Maggie was on the move again.

I looked at Ashley. "We can talk about important things later. Let's just drop our books off in the room and do our other plans. I'll be heading over to my possible foalsitting job, then giving my parents a call, then coming back to hang out with Maggie."

Ashley nodded. "Understood. Keep safe, Marshmallow. Eyes on you."

Chapter 46: Meeting Legends

Finding Lántiān's place wasn't hard since it was only a short distance from the college. I knocked on the apartment door and didn't have to wait long for it to be answered. However, when the door opened, I was not greeted by Lántiān, but instead by a teenaged unicorn colt with red fur and a purple mane. He was at that phase of growth where he still had his foalhood proportions, but was big enough that he was almost able to look me in the eyes—about the same age as Phobia's foals.

He looked me over. "You aren't Wild Growth."

"And you aren't Lántiān," I replied, then stuck a hoof out to greet the colt. "I'm Rebecca, and who are you?"

He gave my hoof a distrustful look, but then tapped his own against it. "I'm her brother, Shǔguāng. What do you want?"

I gave him a beaming smile. "Nice to meet you… can you say that name again?"

"Shǔguāng," he repeated in deadpan.

I know he was saying something, but it wasn't something I could repeat. "Um, how about I just call you Shoey? Nice to meet you, Shoey! I wanted to talk to Lántiān. Is she here?"

He crinkled up his muzzle. "You may call me Shǔ if you prefer, but not Shoey. Sister is here, but now may not be a good time."

"Can you just tell her Rebecca Riddle is here, please?" I begged.

He seemed to be chewing on his tongue as he considered, then flicked both his ears and then sighed before turning his head to look into the apartment. "Sister, a fat obnoxious pegasus named Rebecca Riddle, is here to see you!"

"Shǔguāng, must you be so rude?" I heard Lántiān yell.

"He's always rude," I heard another colt call out.

"Yeah, he's a big meanie!" a third colt said right after.

"It's still unacceptable," I heard Lántiān say in exasperation. "Tell Rebecca that now is not-"

"If you don't mind, Lántiān, I would very much like to meet your friend," another mare called out from somewhere in the dwelling. "Please, allow her in."

"But, ma'am, we are expecting Wild Growth with your… with your thing you loaned her," Lántiān protested. "You are not presentable, and this is my apartment, not yours, and she's not my friend!"

My ears sagged a little upon hearing that, and I prepared to go. However, the discussion was not over yet.

"I have a personal interest in her outside of her relation to you," the unknown mare countered. "I have heard she has been visiting your godsister more than once as of late, and that piques my curiosity. I suppose I can't make you allow her in since it is your home, not mine, but I could walk out to meet her. We could have a discussion while standing on your welcome mat."

"You wouldn't," Lántiān replied in a dangerous tone. "Too many would see you. You wouldn't let that happen. You let your curiosity get you into trouble far too often."

"Perhaps I'm just going crazy in my old age. Who knows what strange ideas my senile old brain might come up with?" the other mare replied.

"You aren't senile, ma'am, and we all know it," Lántiān countered.

"It might just be setting in, and wouldn't it be your duty to protect me from my disjointed thoughts?" the other mare countered in turn.

Lántiān could be heard growling in frustration, literally growling. "Alright! Shǔguāng, let her in, and be polite!"

Shǔguāng grudgingly stepped aside and gestured for me to step inside, and he looked all around the outside like he was expecting an attack or something as I walked by him. He immediately shut the door once I was in, lit his horn, and I heard the lock going into place.

A brown earth pony colt with a blue mane, probably slightly younger than Shǔguāng, watching television, looked over at us. "Shǔguāng, do you have to be so rude and on edge all the time? Just relax for once."

Shǔguāng glared back at the other colt. "Someone needs to be on guard to protect us and Auntie; it sure as hell isn't going to be you."

A very familiar looking mare stepped out of the kitchen area. "Shǔguāng, be nicer to your brother and heed his advice. You do need to relax more. He is just saying that because he cares about you."

"And because him being on edge all the time is annoying," the earth pony colt muttered, but turned his attention back to the television.

My eyes fixed on the legend in front of me. I had never met her, but I already knew I would have to pass by her drawn likeness every day for class. There were some differences from the art on the college wall and her; she had a tiny streak of grey in her purple and yellow mane and tail, she had more crows feet under her eyes, and most strikingly, she had a nasty scarred area with no fur that stretched from her right shoulder up part of her neck. There was no mistaking who it was, though; this was the reclusive Sunset Blessing.

My view was suddenly obscured as a tiny blue pegasus filly jumped up in front of my face and continued to repeatedly bounce while flapping her tiny wings excitedly like a hummingbird. "Hi again! I'm Drizzle, remember me? You aren't all wet this time. Did you come to see Mama or Auntie Sunset? Do you want to see my puppy? His name is Wrinkles, and he's a bulldog. He's really friendly and likes to play. Do you like puppies? I like puppies. Can I show you the Wonderbolts costume Auntie Sunset got me? It's really cool!"

Lántiān walked out from behind Sunset Blessing and grabbed her daughter out of mid-bounce with a wing. "I think you should wait to bother Rebecca. How about if you go check to see if Wrinkles has enough water and food. You don't want him to be hungry or thirsty, do you?"

Drizzle gasped and squirmed out of her mother's grasp, and immediately took off down the hall. "Wrinkles, I'm coming to feed you!"

Lántiān turned and looked at another colt that I had failed to notice because he had dark fur and almost perfectly blended in with the dark blue couch he was laying on, tapping away with his wings on a tablet. "Mèng, can you go keep Drizzle busy, and help her reach the sink?"

He looked up from the tablet and laid his ears back. "But I'm playing a game!"

"Take your game with you, just keep Drizzle out of here," Lántiān instructed.

"Please, do it and don't argue, Mèng," Sunset Blessing instructed.

He pouted, but got down from the couch, tucking the electronic tablet under one of his wings. "Yes, Auntie." He then walked down the hall that Drizzle had just run down.

Lántiān turned her attention to the colt watching TV. He noticed her and held up his forehooves defensively. "I'm not doing anything! I'm being good and quiet."

She then looked at her other brother, who was still standing by the door.

Shǔguāng pointed at the door. "I'm still guarding the door and looking out for Wild Growth."

She rolled her eyes. "Fine, you two can stay. Just be quiet."

"I still can't believe you let your daughter change her name," Sunset Blessing muttered. "She's too young to be changing her name. She should wait until she has a mark."

Lántiān turned and glared at Sunset Blessing. "She is my daughter, and I shall decide if she's too old or too young, ma'am. She said the teachers and other foals couldn't say her old name right, and she wanted to change it to something English."

"They should have just learned how to say it correctly," Sunset Blessing countered. She then glared back at Lántiān. "And don't you take that tone with me, young mare."

"I'm no longer in your care and will speak as I choose, ma'am," Lántiān coldly fired back. "I would think you'd be happy she chose to take an English name."

Sunset Blessing stomped. "I'd think you would fight her doing something that moved her further away from her heritage."

Lántiān looked like she wanted to say something angry back, but bit her lip instead, then shook her head. "It's a careful balance. If I try to push it on her too much, she may resent it, and I'd push her away. I'm trying to be a good mother." She looked down. "Do you think I made a mistake, ma'am?"

The fight seemed to go out of Sunset Blessing at those words. "Well, I can't fault you for doing your best to be a good and caring mother. I also don't know if it was a mistake or not. Maybe I'm just old and resistant to change. You do as you see fit. You're an excellent mother, and I'm proud of you."

Lántiān lifted her head slightly and smiled as a tear fell from her eye. "Thank you, ma'am."

I watched this and tried to decide what it all meant in my head. The two of them seemed at points antagonistic but at the same time profoundly caring for one another. I also noticed that Sunset Blessing expressed the one thing Lántiān said she never got from her mother, pride. It wasn't a mother-daughter relationship between the two, but it felt similar. It was hard to place exactly what kind of relationship it was.

Lántiān turned her attention to me at last. "What do you want, Rebecca Riddle? You have come at an inopportune time. As you can see, I already am dealing with inconvenient and unwanted company. I didn't need more."

"It sounds like she didn't appreciate us showing up without calling first," the earth pony said snarkily. "If only some ponies had listened to the wise, handsome, and intelligent earth pony."

Sunset Blessing sighed. "You were right. Showing up as a surprise was a bad idea, but try to be more tactful in telling us, I told you so."

"Yes, Auntie," the earth pony replied.

I shuffled my hooves as I looked at Lántiān's disapproving expression. "Oh! Um, Julie told me that you were having a tough time finding foalsitters consistently on the weekends and that it could put your place on the flight team in jeopardy. I kinda need a part-time job to make some money, so I’m not broke all the time, so I figured we could help each other out."

Sunset Blessing rounded on Lántiān. "Your spot in the flight team is in danger because you've been unable to find a reliable sitter? Why didn't you mention this to your sister or me? We would have done something."

"Phobia Remedy is not my sister, and this is not either one of your concerns, ma'am," Lántiān said crossly. "I want to deal with things on my own."

"But part of your scholarship money comes from being on the flight team. You aren't going to be as independent as you want if you lose that," Sunset Blessing protested. "You should let me and Phobia help. There's no shame in asking your family for help."

"Whenever either of you helps, you both go completely overboard," Lántiān replied with a tense calm. "I appreciate that you both care, but it's more stress than it's worth, and Shǔguāng is learning to emulate the two of you. It's no wonder he's so uptight and overprotective."

"Hey! I'm not uptight!" Shǔ protested.

The other colt chortled. "Oh, you so are." He abruptly stopped laughing and held his hooves up. "I'm quiet. I'm good. You don't even see me."

Lántiān sighed and looked at me. "You promise you are reliable every weekend? I only need you two or three hours a day on Saturday and Sunday, and can only afford to pay you minimum wage. I'm a college student too and have to worry about paying bills and taking care of my daughter, so I can't afford to pay more. I really shouldn't have let her get that dog because vet bills could break me."

"And bulldogs are notoriously expensive to maintain," Sunset Blessing said with a grimace. "Why couldn't you have gotten her a nice little terrier or a nice cat?"

"My friend was giving away bulldog puppies, and Drizzle fell in love with Wrinkles," Lántiān explained. "He isn't aggressive, and he adores Drizzle, so I can't complain. Please stop trying to convince me to get a cat. I know you like cats, ma'am, but not all of us do."

"I don't mind minimum wage," I said happily. "It's more money than I otherwise would have, and the hours that won't interfere with my classes. Just text me every Thursday or Friday what times you'll need me for the weekend, and I'll be here."

"I suppose that is settled," Sunset Blessing said. "If you don't mind, I'd like to get to know Miss Riddle and find out why she's been hanging around my family."

Lántiān glared again. "There you go again—being overprotective! Does this tub of lard look dangerous to you?"

Sunset Blessing blinked in shock. "That is surprisingly rude for you to say, and about a friend at that. What did she do to you? You're normally much more polite."

Lántiān looked back and forth between us. "She… it is a private matter, and I shouldn't have said that. I'm displacing my anger about something else and have already noted that I shouldn't." She then focused on me. "I'm sorry, Rebecca Riddle. It's hard to let go of anger that's been held so long. I apologize for insulting you… again."

I forced myself to smile. "I understand, and I know you're trying hard to let go of that anger. I'm sorry for ever making you feel like I was between you and your mom."

She sniffed. "No need, it wasn't your action; it was hers. She's the one that I'm angry at, not you." She looked around and wiped another tear from her eye with a wing. "I'll text you or have Julie speak to you soon. Please excuse me; I need to check on my daughter. They are too quiet, and that is rarely a good sign."

She left to check on Drizzle, and I found myself being scrutinized by Sunset Blessing.

"So… you're the one. The one Yinyu picked out as her heir years ago," Sunset Blessing said with extreme bluntness.

I took a step back. "I never said-"

She shook her head. "You didn't need to. There is only one pony my goddaughter could feel came between her and her mother. If I wasn't sure of it before, your body language now confirms it."

"I didn't want that to get out," I replied. "You won't tell anyone, will you?"

"Me and my sons are excellent at keeping things to ourselves, even better than my goddaughter," Sunset Blessing replied; she then tilted her head slightly as she looked me over some more. "I'm guessing you have unusual powers as well."

I took another step back. "I-"

She shook her head again. "Filly, you really need to get a better grip on your body language. You give away too much. How are you supposed to make a competent Dreamwarden if you let yourself be read like a book?"

My eyes went wide. "How did you-"

"Again, I took a guess, and your reaction just told me I was right. It would be best if you stopped doing that," she replied with a smug grin.

I wanted to turn this conversation away from me. I looked at her scars. "How did you get those scars?" I asked nervously.

Her grin dropped as she glanced at her shoulder. "Sometimes we all do stupid things, or get in over our heads, and people that play with fire get burned. How I got these scars is a long story, which I prefer to keep to myself. I regret many things I have done in life, but what earned me these scars is not among those things. I'd do it again, even if I were to be scarred worse—even if I might die. Some things are too important to worry about getting hurt over."

There was a knocking at the door that made me jump. Shǔ hurried to the door and cracked it open. A moment later, he smiled and stepped back, letting the guest pass in without protest. Wild Growth walked in and froze as she spotted me. Her eyes went back and forth between Sunset Blessing and me as if trying to put together why we were sharing a room.

Her gaze narrowed and focused on Sunset Blessing. "Why is she here, Sunset?"

Sunset Blessing gave her what I assumed was her best innocent look. "Happenstance. She was looking for a foalsitting job. I would tell you that you need to educate her on how to control her body language so she doesn't give all her secrets away, but it seems you're getting rusty yourself. Do you have my talisman I loaned you? I have been eager to have my freedom returned to me. I'm sick of being sore and being forced to keep out of sight."

Wild Growth blinked and dug into her saddlebag, revealing the necklace she had used on my stepdad to turn him into a pony. Sunset Blessing gave a look of glee and lit her horn, grabbing the necklace and floating it back to herself. She then put it on and instantly transformed into a human.

She transformed while sitting, and I gaped as she slowly stood up after the transformation happened. "Aww, that's better. My shoulder was killing me, and I was getting tired of being cooped up in houses. It will be nice being able to go into the senator's office again, too, instead of having to work remotely. Shǔguāng, be a dear and fetch my clothes from my luggage. It won't do for me to walk around naked."

I now realized something about Sunset Blessing's seeming reclusiveness. She was out doing things regularly, even being politically involved, just in human form so that no one would know. The once Shimmerist preacher had re-embraced her past humanity and lived her life with one foot in it and one hoof in ponydom. She was either the most human pony or the most pony human, I wondered which was the better description.

Chapter 47: Human Again—For a Minute

The human woman who had been Sunset Blessing smiled at me. "Surprised?"

I blinked a few times. "I know Wild Growth used it, and she used it on my stepdad, but I didn't get to see the change happen before. Did it hurt?"

She laughed. "No, it didn't. It can be disorienting the first few times it is done, but at this point, I'm an old pro at this."

She wasn't wearing any clothes still, and I could see every inch of her. "You don't have your scars anymore."

She absently rubbed her shoulder. "That's one of my favorite benefits. They don't hurt that much anymore, but I hate seeing them, and they do ache in the cold." She smiled at me again. "Before I go through the effort of getting dressed, did you want to try it?"

"Are you sure that's a good idea, Sunset? That thing isn't a toy," Wild asked in a wary voice.

Sunset Blessing waved it off dismissively. "It is perfectly safe. I wouldn't use it regularly if it weren't, nor let you borrow it to use on yourself and government-designated humans."

"Maybe you are too open with this pony, Auntie," Shú cautioned. "You normally don't show anyone this. You said it is too dangerous for others to know about. You said that the Shimmerists and Blessingists would kill to get your talisman."

The other colt lifted his forehooves and waved them dramatically. "The holy grail of transformation magic. Woo hoo! Yeah, been there, done that. Kinda boring now." He promptly went back to watching television.

Wild Growth narrowed her brow. "You let the foals use that thing?!"

She shrugged. "Only once or twice each. I supervised each time."

"Sunset! I thought you had learned to be more responsible about transformation magic!" Wild Growth protested.

Sunset Blessing glared down on Wild Growth and put her hands on her hips. "I am responsible. I don't let humans with no magic near it, so there are no lasting effects. I'm also far more educated about it than I once was. Only Sunset Shimmer could exceed me in the knowledge of transformation magic, and that isn't me just bragging; that's the facts. I know what I'm doing. This thing is essentially a toy compared to what can be done. Those who use it are perfectly safe—provided they take it off at least once per nineteen hours and fifty-two minutes."

"That's an oddly specific amount of time," I observed. "What happens if they don't?"

"I'm not sure. Die, probably. I'd rather not find out," she responded as if it was no big deal. "And it can be taken off and put back on right away for a refresh, so it rarely becomes an issue. It also needs to be left off for at least six hours straight at least once a week to recharge itself. Otherwise, it will run out of magic, and it becomes just a tacky piece of junk permanently. Has it been at least six hours since you last used this, Wild?"

"Far more than that," Wild Growth replied.

"Good," Sunset Blessing said with a smile. "Thank you for not abusing my things. I didn't make this on my own, and it's co-creator might not be willing to help me make a new one, especially since we promised the government we wouldn't make any more than currently exist. Maybe I could convince him to give me his, but I doubt it."

I sometimes wondered what it would be like to be human, and this was my chance. "I'd like to try it, please, if that's still alright."

Sunset Blessing sat back down and removed the necklace from around her neck. She was almost instantly transformed back to her pony form, and the chain was hanging loosely around her hoof. She lit her horn, and it levitated off her hoof.

"You'll want to be sitting when this goes on, believe me," Sunset Blessing informed me. "It is designed not to work unless it is placed around a neck. You won't believe how hard that was to program into the spell, given all the variables in necks versus any other body part. That was almost more complicated than the main spell. If I hadn't had help, I would never have figured it out."

"I'm standing well away," Wild Growth said as she took several steps back. "I already see it coming. She's going to try to stand up on two legs and fall over flat. I'm not having her land on me."

I sat and was nervous as the necklace floated over to me. The earth pony colt stopped watching television, turning to watch me, while Shú took a few steps back as well. The chain came down around my neck, and I suddenly felt my body boiling, then freezing, and my vision went blurry.

"There, that wasn't so bad, was it?" Sunset Blessing asked.

I blinked several times to try to clear my vision. It did clear up some, but everything felt off somehow, so did smells—like they were muted. My body felt weird, and I felt very chilly for some reason.

"If you are feeling cold, you're missing your fur, and humans are more acutely aware of temperature than ponies," Sunset explained. "Your other senses will take a moment or two to adjust if you aren't used to this. Sense of smell, hearing, and vision will be weaker, sense of touch and temperature stronger. Taste is neither weaker nor stronger, but it is very different."

I tried to relax and let my senses adjust. This was fine. Sunset Blessing did this all the time. All these colts had done it. Wild Growth had done it. My stepdad dealt with the reverse without much trouble. I'd been a human when I was tiny, so this wasn't something I'd never had before, just not something I could remember.

Once I was satisfied that my vision was as good as it was going to get, I lifted a foreleg… well, arm after the transformation, and looked at it. It was long, skinny, colored like pale cream, and had a hand at the end. The arm was so long, and the hand seemed so far away. How did humans look at their limbs and not get some weird vertigo? The hand had fingers, and I counted them out to five. Was that the right number of fingers for a hand? I didn't do much drawing of human hands, and didn't know if it varied, so I wasn't sure. It looked correct. They were spread apart, and I could feel the air moving between them. I tried to flex them and gasped as I not only saw them flex but felt them.

"Huh, I expected you to be a blonde, given your mane. Guess that doesn't necessarily translate," Wild Growth said in a bemused tone.

"She doesn't look fat, either," Shú said in surprise. "She's kind of husky, but not in a fat way. Muscular, I guess."

Muscular? My arms looked thin to me. I looked at them again and saw they might not be as thin as I thought at first. I'd never been a muscular pony; why was I a muscular human?

Sunset Blessing lit her horn and opened a nearby suitcase. Out of it, she floated a small mirror and put it in front of my face. Now I got my first good look at myself.

My nose seemed small at first, but that was me trying to compare it to my muzzle. I guessed it was an average looking nose. My irises were now hazel, and I could see my hair; it was slightly curly and jet black.

"I-is thii-this what I wou-would look like if I sta-stayed a hu-human?" I asked, fumbling with my new tongue.

"Your voice will clear up quickly once you get to having a conversation," Sunset Blessing assured me. "And to answer your question, it is the best guess the spell can come up with based on the info in your head and biology. It may or may not be accurate in different respects. It's an educated guess. There are too many factors to give you a real answer to what you would look like if you never caught ETS, and not all of them have to do with biology; there are plenty of cultural and environmental factors that would have been different your entire life. No one can guess how any of that would have gone. My wife tells me not to worry over what if's in terms of having taken different paths in the past, so I don't."

I became more aware of the cold metal of the necklace against my exposed skin. I also became aware that I was carrying a lot more weight on my upper chest. I looked down. I knew human women had lots of breast tissue compared to ponies and our little udders, but I wasn't aware of how heavy and uncomfortable they were.

"Oh, yeah, breasts, you likely didn't have those last time you were human, if you were young. You're a big girl, so the size isn't surprising. Those things need some support," Sunset Blessing said in an amused tone.

"Okay, you creepy lecher, take the talisman off her," Wild said in a highly disgusted tone.

"Huh?" I said in confusion.

"I know this can be hard to understand as a pony, but Sunset Blessing is a lesbian, and her checking out your naked form is just… eww. I'm very familiar with lust filled expressions, and she has it in her eyes," Wild explained. "And don't say you're only interested in ponies, Sunset; you spend enough time in human form that your tastes likely reflect it."

"I'm a happily married pony!" Sunset Blessing shouted in outrage.

"You're a widow, and even if you weren't, that doesn't mean you are incapable of lusting after someone else," Wild Growth countered. "Please return Miss Riddle to her normal rotund form."

The necklace floated off me, and I went through another wave of disorientation.

"You always think the worst of me," Sunset Blessing complained. "Where do you get off trashing me like that? So I'm a lesbian, that doesn't mean I'm checking out everyone with a vagina."

"I help you keep the worst aspects of yourself in check," Wild Growth countered. "You can be a very good pony at times, but you still need someone to slap your hooves, or whatever you have at the time, when you start letting your not so great aspects out."

"I never got accused of being a lecher, even at my worst," Sunset Blessing growled. "Accusing me of that is completely uncalled for. It's pure slander. If it's because of my orientation, it's homophobic."

Wild Growth gave the unicorn a sympathetic look for some reason. "I'm not homophobic, Sunset. You may be old, but you still can feel needs, and as far as I know, since Tonya died, you've been celibate out of some misguided obligation to keep true to your dead wife. Take it from a pony who has had a problem with lust before, you get urges if you are neglected, and your mind will take you places you don't want to go. I'm keeping you honest. I don't like you, but I'm still trying to help you."

Sunset Blessing still looked angry. "You're stepping into dangerous territory, Wild, by making presumptions and statements about what needs I have in regards to my relationship with my wife."

Wild Growth didn't get angry in return. "Sunset, you know me. Do you think I would say things just to hurt you?"

The old unicorn grit her teeth, then worked her mouth, then at last her ears sagged. "No, you wouldn't," she said in a low, dead voice. "Just keep your nose out of it, please. You can't possibly understand my situation. All you can do is get things wrong, and be unintentionally hurtful."

"Your wife… that's Arbiter, right?" I asked as I fully got my bearings again.

Sunset Blessing put the necklace back on herself and transformed into a human again. She then arched an eyebrow at me. "Yes, that's my wife. It is common knowledge too. Why do you ask?"

"I did something for her and her brother," I explained. "She couldn't talk to him because he had no magic. I had a method of letting them see each other, but they couldn't touch or anything like that. Your necklace thingie can give humans magic. Can't you… you know? I think your wife would like it if you did."

She gave me a sad look, then reached over to her suitcase and started pulling out clothes. "Miss Riddle, it isn't as simple as that. I can only presume, but your stepfather was a special circumstance. I can't be giving humans magic willy-nilly, even my family. Word would get out, and trouble would start. I sympathize with Paul, but that isn't something I can do in good conscience. Doing that for family would be a selfish act anyway. I couldn't do it for Paul and not do it for every other Tom, Dick, and Harry that wants the same thing."

"I have a friend that is a devoted Blessingist. She believes in you and what you can do. They believe you can make everything better," I said pleadingly.

She started putting her undergarments on without looking at me. "The Blessingists are fools. I do try to make things better, in my own way, by supporting others who are working towards a better world. I also act as a magic consultant when anyone needs it, but I'm no great magical savior, no great prophet, nor someone who should be trying to drive change on her own. I don't make decisions about what gets to be done. I leave that to others, others who're more trustworthy than me. Wild is right, give me the power to make those calls, and I'll screw it up—I can't help myself. I'm an advisor, not a leader."

"You're taking me out of context," Wild Growth snapped. "I never implied you always do the wrong thing!"

I didn't accept what she was telling me. "Hey! I'm grateful my stepdad got magic, but who gets to make the call that he deserves it and not someone else? It doesn't seem right."

Sunset Blessing started pulling on a pair of pants. "I don't know. I'm not the one to ask. Ask Wild; she's the one that got the order. Ask her who made the call and what gives them the right. I keep my nose out of those things these days and don't question unless something is clearly not on the up and up."

"But they're making decisions about how your work and achievements should be used, don't you care?" I asked, utterly dumbfounded that this legend of a pony who casually transformed me into a human and back had such reservations about doing the same for humans.

She slipped a shirt on and stood up, now fully clothed, then looked down at me sympathetically. "Look… it isn't that I don't care. I care about Paul and everyone else, but I fucked up. I fucked up about as bad as anyone can fuck up. It wasn't just one time; it was a whole slew of times. I only take action on my own for one thing now, and that is protecting my family. If I gave Paul magic, and the government didn't authorize it, that gets him in trouble and me in trouble. I don't want my brother-in-law punished, and I have three colts that depend on me. I can't get hauled off to jail and leave them losing a parental figure again. I can't do that to them. They deserve better."

"But-"

She shook her head. "He's also got two sons, a daughter, and a wife that would have to deal with him potentially going to jail. Robby is grown, and Jessie effectively is too, so they can fend for themselves, but little Dusk and his wife? Do you want me to ruin a family just so he can talk to my wife whenever he wants? No, I won't do it. Not unless the government tells me to."

I turned to look at Wild Growth. "Who gets to make those decisions? It's unfair."

Wild Growth stepped back. "That isn't something I can discuss with you at this time. There are forces at work, strong social, cultural, and political forces that you can't understand yet. Maybe you will, even soon, but that time isn't here yet."

"Hear that?" Sunset Blessing asked. "That's your answer, little possible Dreamwarden to be. Keep to your path, become Dreamwarden, and get your answers. Maybe you'll even be part of the shadow cabal that decides what I can and cannot do, but you need to be patient."

"You know about her?" Wild Growth gasped. "How do you know? And you just revealed it to this whole household!"

Sunset Blessing shrugged. "I keep my nose out of things, but I'm not stupid. I know how to put the pieces together, and they aren't tough ones to figure out in this case. You can trust my colts and my goddaughter. If there are any ponies highly invested in keeping someone precious to Yinyu safe, it's them."

"Méng, get out here! You're leaving!" Came a shout from the hallway. We all turned to see Lántiān breathing heavily; wings spread aggressively. "Rebecca Riddle, we shall keep our foalsitting agreement, but it is time for you to get out of my apartment."

Sunset Blessing reached a hand out towards the pegasus. "Lántiān, I-"

The pegasus stepped back. "No! Ma'am, you will be leaving as well. I need you all gone! Actually, take Drizzle with you, visit the park or somewhere for a few hours, have her walk Wrinkles, just get out! I need some time alone."

Sunset Blessing pulled her hand back and briefly gripped it into a fist, before turning to the rest of us. "Wild, I need a favor. Can you watch all the foals for a few hours?"

The mighty earth pony looked sad, but nodded. "I understand. Yes, I will."

"I told you to go!" Lántiān screamed.

"I heard you. People in China probably heard you," Sunset Blessing said calmly. "Colts, be good for Wild Growth while you're out; don’t let me hear you gave her trouble. She is good to us, so we should be good to her."

"I need to be alone!" Lántiān raged.

Sunset Blessing shook her head. "No, you need to yell, scream, and cry. You need to get it out of your system, and I'll be here for you through it. I'm not leaving and having you do something foolish while alone. You might not be my blood, and you might not claim me, but you're my daughter, and right now, you need your mother. I'll just sit on the couch, being quiet, and when you need to yell, you can yell at me, and when you need to cry, I'm here for that too."

"I could fly away!" Lántiān yelled.

Sunset Blessing put her hands on her hips again. "Yes, how would that work out for you? A distressed pony flying through the sky, seen by who knows how many other pegasi? Just imagine how they will react. They won't stop asking you what's wrong. You don't have to worry about that with me. I know already and won't try to talk you down." The human-pony sighed. "I shouldn't have worded things like I did when you could overhear. That was very short-sighted of me, and I'm sorry about that. You have every right to be angry."

It took me until then to fully realize what was going on. She didn't know that they were still planning on making me Dreamwarden until now, and hearing that her mother—her actual mother, Miss Seapony, was still pushing for me to be a Dreamwarden, after all the drama between the two of them…and then hearing the words precious to Yinyu, it was too much for her.

The mother Lántiān wanted was never there for her, but the mother she never wanted was willing to endure all the hateful screams and crying fits, even if she accidentally triggered them. Families could be strange, and I wasn't sure if this was healthy or not, but that was another reason for me never to have foals.

I looked at Sunset Blessing again and realized something else. She may be the mother Lántiān never wanted, but she was always the mother Lántiān needed, and hearing Sunset Blessing say she was going to protect me and hearing her name me a possible Dreamwarden, it could have felt like a betrayal. This was a lot of stuff that could never be unraveled and fixed in a single talk, perhaps never be completely healed. Knowing that I was part of that hurt made it all the worse.

Chapter 48: Headpats and Spots

There was no need for me to accompany Wild Growth and the foals. Sure, it might have been an opportunity to get to know Drizzle better, but I wasn't in the right mindset for it, and I didn't want to have to answer questions about why her mommy was so upset.

Instead, I headed back to campus. It was still a little too early for dinner and far too early to catch up with Maggie. I thought of going to my room but decided that I wanted to avoid running into my roommates when not feeling as perky. It was rare that my mood got down, but knowing that I couldn't fix the problems between Lântiān and me and that she was so deeply hurt, sucked all my enthusiasm out of me.

I landed in the central area of campus on a bench, looking out at the reflection pool. Some students were walking around but not close to me, and the terror birds were all out in the center of the water instead of on its edge. It was a quiet, peaceful place that I could gather myself together, calm down, and try to refresh my smile.

I laid on the bench and just watched the geese for a few minutes before remembering I still had to call my parents. I couldn't think of any good reason to put it off, and if I put it off, there was a chance I would forget to call them today. I knew they would worry if they hadn't heard how my first day of classes went, especially since I hadn't called them last night to let them know I was doing okay.

It didn't take long to find my mom's number on my phone since it was the first one on my contacts. I set it to dial and laid on the bench as I listened to the ringing coming from my leg.

The line was picked up. "Rebecca? Is that you?"

I forced a smile. Mom couldn't see me, but people could tell if a person was smiling or not by their voice. "Yep, it's me. I hope you haven't forgotten what I looked like after how long I've been gone."

"Oh, I don't think so. Let me see, you have black fur and a bright red mane, right?" Mom playfully asked.

"Hmm, close—I dyed it rainbow on rainbow. It will help if you bail me out of jail. I have been convicted of assault with intent to blind," I giggled.

"Well, if it were something minor, like murder, I might have been willing to come to bail you out, but with a dye job like that, I can't help you. I have to draw a line somewhere."

We both started giggling. My mom finished first before continuing the conversation. "Assuming you aren't really in jail, and you are done with classes for today, how did your first day go?"

My smile dropped. "It went fine."

"Rebecca, what's wrong? Are you having trouble with your classes or not getting along with your roommates?" Darn it; I knew she would be able to tell the second I stopped smiling.

I shook my head. "Classes are fine. The first day was a little boring. There's one class that I'm not sure I can deal with the professor because his mind doesn't seem to be all there, but I'll give it another day to decide if I need to switch it out. I get along great with all my roommates."

"So what's bothering you then?" she asked in an even more deeply concerned voice.

I considered how to explain it and decided that there were many side things I wouldn't be able to say on the phone in public. "Do you mind if I have Miss Seapony help me dreamwalk to you tonight? I want to tell you all the details, but I need to make sure it's completely private."

She took a deep breath. "Okay, that is fine. Do you mind if your father is included in? We did a test run of it the other night, with Arbiter's help, and he should have no problems."

I blinked. I had almost forgotten the entire reason he had been granted magic was to be able to be contacted in the dream realm. "Yeah, of course he can. I'll try not to take too long. I know that you non-dreamwalkers don't get any regular rest when being visited in a dream."

"We're both on vacation, so if we get a little less regular rest, it won't be the end of the world."

"I guess we can talk more then." I remembered that I now knew what my human form looked like and smiled. "I also have a surprise I wanted to show you that works best in the dream realm."

"I'm not going to be very surprised if you tell me there is a surprise coming," Mom replied with a snicker.

"Um, I think you will be anyway," I said smugly. "I'll see ya tonight. I love you."

"Love you too, baby. Take care of yourself."

The line clicked, indicating the end of the call, and I went back to watching the water. Looking at the water reminded me about my impromptu dive into it yesterday, which in turn made me think of Drizzle, which made me think of Lântiān, which undid the positive progress towards improving my mood that talking to my mom had provided. I was back at square one.

"You shouldn't be this upset. It isn't your fault," I told myself.

"Not directly. I'm still the thing that makes her react so badly," I countered myself.

"And she's already told you that she is misdirecting, and she also has apologized for it more than once," I countered back.

"That doesn't seem to be helping, and whether it should be my fault or not, I'm still making her deeply upset. I want to spread joy and happiness, not make people cry.

"You can't please everybody.

"I can try!"

"Are you okay?" a voice that wasn't mine interrupted.

I looked up and saw Russell, wearing a backpack with a notebook computer in hand, giving me a baffled look. I also realized I had gotten turned around from the direction I was sitting in somehow. It confused me, but I wasn't going to worry about it. Instead, I gave Russell a big grin. "I'm good. Why do you ask?"

"You were hopping around and talking to yourself. It was like you were doing the whole Gollum-Smeagol thing," he explained, bemused.

Oh, that would explain how I got turned around. "Just a lively self-debate."

He blinked and tilted his head. "Do you do that often?"

I sighed and shook my head. "No. I'm sorry. I'm struggling with something at the moment."

He stepped close to where I was lying, and I shuffled over to give him space to sit. He pulled his backpack off and set it down beside the bench before taking a seat.

"So, what's up?" Russell asked. "I've only gotten to talk to you a few times, but you seem to bounce back immediately whenever something goes wrong. It must be something serious if it has you feeling down in the dumps now."

I considered what I could say and couldn't say. I didn't want to blow him off. That would be rude. I couldn't really discuss everything that went on with Miss Seapony either.

"It's complicated," I replied.

He nodded. "I figured it would be if it has you upset. I've got nothing but time right now."

I frowned as I tried to decide how to frame things. "There's this other mare. I just recently met her, but I've known her mom for a very long time—almost as long as I can remember. I want to be friends with this mare, but she's convinced that her mom loves me more than her."

"Not to be mean to her, but that sounds like her problem," Russell responded. "Does her mom love you more?"

I shook my head. "No, she says she loves me like one of her foals, but if it came down to it, her foals come first."

Russell nodded. "It's definitely this mare's problem then. Maybe she needs to get some counseling with her and her mom."

I tried to picture how a psychologist would handle a Dreamwarden's family issues and failed. "It just upsets me that she's hurting so much emotionally and that I'm tied to that hurt. I can deal with people not liking me. I can deal with people thinking I'm a joke and making fun of me. What I can't deal with is someone breaking down in tears because of me. I don't want to hurt anyone. I know I didn't personally do anything to cause this, but I'm part of this scar in her relationship with her mom. I want to make it right."

"That's the sign of a big heart, but you can't hold yourself responsible for other people's dysfunctions," he insisted. "Do you have to see her all the time?"

I blushed. "I kinda signed up to foalsit her kid—she needed a reliable foalsitter, or she'd get kicked off the flight team! I thought, maybe if I helped her out, she would come around, ya know?"

"And she agreed to let you?"

I nodded. "Yeah, she did. I think she is being practical. Her having a sitter for her daughter is critical, and she knows in her head that I'm not to blame for what happened between her and her mom. She just hasn't been able to convince her heart of that."

"So what are you going to do if she breaks down crying because her kid praised you, and now she thinks you are trying to steal her daughter's affection?"

My eyes went wide. I hadn't even considered that as a possibility! Had I just made a big mistake?

I groaned and started slamming my head against the closest thing available, Russell's leg. I got a good four or five slams in before he laid his hand on my head, and I froze.

"I know my leg isn't as hard as a wall or the ground, but you shouldn't be so physically hard on yourself," he said in an amused tone. "Can I rub your ears?"

I looked up at him and raised an eyebrow. "Why?"

He shrugged. "Because whenever my mom is stressed out, either my old man or I will rub her ears, and it helps her calm down. I figured it might help you relax. You aren't thinking any clearer if you're worked up."

I flicked an ear and then cautiously laid my head down on his leg. "You can rub my ears—gently."

He started rubbing, and I had to admit, it did feel good, and the rest of my body relaxed as I let my mind drift. I caught sight of the underside of his arm as he was rubbing and blinked.

"You've got white spots," I observed.

He paused in his rubbing for a few seconds, and I wondered if I had said something wrong. He then resumed rubbing. "Yes," he replied. "It's called vitiligo. It means my skin loses pigmentation. I have spots like that all over my body, but most of them I can hide."

"Why?" I asked as he continued to rub.

"It's just a medical condition," he answered. "There's not enough of a certain type of cell that makes melanin, so I lose all color in certain areas."

"I meant, why do you hide them? They're cool," I clarified.

He paused again, and I looked up at him as he gave me a hard to read expression.

He licked his lips. "I got made fun of, growing up. Kids would say things like, here comes the spotty man, or treat me like I have a contagious disease."

My ears laid back. "Well, that's wrong. Your spots are cool. They make you look different, instead of having just plain old one-colored skin. I have stripes and spots, but most people can't see them."

He looked my fur and mane over. "Um… I can't either. How do you know you have stripes and spots?"

"I can see them, just barely, if I stare long enough," I replied. "Sometimes a human can see them, but they say just barely too. I've never had a pony say they can see them."

"Is that so?" he asked slowly as he looked my fur over. "I want to try something, if you're up to it."

I blinked. "Try what?"

"To prove you have stripes and spots."

I gave him a confused look. "How are you going to do that?"

He smiled. "Have you ever heard of tetrachromacy?"

"Tetrawhatmancy?" I asked. "I haven't heard of that kind of magic. What's it do?"

He laughed out loud. "No, tetrachromacy, and it isn't magic. Some humans and animals can see a wider range of colors. I heard that ponies can't be tetrachromats, but maybe it's just much rarer in ponies. It is already rare in humans."

"And you think I am a tetrachromat?" I asked, considering what that meant. "So me seeing my spots and stripes—"

"Is you seeing shades of colors in your fur that most the rest of us can't normally see," he finished.

I looked at my fur and could just barely make out a spot when I was gazing. "But how do you test that?"

"A blacklight."

I chewed on my lip. "Are you sure? I was told ponies already saw color differently than humans."

"Well, you have bigger eyes, and they take in more light. That might make the colors you see more vivid, but it doesn't necessarily mean you see more colors," he explained.

I knew I wasn't crazy, but I would love to prove that I wasn't crazy. "Where do we find a blacklight?"

Russell moved, and I got off his leg. He stood up and put his backpack back on before gesturing for me to follow. "Come on; there's a lab that has one, and they only lock it at night."

I followed him as he walked towards the classrooms, to a building I hadn't been by as of yet. This building had murals on it. The wall closest to me had one mural of Phobia Remedy facing off against a night pony stallion. I was surprised to see a second mural featuring Crystal kicking Sunset Blessing in the face. That one seemed an odd thing to depict. I wondered why they felt that was important and why exactly Crystal had assaulted Sunset Blessing.

He led me into a classroom with no windows and closed the door behind us. After I looked around, I could tell it was a science lab of some sort, and it had several side doors that went deeper into the building. Even with the lights turned on, it was dim in this room.

"This isn't where you take me to murder me in private, is it?" I asked nervously as he searched a table on the side of the room.

"Naw, this is the light and photography lab," he answered as he continued his search. "This main room is where they go over various labs involving light and how it impacts art, and those little side rooms are dark rooms for developing photos."

I glanced around; it did have several weird-shaped projectors, giant floodlights, and prisms about.

Russell found what he was looking for, an oversized flashlight with a dark purple covering over the bulb area, and walked over to the light switch for the room. "Okay, stay where you are. I'm going to turn the lights off and turn this on. Then we'll be able to see if there are any extra colors on you."

The lights flipped off, sending the room into complete darkness due to not having windows. The next thing I knew, Russell was shining that odd flashlight on me.

"Well, would you look at that," Russell said in a pleased tone.

I looked at myself. The white of my fur seemed to glow in the purple light, but that wasn't what stood out most. All over my body were spots that looked like eggs that someone had sat on but squished instead of crushed. On my legs, there was a zigzag pattern near the base of my hooves, and when I stretched out my wings, I could see clearly defined stripes with circles interspersed between them. Even I had never seen my stripes and spots this well.

I took a few happy bounces with my wings spread. "Haha! Validation! I'm a spotty, zigzaggy, strippy pegasus! I'm not boring!"

Russell chuckled. "Not boring at all."

Author's Note

Hope everyone has a happy holiday.

Chapter 49: An Unfortunate Mistake

I sat down with my third serving of dinner salad and cake and began to dig in.

Maggie raised an eyebrow at me. "Rough day?"

My bite of salad went down my throat whole as if I were a snake. Having to wait for my breathing passage to clear gave me time to think of an appropriate answer. I didn't want to lie to Maggie, but there were things I couldn't talk about. I couldn't mention anything about Dreamwarden related issues, especially since my Dreamwarden issues were now tied in with Sunflower's, so they weren't just my secrets; they were hers too, and I couldn't reveal she was a candidate to anyone. It also would probably be bad to say I had a conversation with the infamous Sunset Blessing—who had briefly turned me into a human.

I looked away. "I can't talk about it. There are things involving other people's secrets, and I can't betray that trust. I'm sorry."

When I looked back at Maggie, I saw her frowning at me. "It seems you have lots of secrets I didn't know about, like that magic from the other day. It makes me wonder how much I really know you. I thought we were best friends," Maggie muttered. She then shook her head. "Forget I said that. If it is other people putting trust in you, then you are in the right not to tell me. I just can't help feeling like you don't trust me after seeing what you kept from me."

Okay, now I felt worse. Maggie was my best friend, and at the same time, she knew very little about what went on with me.

I made a decision, right then and there, possibly a bad decision, but one I felt was worth the risk. I wanted Maggie to feel I trusted her absolutely.

"There is one thing that's at my discretion to share or not. It's a big deal, even bigger than that other secret I shared with you. If I share with you, you can't say anything to anybody. You can't even act like you know. If it ever comes out, you need to act shocked."

"Did you murder someone?" Maggie asked.

"No. I'm being serious here," I whined.

"Did you have a secret love child that your parents keep locked in the attic?"

"What?! You know I'm a virgin!"

"I don't know that for sure. You've been keeping big secrets to this point," Maggie countered. I couldn't tell if she was being serious or not.

"Urgh! I'm a virgin," I said with emphasis.

"I'm just picking at you, Bec; lighten up," Maggie replied. "You normally don't get upset at some mild teasing, which makes me concerned about you. What's going on?"

I didn't answer and took time to think about how to approach this while scarfing down the remainder of my food. Maggie let me chew, perhaps worried I would choke on my food if I tried to talk.

"We need somewhere private to talk, like super-duper private," I finally said.

Maggie scratched her head. "Well, my room is pretty private. I don't have a roommate, and the girls that share a bathroom with me keep their door shut—if they are even there."

"Sounds good," I replied. "Let me get one more serving—"

"No."

I stared up at her with my ears laid back. "But I'm hungry!"

She shook her head. "You're stress-eating, and you are supposed to be on a diet. You need to lose weight, not gain more. I swear, if you go for another serving, I'll call your parents and tell them you are gorging yourself."

I let my ears sag and gave her my best puppy dog eyes.

She shook her head again. "Not going to work, Bec. Come on; I'm trying to look out for you."

I stuck my tongue out at her, then fluttered my lips. "Fine. Let me waste away till I'm skin and bones."

"That might take a while," Maggie chuckled. She then grabbed my tray in one hand and hers in the other. "I'll put these up, and we can walk back to the dorms."

It didn't take long to leave the cafeteria and be on our way back to the dorms.

"Oh, I did have something else interesting happen today," Maggie said as we walked. "Jordan's mother emailed me. Apparently, she caught that filly reading my fan fiction."

"Oh, dear," I moaned. "Are you now in trouble for corrupting innocent youth?"

She rubbed her arm, absently. "No, not really. It was weird. Her mom gave a full review of the story I sent—it was one of the shorter ones. She reviewed the grammar, punctuation, and word choices. It was like I turned in a paper to my English teacher."

"Jordan said she wanted to be a teacher. Maybe she wants to be a teacher because her mom is one," I mused.

"Wouldn't surprise me after reading that email," Maggie replied. "She then wrote out a long section stating she isn't going to stop her daughter from trying to obtain mature reading content since she'd rather know about it and be able to discuss it instead of having Jordan attempting to hide it from her. She then gave me a list of things she doesn't want Jordan exposed to—and let me tell you, that mare has to have experience reading some serious smut to come up with some of the things she listed."

"We like to think our parents never do anything shocking, and they just stop having lives other than us after we're born," I observed sagely. "Non-Equestrian ponies tend to be a little more open on average about sex. Miss Seapony said it's because the spell that made us ponies had instructions in it to gently encourage us to breed. Sunset Shimmer wanted us to go out and multiply. Her goals were always more ponies."

"Hormones weren't enough; they needed mind control too?" Maggie asked.

I shrugged. "Well, it is just a gentle nudge; you don't see me racing out to have foals. I have been a pony almost my entire life, and in a few years, there will be adult ponies that were never human at all—like Jordan. Can you call us mind-controlled if that is how we always were?"

"I suppose not," Maggie muttered, then sighed. "Sorry, Bec. My dad has always gone on about that stuff. He isn't the worst, but he is definitely a speciest in private. You can't grow up in a speciest household and not have it influence you, even if you try not to let it. I apologize for saying insensitive things."

I was taken aback by her confession of having speciest thoughts. "I… I don't know what to say. I never thought of you as being a speciest."

"I try not to be," she replied quietly. "I grew up hearing those things all the time at home. I knew they were wrong, but at the same time, it was inescapable since it came from the people that loved me, raised me, and taught me right from wrong. I have talked to counselors about it."

"I never knew that," I replied as I looked at my best friend in a new light, trying to reconcile this newly uncovered layer with what I had known.

"Didn't want to talk about it or confess to it," she muttered again, her voice dropping to a whisper. "I guess I'm only talking about it now because I got on you about keeping secrets from me—I don't know, it's confusing. How am I supposed to talk to my best friend about the fact I secretly look down on ponies when she's a pony? I try not to look down on ponies, but it's like something I can't shake. I can understand if you're mad or feel betrayed."

Did I feel angry or hurt? Maybe a little hurt. It was hard to hear that my best friend harbored anti-pony thoughts. However, she was also open and honest with me, and she had always been a good friend.

"Do you look down on me?" I asked, afraid of the answer.

She hung her head. "Most of the time, no, but on rare occasions, I'll think something I shouldn't about you. I get angry at myself when I do and tell myself that I shouldn't think like that. That it is wrong."

That felt like a knife going into me. I reminded myself that she was being honest, and she could have just kept it to herself and lied.

"I believe you," I replied. "You said you went to counselors about this? What did they say?"

She took a deep breath. "They said that the prejudice we learn growing up is a hard thing to overcome, even when we know it isn't right. I need to never excuse myself as just being raised that way, and that overcoming prejudice is a process that takes work, and it can take generations. It's my job just to keep catching myself when I find myself thinking like my dad, to remember how much I care about my pony friends, and to make sure that I teach my future children to be better, so they never grow up absorbing that prejudice from me. That's how you end the cycle."

"I would never have known if you didn't say anything," I said as we reached the dorm building. "It hurts to hear, but you are brave to be honest with me, knowing how badly I could take it."

"And how bad is this going to go?" Maggie asked stiffly. "I don't want to mess up my friendship with you."

I thought about Lântiān and how she knew in her head that I wasn't to blame for what happened between her and her mother, but couldn't seem to let it go in her heart. Maggie knew things in her head that her feelings fought her on, and she struggled with them. Right now, she was scared because she had exposed those things to me, and she was afraid she'd lose my friendship over it. That was an important detail—Maggie desired to keep my friendship. I was more important to her than the prejudice she learned growing up.

Emotions and thoughts could get so complicated and could be our worst enemies. Maggie was my best friend, and I was hers, and we wanted to maintain that friendship. That was what was important to focus on.

"I forgive you for not always thinking the right thing," I answered as we reached the elevator for the human side of the dorms. "I'm your best friend, and you're still mine. Your counselors were right. When does prejudice end if we don't make an effort? I think that goes two ways. It doesn't do it any good if I reject you; maybe it makes it worse. Nothing has changed between us."

We boarded the elevator by ourselves. Maggie pressed the button for the correct floor. "Thanks, Bec."

"You haven't heard my secret, so don't thank me yet," I replied. Should I still tell her? It seemed I was committed at this point. She'd also been very open with me. I owed it to her.

We got off the elevator and silently walked down the hall to her room. We passed a few more humans, but they didn't seem to care about there being a pony in their territory. Still, after hearing what Maggie said, I wondered how many also felt the same way and didn't show it to the world. How many speciest feelings were hidden under the surface in the people I saw every day? It wasn't just humans that could have those feelings either. Everyone knew about overtly speciest groups like the Shimmerists, but what about others that silently felt the same? Meadow's parents had been Shimmerists before being Blessingists. Did they still have those feelings towards humans? Did Meadow have them too, and just didn't let anyone see it? I hated knowing that there was a hidden world of prejudice that I had barely been aware of but now couldn't help wondering about.

Maggie's room wasn't a whole lot different than mine. Instead of a set of bunks, there were two regular beds. The furniture was larger to accommodate humans but was in the same bare wood utilitarian style. She had the same type of closet area and also had a balcony. The door to her bathroom was shut, and the second bed didn't seem to be in use. A bunch of books and parts of her luggage were scattered across two different desks.

I jumped and flapped my wings a few times to land on the bed that no one was using and took a seat. Maggie ignored her bed and came and sat beside me, probably so I didn't have to speak up for her to hear me.

"You're free to talk," Maggie announced. "No one over here has pony hearing, and these walls insulate sound reasonably well."

How would I start this?

"Um, Dreamwarden Psychic Calm is retiring soon—like, within a few months soon," I said slowly and nervously.

Maggie frowned. "Okay, I'm guessing that is a pretty big secret. That's like a government secret, something that would be classified information. You never mentioned meeting him. You talk about the sex seahorse—" she winced. "Forget I worded it that way."

I couldn't help myself; I giggled. "You should be pun-ished for that one."

She groaned. "You talk about Yinyu and seem to know her well, but you've never talked about any of the others much. Are you and Psychic Calm friends too?"

I shook my head. "I've never met him. I've met some of the others a time or two, but not him."

"So, how did you find out he was retiring?" Maggie asked.

I fidgeted with my forehooves. "I might be in the running to replace him."

She went wide-eyed for a second then arched a brow at me. "Might? They consider hundreds, maybe thousands, of candidates, from what I heard. How big a might is this?"

I licked my lips. "They do consider lots of candidates, but each Dreamwarden has their own ranking system for who they favor, and out of this combined rankings, they narrow hundreds of thousands down to a top few candidates. The rankings change all the time, so it is still not decided who will be his heir."

"You didn't answer the question," she said flatly.

I winced. "I'm… I'm number one in rankings with four different Dreamwardens and ranked high with the remaining two. At least, that was where they said they had me ranked yesterday—I think it was just yesterday; it could have changed. I don't know."

Maggie shook her head in disbelief. "You're trying to play a joke on me. What is your real secret?"

I blinked. "It's true. That is my secret."

"It can't be," she said as she stood up and started pacing. "You can't be in line to be a Dreamwarden. No offense, but you're nobody."

"Dreamwardens are just regular people," I explained. "Miss Seapony was a prostitute living off the street. I heard Phobia Remedy used to be an overnight stocker at a grocery store. Psychic Calm has always been a psychiatrist. They weren't worth talking about."

"But what would they want with you?" Maggie asked in a flustered voice. "You're an obese pegasus that can't even stick to a diet for a day. They've got Lust, Fear, Anger, Song, Order, and previously had Death and Silence. What are you going to be, the Warden of Gluttony? You're training to be an architect. What do the Dreamwardens need with an architect—one that isn't even trained yet?"

I flinched a little. "I was thinking about taking Creativity if I get chosen. It's something important to me that I'd like to inspire. As for why they want me… I think it's partly my powers and partly because there's nothing scary about me—unless you make cakes and cookies for a living."

"Stop it!" Maggie yelled. "Why are you doing this? Is this your way of getting back at me for what I said while we were walking here?"

My ears flattened to my side, and I cringed further. "I'm telling the truth. Why would I make this up?"

Maggie threw her hands up above her head. "I don't know! You tell me. Do you want to make yourself seem important? Do you want to get back at me for saying I sometimes let myself think of you as some stupid brainwashed pony? Maybe now that you have new friends, you don't feel like you need me anymore, and you're trying to drive me away."

My eyes were tearing up, and my body was shaking. "Maggie… what can I do to prove to you that I'm telling the truth?"

She laughed. "Maybe if you were telling the truth, you would already know. Dreamwardens are supposed to be smarter than the rest of us dumb mortals, right?"

I was openly sobbing now and couldn't bring myself to respond.

Maggie stared at me and seemed like she wanted to say something.

"Bec, I—"

I looked up at her. I could barely see her through my tears.

"Bec…" I could hear the tears in her voice as she tried to continue. "Just say you didn't know what you were thinking and that you're sorry for lying like that, and we can forget this even happened."

It felt hard to breathe. "I'm not lying," I said in a whisper.

There was an extended silence. I cried, and I could hear her crying. Then I heard the door opening.

"Get out," Maggie ordered.

Still crying, I left without another word. Maggie slammed the door shut behind me.

Chapter 50: Sunflower isn't Smiling

The sun was down by the time I wandered back into my dorm room. I'd managed to stop crying but was still miserable.

Nightscape paused putting together her legos and blinked as she examined me. "Great, another one of my friends walks in looking like crap. So, what happened to you?"

I looked around the room; it was just Nightscape and me. "Another? Where's Julie? Did something happen to her?"

She shook her head. "Julie's fine. She's over in the other room, probably hugging the remaining blood out of Sunflower. Sunflower came in with her hoof all bandaged up. Meadow changed out the bandages. It was a really nasty wound. It looks like someone took a bite out of her hoof. Sunflower and Ashley say she just tripped and stubbed it, but no one is buying that."

I blinked and flattened my ears. Sunflower and Ashley had been over at Phobia Remedy's house, or at least, that was where Ashley said they were going. How could Sunflower get hurt over there?

I went through the bathroom into the other room. I found that Julie really was hugging Sunflower, and Meadow was fussing over the bandages on Sunflower's right forehoof. The bandages went up about halfway to her carpal joint—the equivalent of a human knee. Sunflower looked as miserable as I felt and was doing her best not to look at Julie or Meadow. Ashley sat a short distance away and perked her ears up as I entered.

"Rebecca! Just the mare I wanted to see," Ashley said loudly. "Want to join Nightscape and me for a walk? We need to walk down to the store and buy some extra bandages and antiseptic. It is better to go as a group of three or more when walking out in the dark, and it is pretty much impossible to separate Meadow and Julie from showering Sunflower with attention."

"Does she need to see a doctor?" I asked as I looked at Sunflower.

"Yes," Meadow said immediately.

"I don't need to see a doctor. Somepony already treated me, and you're keeping care of me now," Sunflower muttered. She still wouldn't look at anyone directly.

Ashley walked by me towards the other room. "Come on, Marshmallow. The quicker we head out to the store, the quicker we'll be back. I'll tell you all about what happened along the way. We all have class in the morning, even Nightscape, so we don't want to be out late."

I looked back and forth before turning to follow Ashley. "Okay, coming."

Nightscape hopped down from her seat and gave Ashley a dirty look as we entered the room. "You could have just given me a list and sent me to go get this stuff. I'm sure it wouldn't be too much for me to fly with. I would have been fine out on my own instead of having to foalsit you two at night. Not that it is that dangerous a walk to begin with."

"I feel better if I pick out the stuff myself, and as a pony who was once foalnapped, I feel better going out as a group at night," Ashley explained.

Nightscape rolled her eyes. "Fine. Let's just get this over with so you and Rebecca can get back and get to bed, and so I can get back to designing."

We left the room in silence and went to the elevator.

As soon as the elevator closed, Ashley started hurriedly speaking. "I'll say this part fast, and we can talk some more once I'm sure we are clear of prying ears. Sunflower didn't stub her hoof. She took a bite out of it. She doesn't even remember doing it. She then started drawing in blood on Phobia Remedy's walls before the Dreamwarden's bodyguard took the initiative to shove a marker in Sunflower's mouth, then Sunflower started drawing with that. She doesn't remember any of it. Freaked us all out, even the Dreamwarden and her bodyguard."

Nightscape and I stared with wide eyes. I started to open my mouth, but Ashley put a hoof up to it as the elevator reached the ground floor and opened.

"Talk more once we are away from the dorms," Ashley said quickly.

"Sounds like a good idea," Nightscape said slowly while giving Ashley an appraising look.

We had to cut across campus to go towards the store. There weren't many people out at this hour. I saw a few humans going about, but they were all far from us.

"We should be good to talk if we stay close together and keep our voices down," Ashley said as she looked around. "If you see someone in range to hear us, change the subject immediately. The other two of us will catch your drift."

"What happened? Why were you at Phobia Remedy's house?" Nightscape asked.

"Because Sunflower is a Dreamwarden candidate too," I answered before Ashley could. "Ashley is her bodyguard, just like you are mine. She accidentally gave it away to me earlier today, and I told her about me after that."

"That was really stupid, on both your parts," Nightscape growled.

"I've been doing a lot of stupid things today," I whispered.

Nightscape arched a brow at me. "We'll address whatever other stupidity you've done in a few minutes. First, let's hear why Sunflower felt the need to cannibalize her own leg."

"I took Sunflower over to meet the Warden of Fear," Ashley began. "Phobia Remedy likes to meet people in person when she can, at least that was what I was told. Things started smooth enough. Sunflower was looking around the room and asked why there was a big empty glass case. That's when the trouble started."

"Empty?" Nightscape asked in confusion. "There's only one glass case I know about in that living room, and it has that creepy doll in it."

Ashley looked ill as she shook her head. "It was definitely empty when she first said something about it, and when Phobia Remedy checked it. The lock was still on it, too, with no signs it had been tampered with, but the doll was gone. The Dreamwarden was calling her bodyguard to look into it when Sunflower just quietly walked over to a wall, lifted her leg, chomped into it, and then yanked back to rip right into it. Then she started drawing on the wall in her blood. Made both me and the Dreamwarden scream, but Sunflower didn't even so much as grunt in pain."

"Jesus H Christ," Nightscape breathed. "That doll always made everyone who looked at it feel nervous, but this sounds like some grade-A haunting stuff."

Ashley shook her head. "I'm not sure what was going on with the doll, but the rest was all Sunflower. She's got powers; she draws things in a trance. Only this time, she didn't have anything to draw with, so she found a way."

"What did she draw?" I asked. We had just cleared the campus grounds.

Ashley licked her lips. "The Dreamwarden's human bodyguard came running due to all the screaming. The woman took one look at Sunflower and what she was doing and found a marker, and I'm serious about her shoving it in Sunflower's mouth. She then yelled for the Dreamwarden's son to get down there—she used more colorful language. A teenage night pony colt then arrived, looked over the situation, grabbed some medical supplies, and started treating Sunflower's leg. Sunflower didn't even pay him attention as he stitched it up; she just kept drawing."

"But what did she draw?" Nightscape prompted.

"It was a human man, holding an earth pony colt in one arm—a young colt, like only a few months old," Ashley replied. "In his other hand, he carried an old doll. He looked like he'd gone through hell; scratches and scars all over him, his clothes were torn up."

"Okay, that's weird," I said. I looked at Nightscape to see if she understood anything I didn't, but she just shook her head in confusion.

"It gets weirder," Ashley said. "After Sunflower finished, she came out of her trance and immediately cried out in agony as she clutched her bandaged leg, like an extremely delayed reaction to the pain. Then I noticed it—the doll was back in the case."

Nightscape shivered. "Okay, screw that creepy doll. That evil thing belonged to Sha'am Maut, and anything she owned I want no part of. Thing is fucking haunted or something. Warden of Death is screwing with people from beyond the eternal dream."

"It certainly freaked out Phobia Remedy," Ashley replied. "She said she was going to have a long talk with the Narrative about it, and find out how in the hell it was possible for Sha'am's doll just to leave and come back like that, who that man was, and what ties to Sha'am he had."

"Who is the Narrative?" I asked in confusion.

Ashley took a long breath. "That gets into what Sunflower was doing. Phobia Remedy explained it to us, once Sunflower had stopped yelling and crying. Sunflower is what is called a storyteller. There are several storytellers, and their abilities manifest in different ways. Sunflower isn't even the strongest storyteller—apparently, it's a human who is. Storytellers are linked to something called the Story. They can find out things from the Story about the past, present, or possible future. They're like the old ancient Greek oracles, prophets."

"And the Narrative is another name for the Story?" I asked, looking for clarification.

She shook her head. "Not exactly. It is more like the will or awareness of the Story. Like Dreamwardens are the will and awareness of the dream realm. She said she would have to go to the strongest storyteller to get answers from the Narrative because that's the only one it talks to directly."

"More super powerful cosmic beings," Nightscape muttered.

"She also said the Story is another name for the eternal dream," Ashley said in an even lower voice. "Which means—"

"That if Sha'am is really reaching out and touching the world, the Narrative has to know," I concluded.

"Or directly helping," Nightscape grimly added on.

"Anyway, that happened," Ashley said with a sigh. "I let Phobia know about the fact I know about you, and we told Sunflower. I don't know how Sunflower took the news. She's kinda been in shock since she realized she gnawed open her hoof—which no one can blame her for being shocked about. It was comforting in some ways to have Phobia Remedy just as surprised and screaming as me. It makes Dreamwardens seem more like normal people—at least the ones that are alive."

"Are you sure Sunflower doesn't need to go to the doctor?" I asked. "That sounds like it is a nasty wound, and even if it is okay, she is still shaken up badly."

"I'm supposed to monitor her. The Dreamwardens have some sort of pull with the college administration. Sunflower is excused from her classes for tomorrow. If she's still acting shell-shocked, we can get her to a psychiatrist," Ashley replied. She frowned as she continued. "I think this might be a test. To see how quickly she can bounce back from a disturbing experience. I figure everything that any candidate does is being reviewed and judged."

"Speaking of which, what dumb things did you do today, pudgy?" Nightscape said with a half-growl.

"Hey, I'm not pudgy! And I already told you about my day," Ashley objected.

"I was talking to our friend, the Avatar of Cholesterol," Nightscape said flatly.

I gulped and recounted everything that had happened from the afternoon on. When I finished, Nightscape covered her face with a wing, and Ashley shook her head in disapproval.

"Seriously, Marshmallow, how the hell do you manage to survive?" Nightscape asked from behind her wing.

"I'm squishy and resilient?" I sheepishly suggested, then bowed my head.

"We're going to have to do something about this Maggie friend of hers," Ashley said as she looked around.

Nightscape lowered her wing and nodded. "Yeah. Sunset Blessing and her godfoals are monitored all the time by Yinyu and Arbiter, not to mention Wild Growth, so they shouldn't be an issue. The human is a liability that we can't let hang, though."

I laid my ears back. "You aren't going to hurt her...are you?"

"I don't think roughing her up would do us any good," Nightscape replied. "Would probably make her more inclined to blab something. I'm not sure what to do, just that something needs to be done."

"I could try talking to her again," I suggested.

"Because that went sooo well today," Ashley muttered.

"Ashley's right; that's not an option," Nightscape said. "I'll go to Phobia Remedy later tonight and consult her about all this, and see how she wants to deal with it, or find out if she's going to make us figure it out on our own."

We walked in silence for a few minutes, contemplating what we should be doing, how Sunflower was doing, and our actions throughout the day. We did this until we arrived at the local Walgreens. It was a twenty-four hour store, with large windows and displays in the windows. It was very different than the typical Walgreens, as it carried many goods a drug store might not normally, but were of high interest to the local college students (the art school was not the only college in the immediate vicinity), such as small refrigerators for rooms, bedding, and more.

For me, I worried about Sunflower, but mostly, I worried about whether today I had lost my best friend.

Chapter 51: A Short Talk

We got back to the room and gave the supplies to Meadow, who promptly changed Sunflower's bandages and lightly disinfected around the stitching again. I saw the place Sunflower had injured. It didn't look pleasant, but the stitching looked like it was done right, at least as best as I could tell. Sunflower insisted that it was okay and that it was just a little sore, only hurting when she put pressure on it.

We all agreed that we would decide if Sunflower needed to see a doctor after looking at it in the morning. Sunflower relented to this but didn't seem to think it was necessary.

It felt horrible not being able to talk to Sunflower about what had happened, but Meadow and Julie were right there, and they couldn't be told about Sunflower and me being candidates to be Dreamwarden. I wondered if that was part of why Sunflower was being detached, not being able to say the truth safely. I was tempted to insist we tell everything to our remaining friends we lived with, but telling friends about what was going on hadn't worked out for me very well thus far.

Instead, Ashley and I took a shower, so we wouldn't need to rush in the morning, then I made my way to bed. Julie was already tucked into hers by the time I was out of the shower. The lights were off, but I could make out Nightscape working quietly with her legos by the light of the moon. She had earlier told me she would head out to the Dreamwarden's house after we were all sound asleep, and she'd be back before we woke up. Nighttime was like daytime for her, and we couldn't expect her to stay in the room awake all night any more than she could expect us to seclude ourselves in the room during the day.

I laid down, set my alarm, and fretfully let myself drift off to sleep.

"You seem troubled, Rebecca. Do you want to talk about it?" Miss Seapony asked before she even appeared. A dream hadn't even taken form yet; it was just darkness. I had dreams like this before, dreams with no images, no sound, only concepts. Miss Seapony wasn't really speaking with sound to be heard; she was wordlessly relating an idea that my mind put into words.

"You have my permission to respond to my thoughts and memories," I replied. An old permission that gave Dreamwardens rights to respond to things they already knew. It seemed silly sometimes that I had to give such consent, but the rules were the rules, and the Dreamwardens were beings governed more tightly by regulations than any other—even if those rules seemed few in number.

"I'm sorry things went the way they did with Maggie. I know how much her friendship meant to you," Miss Seapony said sympathetically.

"What went wrong? Why did she get so upset?" I asked as I took shape in the void and immediately started crying. "I just don't understand."

"Nor do I," Miss Seapony replied. "I'm not even saying that as a way of guarding her secrets. She is without magic, so her mind is beyond my reach." She took form and gently laid a fin on my head. "I'm very sorry."

"It just seemed so out of proportion, even if she didn't believe me," I continued. I was taking advantage of my first real time to air my frustrations. I had been brief with Nightscape and Ashley since they were looking at the basic rundown of what had happened.

"Well, then examine why," Miss Seapony replied. "On review of your memories, I see her visible distress began when you mentioned you were a candidate, and it became heightened exponentially when you explained how likely your chances of becoming a Dreamwarden might be."

"She thought I was lying," I muttered. "Why would she think I would lie to her?"

Miss Seapony swam around me in a circle. "Have you considered that the problem isn't that she thinks you're lying, but that she believes you?"

"But she said I was lying!"

Miss Seapony shook her head. "Denial can be a reaction to truths we don't want to accept but secretly believe. The problem may not be that she doesn't believe you, but that the idea of you becoming a Dreamwarden is a terrifying thought to her that she refuses to accept."

I considered it but shook my head. "But why would that upset her? It isn't like I'm going away or anything."

"I know that this isn't very fun, but consider her earlier conversation with you," Miss Seapony said as she lowered herself in front of me and curled up.

"Where she was talking about secretly having prejudice for ponies?" I asked in confusion.

Miss Seapony nodded. "That was a hard conversation for her, one that left her feeling very vulnerable and afraid. Immediately after she told you that, you told her that you might become what many view as the most powerful and fearful of ponies."

"Dreamwardens aren't always ponies, so that shouldn't matter," I objected.

"My little brother is often overlooked since he stays out of sight. Many don't even believe that he is human and that he is just another pony who happens to claim they are human and that their authorities are lying to them," Miss Seapony explained.

I heard that before but had never given it much thought. Now that I might soon be joining the Dreamwardens, it seemed like something I should consider.

"Maybe Dreamwardens shouldn't keep their identity secret then," I said.

Miss Seapony frowned. "Hmm, you and I would be in disagreement over this, but that is not a bad thing. Dreamwardens shouldn't all be of one mind on everything. Our debate with one another lets us consider more points of view. You may understand why I don't feel the same, considering there are three of us who are dead, and I have no desire to add to that number."

I cringed. "Does me not agreeing with you hurt my ranking?"

She sat silent for a moment. "Not with me, but we shall see how the others feel. It could hurt it with some, have no effect with some—like me, and it might help it with others. Do not compromise yourself to satisfy what I or any of my siblings might want. We look to you to be your own individual."

"I still don't know what to do about Maggie," I said mournfully.

"I don't know either," Miss Seapony said in a sad tone. "Keep in mind that what I suggested for reasons is only speculation, and I'm not the best to speculate about these kinds of things. You would be better served asking Phobia, Psy, or Avtandil—our living members."

"Avtandil?" I asked in confusion. "Is that the Warden of Order's name?"

Miss Seapony nodded. "Yes, that is his name."

"That's a weird name."

"So is the name Rebecca on my ears, and I'm confident your name might sound odd to him as well. He isn't from your country or anywhere near it. He's from Georgia by birth—the nation, not the region of your country," Miss Seapony explained. "He should be in your country at the moment. He is making preparations to see you. He may already be in your city for all I know. I'll know when he tells me."

"What's he like?" I asked with budding interest.

She sighed. "An odd little man who is utterly terrified of germs and almost entirely bereft of magic. He can seem quite timid in public, although that is mostly an act, aside from the germ thing—don't sneeze on him, or you'll give the poor man a heart attack. Not someone that anyone would suspect was a Dreamwarden. I try not to pick on him about his fear of germs. Things people have a deep terror of are typically something I keep out of bounds. I'll pick on his height, though; he hates that but takes it in stride." She giggled. "Humans are his primary concern, being human himself, but he will occasionally take an interest in the doings of certain ponies. His other concerns are keeping the OMMR's business dealings in order. He is a very business-focused individual but isn't that hard to get along with, as long as you keep yourself clean and don't have any anti-human sentiment. Mess up on those things, and you'll have a problem."

"I guess I'll look forward to meeting him then," I replied.

Miss Seapony tilted her head. "Be advised, just because he isn't objectionable doesn't mean he won't be thorough. Expect your visit with him to be a long one, with him demanding a lot of information."

My ears flattened. "How long are we talking about."

She rolled her eyes. "Expect your schedule to be cleared for the day when he arrives, and get a good meal that morning, because you might not get another chance to eat until dinner."

I paused in talking to look at the man sitting across the table from me. "She definitely wasn't lying about that."

Avtandil looked at me, and even though I couldn't see his expression hidden behind his face covering, I imagined he smiled. "I don't have the benefit of being able to see into your mind that my brothers and sisters have, and like Phobia, I enjoy seeing who I'm talking to in person. Maybe I have gotten it from her; I was never so sociable before becoming a Dreamwarden."

He didn't seem to be that sociable now. I was the one doing all the talking.

"Continue, Miss Riddle, the day is not getting any younger," Avtandil instructed.

I decided that one of the first things I would do as a Dreamwarden would be to make some witty comment about his height. I would need to devote lots of hours until then, figuring out just the right play on words.

He held up a hand. "And if you are considering making a joke about my height. If you become a Dreamwarden, I'll personally see that you have a team of poison testers to check all your food before you eat anything. They will be very thorough as well. You might get two bites out of every meal."

My ears flattened. "That's cruel and unusual punishment!"

He laughed. I guess he could show emotion after all.

"I wanted to talk to my parents tonight," I said as Miss Seapony went back to swimming through the nothingness.

She stopped swimming and hovered in front of me, nearly touching snouts with me. "That may be possible; give me a moment to see if they accept your invitation to speak to them."

That was going to be almost certainly a yes, but permission still had to be obtained. I could have possibly found my mom's dreams—with a lot of work, and bypassed permission to see her, but my stepdad was so weak in magic that it would have been impossible, nor could I have linked them both into one dream. This was one of those things you needed a Dreamwarden to do, and the Dreamwarden had to seek permission for, even if that permission seemed obvious.

Miss Seapony shifted form into a big smiling face made out of stars. "They accept! I will put you in a shared dream in a moment. However, I need to tell you that I have a request to see you from another, an Equestrian I know very well. I would recommend you speak with her, but I can tell her to wait a few minutes, if you'd like."

I blinked. "An Equestrian? What Equestrian would want to speak with me? What Equestrian would even know about me?"

She rotated her face around, so it was upside down. "More than one, actually. This one we already told you would be visiting at some point. She's very near and dear to my heart, especially since I inherited so much from her."

Oh, I knew exactly who was being talked about now.

"Should I expect another long interview?" I asked.

Miss Seapony giggled. "Time is measured differently here. A few seconds can feel like hours in some circumstances—but yes. Except this to seem like a long interview."

"If she could wait a few minutes, that would be nice, if it's not a bother," I said meekly. "What's she like?"

Miss Seapony spun her face. "She's kinder and more lenient than most of us, but she is a demigod in the waking world, so best not to make someone who can move a celestial body mad. I can't imagine having the moon dropped on you would feel good."

My eyes went wide. "She wouldn't do that, would she?" It would destroy the earth if she did.

My friend scattered her stars and let them spin about randomly. "Who can say? She went crazy once." She then giggled.

That made me feel more nervous, but I couldn't help noticing something more curious as I arched an eyebrow. "You seem more cheerful than normal all of a sudden."

"I enjoy her visits; it is like a visit from my mom," Miss Seapony replied. She then rematerialized her seapony form and put a fin up to her head. "Actually, scratch that, better than my mom visiting. I would hate my mom calling; that would be very awkward, given the way things went down." She paused and grinned. "And she is one of the few beings who can come here that I can't read the thoughts of. It's wonderful!"

I remembered Arbiter being ecstatic about not being able to read people's thoughts. Was it really that bad?

"Oh, you have no idea," Miss Seapony groaned as she did an exaggerated flop onto nothing. I hadn't voiced my thought, but my permission was still in effect until I woke up.

Well, Princess Luna couldn't be that dangerous if Miss Seapony was practically giddy about her visit. Miss Seapony was trying to get a rise out of me. It was nice seeing Miss Seapony so happy. I hadn't seen her this happy since I was a young foal—before she died.

"One of the few? Who are the others?" I asked.

She waved a fin. "Ohhhh, the normal crowd. Each other, obviously, we can't read another Dreamwarden's thoughts—including foreign ones, like Luna. We can't read Triss's thoughts, but we don't like her, only tolerate her presence. The Narrative's thoughts are a mystery, but it doesn't talk to us or cause trouble, so we ignore it most of the time. On rare occasions, Discord will show up, and we can't read his mind either, but he is more an unwelcome invader we're more concerned about purging, especially after an event a few years ago that could have gone horribly wrong. We haven't figured out how to keep him out yet, only how to make him flee our wrath, and I swear he shows up sometimes for the sole purpose of taunting us with that fact."

This was interesting. I had just today learned the Narrative existed. Miss Seapony had said passing things about Triss before, but always refuses to elaborate. I'd read about Discord in the Friendship Journal and had no idea he ever came into our world, until now. They said he came right into the dream realm? What had he done to make the Dreamwardens mad at him?

Miss Seapony was sharing more information with me that she had typically kept back. Did that mean my position in the rankings had become more secure? That made me feel sad because that meant that Sunflower's chances might have suddenly been hurt, and the only thing that had happened that could cause that was her hurting herself while in a trance. I could see why the Dreamwardens wouldn't like that, even if it wasn't Sunflower's fault.

I wondered how Sunflower was feeling right now. I knew I would be scared if I were in her position. I could imagine her wishing she never developed the powers she had. Competition or not, I decided that I needed to step up and help her feel better.

"Come. Your parents are waiting."

Chapter 52: Average Day

I found myself once more in Arbiter's marble temple with the Dreamwarden sitting upon her throne. Leaning on her fist with her staff held loosely at her side, she looked more or less bored. The sun was shining, the braziers were unlit, and a pleasant breeze came in through the outside. Arbiter might look bored, but the atmosphere said she was in a good mood.

Miss Seapony appeared and swam among the pillars. "You are taking your time, little sister."

Arbiter raised her eyes to watch Miss Seapony's movements. "The gentleman needed a little more time to get his bearings. I am giving it to him." Her eyes turned towards me, and she smiled. "Hello, again. I have news for you that Wild Growth wished me to communicate to you, news I am thrilled to hear."

I blinked. "What kind of news? More meetings that I'll need to attend?"

She chuckled. "That too, but that was not what brought a smile to my face. Wild has decided to advocate for my brother and my sister-in-law. It seems a chubby little pegasus thought they should be allowed temporary transformation to grant them magic. Given that they are closely tied to both Phobia and me, the case could be made that they should have access to the dream realm for their safety and security. Most close living relatives of Dreamwardens have this access, but those two, along with Phobia's brothers-in-law, lack it. Wild is going to see if she can convince the government to remedy this. I thank you for your efforts. It means a lot to me."

I brightened up and did a little hop. "That's great news! I know she'll convince them it is the right thing to do." I stopped and gave her a more serious look. "But why didn't any of you ask for that already?"

Arbiter's smile faded slightly, and she sat up straighter. "We Dreamwardens try to avoid asking for anything that could be seen as a personal favor from governments. If we request something, it typically needs to be of the utmost importance or directly related to our jobs. We are servants and should never be seen as trying to take advantage of our positions. Someone asking something on our behalf is another story, but we can't have in any way suggested to that person or encouraged that we wish a boon. It’s a policy that Phobia proposed and a majority of us voted to make it our official stance."

"Oh, I guess that makes sense," I replied. Then my ears sagged. "You said something about more meetings?"

Arbiter nodded. "Yinyu has already told you about most of them, there is one other that you need to know about, but I shall wait to tell you and your parents together, or perhaps wait for Luna to tell you. It is a bit more exciting than spending time with her or our human brother."

"Hey! Spending time with Luna is not boring!" Miss Seapony objected as she stopped her swim to glare down at Arbiter.

"I'm sorry, but Avtandil and I have a more neutral view of the princess than the rest of you," Arbiter said, Iooking for non-existent dirt under her nails in a bored fashion. "It's probably because we are a generation further removed from her, and her inherited memories are more patchy for us. I don't dislike Luna, but I don't find the need to squeal on the floor like a puppy because she entered our realm. She's a guest, not our fairy godmother."

Miss Seapony pouted. "It's a shame you don't share the same closeness."

"I disagree," Arbiter replied. "She has undue influence over you, older Wardens, that an alien should not have. Right now, there are four of you with this influence, but soon we shall have an even split vote between your generation and mine. In a few years, God willing, Phobia will happily retire to Equestria, and our generation can finally have the votes to treat Luna as the outside influence she is."

"You disagree with Luna?" I asked.

Arbiter shook her head. "I don't agree with her all the time or disagree with her all the time, just like I don't agree or disagree with my siblings in every circumstance. Unfortunately, Yinyu, Ghadab, Psy, and Phobia tend to always put more weight on Luna's judgment than their own, and Krik was just as bad before he left. That is undue influence, and it needs to stop."

"Sha'am was like you; she wouldn't listen to Luna either," Miss Seapony said accusingly.

The breeze stopped, and the sun seemed a little less bright as Arbiter locked her gaze on Miss Seapony. "Sha'am's faults are legion, and she was unfit for her mantle, but she wasn't wrong about everything."

"Just like Sha'am in another way too," Miss Seapony continued. "You started trying to assert yourself almost right away after becoming one of us."

The light got even dimmer as Arbiter replied. "I'm sorry. I didn't get the luxury of compartmentalizing who I was when I was awake from who I was here. I had mere minutes of life left, and I spent those minutes using our knowledge to try to save the world. Then I got stuck here, needing to form an identity and find purpose since it is all I now am."

“Apologies,” Miss Seapony's fins sagged. "You, me, and Ghadab got what you Americans call a bum deal, but you got the bummist deal of the three of us. You had the most to try to take on all at once, and I shouldn't compare you to Sha'am for having to do that. Do you forgive me?"

The light in the room brightened again somewhat as Arbiter nodded. "You're forgiven. We are the dead, and the living will never be able to appreciate what our existence is like, and I hope no other Dreamwarden ever has to. I should not let myself get angry at you."

"How different are you from when you were alive?" I asked. I knew Miss Seapony had changed after she died, but she implied Arbiter's change was more dramatic. Finding out more about the Dreamwardens had become a more pressing concern as of late, for obvious reasons.

Arbiter's wings and shoulders sagged. "Very. My living self wouldn't recognize me, even if I took that form. There are some core things there, but the rest…it's hard to say. I had hopes and dreams that can never be realized now. I loved to sing. I wanted a family. I wanted to live a quiet life with my wife raising foals. I wanted to be the cool aunt for my nephews and niece. I don't think I wanted that much out of life, but I didn't need that much to be happy. It is our bonds to others that make our life full, and here… like this… I still love my family, but there's a chasm that can't ever be bridged between us. I love Sunset, but I wish she would move on sometimes and find someone new to help make her life full again. She's so stubborn and refuses to see the gap between us."

"She has my foals to fill her life," Miss Seapony said in an annoyed tone.

"You know what I mean, Yinyu, and you should know better than anyone else what I mean," Arbiter said in a weary voice. "And your foals won't be foals forever in need of her care. They are growing up, and it will seem like the blink of an eye before they are all out of the nest. She needs a special pony or human in her life, someone who can make her feel special and loved in ways I can no longer do, a partner."

"You could be more assertive telling her that," Miss Seapony said as she crossed her fins in front of her.

Arbiter shook her head. "She has to decide it on her own. Me telling her that… it would break her. She's improved a lot, but there are parts of her that are still so fragile."

"This all sounds like very private information," I mumbled.

"And we trust you follow the rules and keep it private," Miss Seapony said in a firm voice. "However, my little sister makes a strong point. It is our bonds to others that make our lives full. I really think you should give dating a chance. Your career as an architect and being a Dreamwarden can't be the whole of your life."

"Miss Seapony! You know how I feel about that!" I shouted.

"She keeps bringing it up because she cares," Arbiter said gently. "Family and friends are our greatest weakness, that some will try to use against us, but they are also what keeps us grounded and caring. It is so easy to stop caring, and to lose our empathy. I am glad my oaths give me a lifespan here, because if I were to face endless ages, I would eventually lose all such bonds and lose myself."

"Will I love my grandfoals, great-grandfoals, and so on as much as I love my foals?" Yinyu asked sorrowfully. "How many generations can it go before they are just other faces in the sea? It troubles me. How far can it go before I long for the eternal dream because the world no longer matters to me? The memories of our forebearers are heavy, and so many lost their passion and will with the crushing passage of time. It is an inevitability, the only question being how long it will take? Our siblings help some, but I hold no fantasy that I am strong enough to last a millennia or more—a century, maybe, but two would be a stretch."

I flattened my ears. "You two really aren't good at selling this job; you know that? If my mom had either of you in the HR or marketing departments under her, she'd fire you on the spot."

"Fire them for what, Sweetheart?"

I turned and saw my mom and stepdad standing there. Mom had an inquisitive eyebrow raised, and Stepdad was looking around at his surroundings in amazement.

"Being honest with her about the troubles of being undead and the value of family," Arbiter answered. "She should never end up undead like us if everything goes well, but the value of family still is there. It is even more important if something unforeseen happens. She could die in a car wreck, choke on her food, have an airplane crash into her house, crash land into a wood chipper, get trampled by a buffalo, you never know. If something like that happens, she'll regret not having a spouse and kids to care about while she's stuck here."

Mom's eyes narrowed. "Thank you for putting all those disturbing images in my head; even if some of them are outlandish, I now am going to be stuck thinking about them."

"We can purge your memory of having heard that, if you wish," Miss Seapony said sheepishly.

My stepdad looked at Miss Seapony with a frown on his face. "Do you do that often? Purge memories?"

"Upon request, if it is something the requester heard or saw here that they no longer wish to recall. If it is a memory from the waking world, we can't help you," Miss Seapony replied. "Sometimes important people who set up meetings here, government officials or corporate people, will request ahead of time that we block memories of certain small details said during that meeting, but we make sure everyone attending agrees to this before the meeting takes place."

"Those ones are paying the OMMR for a service, so we work out the details in the contract," Arbiter explains. "Dreamwardens are very strict about holding to contracts."

"I'd rather remember it than have you messing with my memories," Mom said with a sigh.

"In that case, we shall make ourselves out of sight so you can have some privacy," Arbiter replied. "Do you mind if we let Luna join you after you have had a few minutes to catch up? We will try to be discrete about when to let her in if you do."

"Luna, who?" Stepdad asked.

"Princess Luna from Equestria, Dad," I explained. "She needs to talk to me and tell us all something. It is important, something about another meeting, but not bad stuff." I turned to Arbiter and smiled. "That would be great. I only want to finish talking to my parents about my day today and my day yesterday first."

"Aww, look at my baby girl taking charge," Mom cooed.

"Mom, don't embarrass me in front of the Dreamwardens," I playfully whined.

"It's in the job description that parents need to embarrass their kids at least once and a while," Miss Seapony chuckled. "Arbiter and I will leave you be for now."

The two Dreamwardens vanished, leaving my parents and me standing in Arbiter's temple.

"So, what's going on?" Mom asked. "You seemed down when you called today."

I sat down and let my posture and ears sag. "I guess the biggest thing is I told Maggie about me possibly becoming a Dreamwarden. She didn't take it well."

Mom frowned. "You weren't supposed to tell anyone about that."

"It's my decision who gets to find out," I replied. "And this was Maggie. We have been best friends for years. I didn't want to keep things from her." I started to cry. "She yelled at me! She called me a liar. She said I was trying to get back at her for something and kicked me out of her room. Now Nightscape and Ashley are trying to decide what to do. I think Nightscape is going to talk to Phobia Remedy about it. I'm just confused, and I feel like I lost my best friend."

"Nightscape is your roommate who is secretly your bodyguard, right?" Stepdad asked. "Who's Ashley? Is that another bodyguard?"

"Ashley's someone else who knows about me," I explained. "She's supposed to be watching over another candidate, but accidentally blabbed that candidate's identity to me, so I told her about myself. It's a mess. I'm not going to say who that other candidate is. That isn't fair to them. I only told Ashley about me to be fair to them."

"That gave away an advantage you had; you realize that, right?" Mom said in a concerned tone.

"I'm not concerned about getting an advantage over others," I insisted. "I want to be fair. It isn't me to try to take unfair advantage like that. That other candidate has their own issues, and I am worried about them. Not because they are my competition, but because they're hurt and scared."

"I'm not sure how competitive the architecture field is, but I think you could stand to be a little more willing to take advantage of opportunities," Mom replied with a shake of her head. "Still, it's admirable that you feel that way. Maybe it will help your position in the rankings."

I laid my ears back. "Not worried about that part. There's still more things."

"How much else could you have gotten into in twenty-four hours?" Stepdad asked in amazement.

"I met Miss Seapony's daughter. Didn't know about her until recently. Her daughter hates me and blames me for her bad relationship with her mom. She knows it isn't true, but she still feels that way. She broke down crying earlier because of me. Sunset Blessing had to tell everyone to leave so she could take care of her."

My parents blinked and looked at one another before my mom turned back towards me. "I guess I shouldn't be shocked anytime you mention dealing with someone famous. We're about to be speaking with an alien princess, and you're taking that casually. I don't know where you find time to do all of this. Did you skip your first day of classes?"

"I made it to all my classes on time and stayed for their entire duration. I just was busy in-between things," I answered.

"Apparently," Stepdad half-chuckled.

"Oh, and Sunset Blessing turned me into a human for about a minute or two, which was interesting, then Wild Growth yelled at her for checking my curves out," I continued.

"She says that with a straight face," Mom said with a shake of her head.

"I'm not lying about it!" I protested.

"We believe you, Sweetheart," Mom replied. "It is just you've been very busy, and that is what you decide to add on as an afterthought. At least I think we got everything covered now."

I shuffled my hooves. "Actually—"

Mom went wide-eyed. "How can there be more? There's no time in the day. When are you sleeping?"

"Um, right now," I answered.

Mom worked her mouth then took a deep breath. "What's left? Lightning-fast run down."

I took a deep breath and tapped my hoof with each listing. "Sha'am Maut might be back from the grave; we don't know, still trying to figure that out. I helped Arbiter talk to her non-magical brother. Oh, and there is this guy that might have a crush on me that everyone keeps calling my boyfriend that I want to be nice to because he's nice to me, but I don't want a relationship. He also proved that I have spots and stripes with a black light. Oh! And I took a foalsitting job for Miss Seapony's granddaughter. Oh again! I fell into the duck pond… I think that's everything I'm allowed to talk about. I don't know; it has been a very very busy time."

Mom sat down on the floor, and Stepdad rubbed her shoulder. "At least you should be losing weight, considering how much running around you've done."

"I had four servings of dinner," I said sheepishly.

"Of course you did," Mom said with a shake of her head. "You took your birth control, right?"

"Oops."

"Rebecca! I asked you to do one thing!"

"Dear," Stepdad said gently. "I don't think she has time to get pregnant in all that."

"We don't know that. She fits everything else in!" Mom said in exasperation. "Just remember to take your pills."

"I'll remember," I replied.

Mom took a deep breath. "Okay, since you seem most concerned about Maggie, despite all that stuff I can only remember bits and pieces of, but is the one thing in all of that I am sure we can try to help with, we'll give her a call, and invite her over to talk this weekend. Your father and I will tell her you're telling the truth and try to see if there is anything else going on there."

I hugged my mom. "Thank you. I just don't know what went wrong. She seemed so angry. She said some things earlier to me. Things I rather not repeat, but it might have to do with it, I don't know. You can tell her I mentioned she might be upset about something that happened right before that, but I didn't want to tell you what. That's her private information, and if she chooses to share with you, that's her choice."

"Stuff you can't talk about, but you can talk about being a candidate for Dreamwarden—got it. Making this soooo easy for me," Mom said with a roll of her eyes. "Anything else you want to share with us before we talk to royalty? You mentioned a surprise, was talking to royalty the surprise or was it the big list of things you gave us?"

I perked my ears up and drew back from her hug. "I wanted to show you my human form since I know, sort of, what it looks like now. I doubt I'll ever be human again since that thing with Sunset Blessing was kinda a one-time thing, but I can always project using it."

Mom hesitated. "If you liked it, I suppose it is alright. I don't have any need to see that. I don't want you to think I wished you were human. Any human form for you would be a stranger."

"You said before you wished we were the same," I replied.

She blinked. "I'm surprised you remembered that. You were very young when I told you that, and I left those feelings behind a long time ago. It's sometimes hard to remember you were ever human now. I think of you and think of a pegasus, not a pegasus that used to be human—if that makes sense to you."

"How about I tell you about it first, then show you?" I asked. "I thought it was cool and wanted to share with you."

Her lips tightened, and I could tell she was unhappy.

My smile dropped, and I nuzzled my head against her. "It's okay to tell me you don't want to see. I don't want to accidentally hurt you because seeing me in a human form could be hard for you. I should have thought of that. Miss Seapony tells me not to worry about what if's, but that what if's can still hurt. She says the Dreamwardens are big on avoiding what if's. I might use it sometimes when I'm projecting, as a disguise, but I'll avoid using it around you."

Mom didn't say anything, just wordlessly nodded.

"I guess we're ready for Luna then," I said.

"Huzzah! The time of my arrival has come!" a booming voice rang out. “Greetings and salutations, Riddle family.”

Chapter 54: Early Morning Wake-Up Call

"Hey! Wake up, butterball!"

It was still dark; no lights were on. It felt too early. I wanted to cuddle up in my covers for a while longer. I rolled over and pulled my blanket tight around me.

Nightscape wasn't having it and yanked me out of bed by my tail and onto the floor.

"Ow! What did you do that for?" I asked as I rubbed my head.

"We have a private discussion that needs to happen before class," Nightscape explained in a whisper. "Sunflower and Ashley are already up and waiting for us outside, even if they are tired. Julie just left to begin her morning workout, so this was the earliest I could rouse you without her taking notice. I want to get you all back in here before Meadow wakes up and notices you and her roommates aren't in bed."

I yawned. "We could have had this talk in the dream realm."

"Sorry, but I'm wide awake, and I'm the one with instructions to pass on. While you all were sleeping, the Wardens of Fear and Order were awake and making decisions," Nightscape replied. "Come on, and be quiet. I'd have you fly down with me, but you crash enough when you can see where you are going, and I don't want you drawing attention by trying to fly in the dark and going splat."

I stood up and followed her out of the room, blinking sleep from my eyes and yawning the whole way.

"Ashley is going to play point for us," Nightscape explained as we got on the elevator. "If she starts talking about your boyfriend—"

"He's not my boyfriend," I corrected as I yawned again.

Nightscape rolled her eyes. "—if she starts talking about him. That means that someone is in range to overhear us, and we need to change the subject immediately. If she mentions Sunflower being a country bumpkin, that's the all-clear to resume."

I frowned. "If Ashley is saying that second part because no one can hear us, why is she saying it in code? It seems like she could say all-clear instead of calling Sunflower a name."

The night pony seemed taken aback. "Um, we didn't think about that. We just kinda did a code for one because we did a code for the other."

"Maybe you should have thought about it," I replied. "I don't mind being called things, but Sunflower might find it mean. She's had a hard enough time yesterday without having to worry about her friends picking on her."

Nightscape gave me a sideways look. "Nice to see you starting to speak up a little. A person in the position you are in line for needs to speak up more, and you've been letting everyone get away with saying whatever rude thing they feel like saying. What prompted the change?"

I blinked. "I don't think there has been a change. If there has been, then I don't know what caused it. I just know I don't want Sunflower to feel bad."

Nightscape shrugged as the elevator came to a stop on the ground floor and opened. "Fair enough. Don't be afraid to speak up for yourself either, Rebecca. People won't believe you're worthy of respect if you always let people get away with being disrespectful to you."

We got off the elevator, and Nightscape led us to the exit to the building. I turned my head to look at her as we walked. "Does that mean you'll lay off the boyfriend talk?"

She stopped and looked at me. "Does it bother you that much? I figured maybe comments about your weight, flight skills, clumsiness, or stuff like that might be bothering you more, not that."

I shook my head. "I am all those other things, and I own it, but the boyfriend thing isn't true, and it ruffles my feathers."

"Huh…" Nightscape said thoughtfully. "Alright, I'll lay off the boyfriend talk and encourage the others to do the same. Although, you realize this means I'll probably double down on the jokes about the other stuff."

"Meh," I said with a shrug. "I've heard it all before. I'll laugh along with it. If you can't laugh at yourself, you'll end up miserable."

We walked out to the reflection pond where Ashley and Sunflower were waiting on a bench. A few humans and ponies were making their way from the dorms to the cafeteria, but they were all a reasonable distance from us. The geese were all in a group on the other side of the pond, and most of them seemed to be still asleep since the sun wasn't up yet.

"How's your hoof doing?" I asked Sunflower as we came up and sat down on the ground in front of the bench.

She held it up and looked at the bandages. "It's still sore to walk on, but no worse than last night. The stitches are starting to itch, and I'm trying not to nibble on them or rub them."

"Silly country bumpkin, don't do that," Ashley said as she looked around.

"Rebecca and I were talking on the way here. Just saying all-clear is good enough. We don't need that part coded," Nightscape said. "And other code we can switch to, I bet Rebecca wants a doughnut.

Ashley shrugged. "Whatever the client wants. Anyway, it's all-clear. You three talk. I'll listen while keeping watch."

"Client?" I asked in confusion.

"Nightscape and I are executive protection agents, and you and Sunflower are the clients," Ashley replied. I must have still looked confused, because she sighed. "We're bodyguards, and you two are being bodyguarded. The ones being bodyguarded are called clients. We're more buddy-buddy with you than people in our position should normally be allowed to be, but Dreamwardens tend to be less professional in their dealings with the security than would typically be allowed in the professional security business. However, that doesn't change our positions."

"Oh." I didn't know how to respond to that. It seemed Ashley took her job seriously.

Nightscape smirked. "Look at the pretty unicorn, trying to be professional about protection."

Ashley turned and sneered, which highlighted her scars. "Ham it up, bat pony."

"If we're going to be throwing slurs around, I'd like to point out you're the one who wants to be a piggy," Nightscape replied, still smirking. "Oink oink."

I laid my ears back. "Hey! You two should be nicer to one another. You're supposed to be friends."

"We are friends," Ashley replied. "Just a little friendly banter between bodyguards."

"You should hear the things Crystal and Tempest say to one another. It would curl your tail, but they trust one another completely and have one another's backs," Nightscape added on. "And for the record, night ponies typically have the highest respect for law enforcement, but that doesn't mean we don't like to poke at them. Ashley and I just talk to each other a little rougher than your virgin ears are used to."

I wasn't sure if she was also poking fun at me being a virgin, but I decided not to ask.

"Anyway, I'll try to keep this brief so we can get back to the dorm before Meadow wakes up and freaks out," Nightscape said quickly. "If either of you gets approached by any people that claim they are OMMR agents and you need to come with them, believe them, and do It. Rebecca, they should be showing up for you right after class. I don't know where they are taking you, and Ashley and I won't be able to come along. Sunflower, they should be showing up for you sometime tomorrow. I was told you'd both be gone most of the day."

"What do they need us for? Did we do something bad? Is it because of what I did yesterday?" Sunflower whimpered.

Nightscape shook her head. "You didn't do anything wrong. The Warden of Order is here in town. He arrived sometime last night, and he wants to interview each of you. He'll be in town just today and tomorrow, and then he needs to move on to interview some other people elsewhere. He'll probably be on his way the second he finishes the second interview. The only reason he didn't start this last night was that he needs a lot of time to interview you, and he spent most of last night catching up with Phobia."

"I figured they see each other in the dream realm all the time already," I commented.

"They probably do, but both of them prefer talking to people in person when they can. I figure that applies to each other too," Nightscape replied. "They see each other in dreams all the time, but they never really get to see each other awake that often, and Dreamwardens have this whole chummy brother-sister thing going on that I've never really understood."

"I think it is nice that they do. I always wanted brothers and sisters," Sunflower replied wistfully. She then looked downward as her voice turned more somber. "If I can become a Dreamwarden, I get to have those siblings, and maybe control when I have these weird episodes like yesterday. Yesterday was the worst ever. There's this great big world I want to encourage ponies to see and experience, but I don't want to be at the mercy of my powers like I am now either."

My ears perked up. "Are those the reasons you want—"

Ashley cut me off. "I bet Rebecca would really like a doughnut right now."

"—to take up...scuba diving?" I asked, clumsily changing subjects. I spotted the ponies Ashley had noticed, who were a short distance away, walking out towards the classrooms.

"I don't know. Scuba diving might be fun since I get to see something new I never saw before, but I get claustrophobic, and having all that water pushing on me from all sides might be a little too much for me," Sunflower replied, not missing a beat.

"All-clear," Ashley said as the ponies got a bit further away.

"I did give an honest answer to the scuba diving part," Sunflower continued. "But for the real question you were going to ask me, yeah, that's what I want to do as a Dreamwarden. I grew up just seeing this little stretch of nothing, but I saw all these amazing things and places on old books' covers. I imagine seeing them as I draw them, and I know there are so many ponies that don't ever try to see what's beyond their farm. It's frightening, venturing out past that, but amazing."

"It's dangerous business walking out your front door," Ashley said. We all looked at her, and she continued to keep watch as she explained. "I understand why Ghadab thinks you're so great now. You're a regular Bilbo Baggins."

"From Lord of the Rings?" Sunflower asked. "What does that have to do with anything?"

"Ghadab fell in love with the world beyond his little patch of nowhere by reading books," Ashley explained. "The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit were personal favorites of his, and if you talk to him all the time, you'll hear him start quoting from them—along with things from other books. He's got a mouth on him, but he's also a pretty nerdy bookworm. While ideas of heroism and justice inspired him, you're more inspired by a sense of adventure and wanderlust. You compliment him."

"Oh, I didn't know that about him," Sunflower replied. She then looked at me. "Why do you want to be a Dreamwarden?"

I should have expected her to ask. After all, this was our chance to learn about what we were competing against. "Me? I want to help inspire creativity. I also want to be a friend to anyone who feels left out or in need of one. When I was a little filly, my mom and I were homeless, and it was a scary and lonely time. Miss Seapony—Yinyu was there to be my friend when I needed someone, and I want to be that to everyone that needs it. I could help so many people that no one even knew were hurting if I was a Dreamwarden."

"So how do you decide who deserves you being friends with them?" Nightsape asked. "Unless you go undead, you'd have limits on how far you can stretch yourself. I heard Phobia can cover a few hundred ponies at once, but that isn't much when you count the whole world, or even a country. What do you tell the ones you chose not to help? Do you tell them they weren't important enough?"

"I can figure out a way to make it work," I half-insisted and half-pouted. "I just have to get creative with it. I can enlist Miss Seapony, Arbiter, and Ghadab to help me."

"Arbiter is kinda aloof, Ghadab doesn't play well with kids at all, and I think most parents would have something to say about Yinyu hanging out with their underaged kid," Ashley said. "Not trying to be mean, just pointing out the challenges. It isn't like Sunflower's plans don't share similar issues."

"And to be fair, a lot of the Dreamwardens are limited in similar ways in the things that matter to them. How many ponies with regular nightmares do you think Phobia never gets to visit because there are just so many ponies to worry about?" Nightscape asked in a sympathetic voice. "Even demi-gods can't accomplish everything."

"It might be worth asking the Dreamwardens how they make those tough decisions—if you haven't done that already," Ashley added on.

Nightscape suddenly took several nervous steps away. "Uh, girls, I think we should get going. We have trouble coming."

I turned to look at what was making her jumpy and gasped. "That's a pretty bird!"

"And big!" Sunflower said in excitement.

Ashley spotted it and immediately got down from the bench and started quickly backing away. "That's a friggin' peacock!"

"What's a peacock doing around here?" I asked in confusion.

"Some crazy people keep them as pets. It might have gotten loose from a nearby house, but we need to move," Nightscape said as she backed away some more.

"We're not joking. Move now," Ashley insisted. "You think the geese are bad-natured and aggressive? They've got nothing on a peacock. Those birds are the devil made flesh."

"He's looking at us," Sunflower said in a nervous tone.

"Why do you think it is a he?" I asked as I watched the peacock start to spread it's plume. That couldn't be a good sign. I started backing away too.

Sunflower started flapping her wings and went into a hover. "Don't know. Just seems like a he to me."

The peacock started charging. I took to the air, Nightscape took to the air, and Sunflower and Ashley high-tailed it out of there. Nightscape and I followed just a second later.

Author's Note

I was not feeling well again today. It seems like I am sick every other day anymore. I hope everyone else is doing well.

Chapter 55: Second Day of Class

Meadow did wake up before we returned, and she did get flustered that we were all missing when she woke. She said her first thought had been that she had overslept and no one had woken her up. Thoughts quickly followed that something was wrong with Sunflower's stitches that caused us to run her to the hospital. Finally, her thoughts had shifted to we were playing some sort of joke on her. She was not happy when we returned to the room.

Nightscape and Ashley made the excuse that Sunflower needed some air, and the rest of us had just happened to be up already and felt no need to wake Meadow up. The green pegasus accepted this excuse with some skepticism, but went to work immediately afterward checking Sunflower's bandages.

Nightscape and I headed out to breakfast before everyone else since we were the only one with an eight in the morning class that day, while the rest of our friends started at nine. It turned out that Nightscape and I both had astronomy. The night pony wasn't thrilled about having a morning class, but started this was the first science class that had come available for her lab science credit that didn't have a lab scheduled in the middle of the afternoon when she would typically be sleeping.

Remembering what I was told about the Warden of Order, I ate three servings of breakfast. I also stowed some bagels in my saddlebag. I had no plans to go hungry while he interviewed me. Nightscape watched me with an amused look in her eye, but didn't say anything about my eating. Our meal only had occasional strings of conversation to break the silence, mostly involving school.

"Alright, Marshmallow, time for us to get going," Nightscape announced. "Physical and arcane sciences building is on the far end of campus. Don't want to be late."

My ears perked up. "Arcane sciences? What do they teach in those classes?"

Nightscape grabbed her tray with her wings. "I assume magic, but I don't know specifics. Do you see a horn on my head? There aren't many of those classes—it's an art school, after all, not a magic school. You won't see Harry Potter running to class here."

"Harry who?"

"Fictional human wizard character from a series of books thirty or forty years ago," Nightscape explained. "My dad always references him whenever he says he doesn't understand some magic. Nighty, who do you think I look like? Harry Potter?"

"Oh, never heard of it. It sounds like an obscure literary reference," I replied and gathered up my tray.

Nightscape hopped down from her chair, tray still perfectly balanced in her wings. "Eh, a lot of the old fiction involving magic dropped off the face of the Earth after ETS. These days you only hear about the big classics like The Lord of the Rings, The Wizard of Oz, Chronicles of Narnia, and Alice in Wonderland, but there used to be thousands and thousands of stories."

I couldn't answer her back with my tray in my mouth, but I had heard of those ones. Alice in Wonderland was my favorite book because it was weird, creative, and embraced nonsense. I hadn't read any of the others. Maybe I should read The Lord of the Rings since everybody else in my friend group seemed to have read it but me, and Ghadab supposedly liked it a lot. I didn't want to feel left out by the references.

After leaving the cafeteria, we saw a small commotion where animal control was trying to catch the still very loose and still very aggressive peacock. They were using fishing nets, but the bird wouldn't hold still as it spread its large feathers and charged one person after another. A few students were standing just out of range of what was going on, filming the entire thing with their phones.

Nightscape eyed the commotion warily. "Think you can fly with your saddlebag?"

I gave a little hop to show the bag didn't weigh much. I wasn't carrying any textbooks at the moment. "Sure."

"Can you safely land with your saddlebag?" she asked.

"Uh—are there going to be a lot of people around the building, and does it have some nice soft grass next to it?" I asked as I flexed my wings.

"It does have some grass near it, and there shouldn't be that many students around the building this time of day," Nightscape replied. "Does that mean you're good to fly?"

"Yep!" I said proudly. "Lead the way, my senior classmate!"

"I'm only about two years older than you!" Nightscape snapped verbally before physically snapping her wings open and flapping them. "Come on. Follow me so we can avoid the big bird."

I took off after her, only wobbling a little. "Are you afraid of large birds?"

"No…I got knocked senseless by a swan when I was a filly and have just been a little cautious around large birds since then," she replied without looking back at me.

"That sounds like you are afraid of large birds," I replied. "It's okay. Everybody's afraid of something."

"I am not afraid. I am cautious!" Nightscape snapped. She then headed in for a landing near a building, and I followed.

As we neared our landing site, I tried to slow myself down and put my landing gear—legs—in position. Nightscape landed perfectly in the grass, but not so much me. Really, it was kinda just physics. I was big and bulky, and that meant I had more mass. The higher the mass in motion, the more it takes to slow it down and stop it. However, there was this helpful thing called the ground that is much bigger than me and has much more mass, and is enough to bring me to a complete stop, just not a clean one.

"Ouchie, my poor legs," I whined as they took the brunt of the impact. I didn't do any tumbles or rolls, so it was more or less a perfect landing, but it still hurt.

"You may be a cruddy flier, but that landing hurting you was completely the fault of your lard. You need to stop eating multiple servings during every meal," Nightscape chastised. "I'm supposed to look out for you. Am I going to have to start rationing your food?"

"Twilight Sparkle eats lots and lots of food," I said in my defense.

Nightscape glared at me. "Twilight Sparkle is constantly adventuring—which burns calories, regularly performs mighty feats of magic—which burns more calories, and is an alicorn—which means she has the most efficient and effective metabolism you can get. You aren't an adventurer. Your magic—while different, isn't really powerful. It is also pretty obvious you aren't an alicorn and don't even have a remote chance of becoming one. So comparing yourself to her is not a valid argument."

"But she's got nothing on my dance moves," I said as I shook my rump.

Nightscape didn't seem impressed, and she started walking to the building. "Come on. If you can do that, your legs can't hurt too much to walk."

The physical and arcane science building was like all the others in that it had murals related to the town's history. These murals depicted people harvesting the trees' wood after the Cataclysm, people in industry building things, medical doctors. When we entered the building, there was a statue sitting inside the lobby.

"Hey! That's a statue of my friend!" I exclaimed as I looked at it.

"Doctor Middleton?" Nightscape asked.

"Yeah, I didn't know they had a statue of her," I answered.

"Well, this building's proper name is the Middleton Science Center, though no one calls the building that," Nightscape replied.

"Does she teach here?" I asked. I wouldn't mind having a class with my friend as the teacher.

"I believe she's fourteen, so no, that would be against child labor laws or something," Nightscape replied. "She wouldn't teach here anyway, even if she could. She'd want to be somewhere with a big, well-funded, and prestigious physics department, not an art school. She's just the most famous scientist to come from the area since she discovered a law of physics, so they named it after her. Come on. We need to get to class. Look at the pretty pictures and statues later."

Most of the rooms had nice plaques saying what they were used for. The room we went to didn't have a plaque; it had a written sheet of paper on the door that said Astronomy Room and Lab.

Inside, the room was very dim. About half the class had already arrived. There weren't any sort of decorations. There were lab tables, with stools in front of each table, and those seemed to be where everyone was supposed to sit. I didn't see much of any equipment. There were some cardboard boxes piled in a corner, along with a telescope, but nothing out at the lab tables.

"Looks like the professor hasn't fully moved in yet," Nightscape muttered. She then led us to an empty lab table near the middle of the room, and we took our seats there.

Over the next five minutes, more students filtered in, along with the professor—a red-furred, purple-maned, night pony mare with a telescope for a mark. She went to the front of the class and tossed her saddlebag on the desk, and then went and checked the cardboard boxes. The mare checked the time and then hurried to the front of the class.

"Morning, students! Welcome to the great big universe of astronomy!" the professor said happily as she mounted the desk to be better seen. "I'm professor Scarlet Moon. Technically, it is Scarlet Eclipse, but call me Professor Moon, it’s just easier for professional stuff if I use my maiden name."

She paced around the desk as she continued. "Sorry, there isn't much set up yet. I got this classroom a week ago and thought there would be some actual astronomy equipment when they told me this was the astronomy lab. Kinda my fault for assuming that an art school had a big budget for astronomy, but oh well, no sweat. We'll make it work."

I looked around. They must not have any budget for astronomy.

"Now, I know none of you are planning on being professional astronomers since this is an art school and all, but I hope that by the end of this course, you’ll all have a little more love for all the stuff up in the night sky and that maybe you’ll even get some new inspiration from it," Professor Moon continued happily.

She paused and pursed her lips. "So now onto the important stuff like the qualifications I’m supposed to be sharing… Well, I have a master's degree in astronomy from the University of Colorado, and I was one of the first ponies from Earth to get to study Equestria's stars, which was pretty cool. We'll mostly be focused on Earth's astronomy, but we'll talk about Equestria's astronomy a little. What's the same, what's different, that sort of stuff. It might sound a little boring, but trust me, I’ll do my best to make it interesting for you all."

That did sound interesting. I would be seeing those Equestrian stars in about a month, so I would have some first-hoof experience to work with.

"So, as you all probably read from the course description, this class has a mandatory lab portion. Labs are going to be a little different in this class compared to some of the others you might have taken before," Professor Moon explained. "We need to get a good look at the stars, and we need to do it with as little light pollution as possible. Right now, we are dead center in the middle of a city with a giant set of trees obscuring part of our vision of the sky. Now I’m an optimist and try my best to make the most of any situation, but that simply won't do for our needs. With that in mind, some lab sessions will be shortened and some extended. The extended ones will involve field trips to places where we can have a better view, and I've marked the schedules for those on your syllabus."

A human raised a hand. "How late are we talking for the extended sessions? They’re normally supposed to be just an hour."

"Our labs will usually be three or four hours," Professor Moon replied. "If that is going to clash with your schedule in any way, you'll need to either take a different class, or we'll work out a separate arrangement on weekends for those that can't make it. The trade-off is you should only have a lab about once a month instead of every week, and I’ll try and be as flexible as I can."

"How are we getting to these places for field trips?" an earth pony stallion asked.

"Bus," the professor replied. "The school agreed to it, and they have several buses and bus drivers available. This was all written out in the class description, and I am willing to work with students who are having trouble attending."

I raised a wing. "Professor, I have a week-long trip to Equestria next month. Can I use that for one of my labs?"

Professor Moon blinked. "We can discuss that in private after class, Miss…"

"Riddle, ma'am."

The professor nodded. "Miss Riddle. Go ahead and see me after class, and we'll discuss that."

"You're what?!" Nightscape whispered harshly to me. "When were you going to tell me this?"

"No personal discussions while I am talking to the class, please," Professor Moon called out in response to Nightscape's whisper. "Trust me, I don't want to be that kind of professor, but I need you focused on me when I'm talking. You'll have some time to talk later, and I’ll try not to be too long."

Nightscape grimaced and gave me a dirty look. I shrank into my seat a little.

First class continued more or less like most of the other first classes. This professor didn't require a textbook, but was adamant we be ready to take notes each day. She said she would have plenty of visual aids and would be sharing those all online for reference. We went over the syllabus, and she dismissed early.

"What's this about a trip to Equestria?" Nightscape demanded as soon as class was dismissed.

"I just found out last night, and we didn't get much time to talk this morning," I replied.

"You could have told me over breakfast," she snapped.

"I forgot," I said. My eyes went wide. "Oh no! I forgot my birth control pills this morning."

A couple of close by students heard me and snickered. Nightscape was not impressed. "Birth control pills? You suddenly change your mind and decide you're going to bed someone this weekend?"

I shook my head and sagged my ears. "No, but I promised my mom I wouldn't forget."

"Forgetful about a lot of things today, aren't you?" Nightscape asked as she glared. She then softened her expression and sighed. "We'll talk about it tonight, along with anything else you might have forgotten. I'm going back to the room. Remember, you have a meeting after you leave here."

I spoke with Professor Moon for a few minutes. Unfortunately, I didn't have exact dates for when I would be in Equestria, only that it would be at the end of next month. She stated that she would probably have me observe and look for certain things in the Equestrian night sky, but would have to wait to give me a list until after I gave her dates and she had time to draw up a plan.

After leaving class, I looked around and wondered how I was supposed to find the OMMR guys or if they would somehow know where to find me. Nightscape hadn't explained that to me. I walked out of the building and wondered what I should be doing.

"Hi, Rebecca. You look lost. Need some help?" I heard a familiar voice say.

Russell walked over to me, and I gave him a smile. "Some people were supposed to meet me after I finished my class just now, but I'm not sure where I'm supposed to find them. How are you doing? Going to class?"

He rubbed the back of his head. "Yeah, on my way to botany. My mom insisted that I take that for my lab science elective—she's an earth pony, so it's kinda a near-and-dear subject for her. It doesn't impact my degree, other than needing an elective lab science, so I signed up for it this time around. What did you just finish up?"

"Astronomy," I replied.

"Huh, I didn't even know we had astronomy classes here," he replied.

I looked back at the building. "I think it is super new. The room isn't set up, and it had a written label on the door. We're going to have a lot of field trips, so that's cool."

"Makes sense. Hard to see the whole sky with those in the way," Russell replied as he pointed to the trees of the monument, which did indeed obscure the view of the sky in their direction.

"Rebecca Riddle?"

I turned to see a human man and woman in dark business suits walking over to me. Those looked like the people I was expecting.

"That's me!" I said and gave a little hop.

The pair pulled out badges. "I am agent Huxley and thus is agent Dred. We're with the OMMR," the woman said as she put her badge away. "We would like you to come in for questioning."

"You guys got a warrant or something?" Russell asked skeptically.

The Agent Dred pulled out a piece of paper. "Actually, we have a warrant, and she is sure to be fined. The amount of the fine still to be determined. She will be free to go after questioning to determine how much she should be fined or if further punishment is needed. If full criminal charges get levied then the police will show up with that warrant."

My eyes went wide. "Warrant?! Fine!? Fine for what?"

Dred looked at the paper in his hand. "Violation of dreamwalking code four-point-three-two— dissemination of private information obtained while in a partial or full dream state without prior authorization by the party which was the source of said private information as per requirement. Event witnessed by the Dreamwardens Arbiter, Yinyu Wu Yan, and Ghadab last night at one-thirteen in the morning eastern standard time. Perpetrator will be questioned about possible further violations. Fines ranging from twenty-five dollars to five thousand dollars may be levied, temporary or permanent suspension of ability, and the violator may or may not be turned over to courts for criminal trial if the violation is determined to have a substantial negative impact on the victim."

One in the morning last night? I was asleep in bed last night, talking to my parents and Luna around that time. Oh crap, did I tell them something I wasn't supposed to because I hadn't asked permission to? I doubted that they'd lock me up for that, but they'd fine me for sure. I didn't have my own income yet, since the foalsitting job started tomorrow and I hadn't been paid yet. That meant my parents would have to pay the fine for me. This was all an excuse to have a legitimate reason for picking me up like this, but there was a good chance the fine was real. Mom was going to be peeved with me.

"I know what this is about, it's okay. This will be a small fine, but I made a boo-boo," I glumly told Russell. "I'll catch up with you later. Thanks for talking to me."

He seemed confused about what was happening still. "Okay, well, if you say everything will be alright, I'll believe ya. Hope everything goes well."

I was getting ready to go see the Warden of Order and he was arranging the meeting by arresting me. Not the best way to start a conversation.

Chapter 56: Filling My Stomach with Butterflies

It was evening when I flew back to the college from the office building the OMMR had taken me to. My stomach was making major rumblies since I had only had a few bagels for lunch, and Avtandil hadn't provided any food. He seemed annoyed that I had carried bagels in my saddlebag, but this pony needed her food. I was more than ready for a nice big relaxing dinner before I called my parents to tell them I needed help paying a five hundred dollar fine—at least it was just a fine, and nothing else.

Mom wasn't going to be happy.

I made my way into the cafeteria and was happy to see there wasn't much of a line. It was Friday night, so maybe many students went out to eat.

"Why did your parents call me today?"

I turned around and saw Maggie with her arms crossed, glaring down at me.

"They were going to tell you that I was telling the truth," I replied. "They figured you might believe them if you didn't believe me."

"Oh, I believe you," Maggie said through gritted teeth.

I relaxed a little, feeling relief. "That's great! I—"

"I believe you because I had a bunch of guys in black suits grabbed me in the parking lot and took me kicking and screaming across town to a certain night pony people tend to be scared of," Maggie said in a near growl. "What the hell, Becky!"

My ears flattened. "I… I didn't expect her to do that. I'm really sorry. I didn't mean for that to happen. Are you alright? Did they hurt you? I'm going to go tell her off."

Maggie blinked. "You are going to tell her off? Seriously? You're just going to march over there and yell at someone surrounded by guards who can order people grabbed off the street?"

"She did it to you! I can't let her get away with it!" I explained.

Maggie stared at me for a moment, then sighed. "Save yourself the effort. I didn't get hurt. She just wanted to have a long talk. Then she paid me for my trouble. I'm angry about it, but I don't want you going off and doing something stupid. Her bodyguards would jump you and beat you to a pulp if they thought you were threatening her."

"If it makes you feel any better, I got dragged off by agents today too, and I got a fine," I replied.

"A little," Maggie muttered.

"So… are we talking again?" I asked in a hopeful tone.

"We're talking right now."

"You know what I mean."

Maggie looked around then back at me. "Give me some time. I promise we will talk about it sometime, but I've got my own stuff to figure out. I learned things today that I didn't know before, and a lot of it didn't have to do with you. I need to get my thoughts in order and figure out what it all means to me."

My ears rose and flicked. "That sounds like she brought up some personal things."

"Personal family stuff," Maggie muttered. "Old stuff that got dredged up after years. I need to talk about it with my parents first before I talk to you. It wouldn't be right if I didn't."

What did they talk about? Phobia Remedy could get into people's heads in dreams, but Maggie and her parents had no magic, so that didn't apply to them. "I don't understand."

She shook her head. "Don't worry about it. Anyway, I'm not going to say anything about you to my parents or anybody else. You can tell your parents I respectfully decline their invitation. I'll talk to you when I'm ready."

Maggie turned to go, then paused to look back at me. "Oh, in case you missed the news. Today, Psychic Calm announced his retirement plans. Said he was retiring in two months. Reporters are already speculating about who will be the new Dreamwarden. You might want to steer clear of the area around Phobia Remedy's house. That area is going to be a media circus for the next two months."

I nodded. "I'll keep that in mind, thanks, Mags."

"Take care of yourself, Bec," Maggie replied before walking off.

I watched her go. The line had moved, and there wasn't anyone around me. I guessed things were better than they were yesterday, but I still didn't understand what had happened between us.

I was also angry at Phobia Remedy for doing what she did to my friend. I wanted to have my friend back, but how was she supposed to be happy with me if people grabbed her off the streets like some organized crime syndicate or secret totalitarian police? Heck, how was that supposed to make the Dreamwardens look better if Phobia Remedy really cared about that? How often did she pull stuff like this? Was getting some nice and friendly Dreamwarden in place to help cover up the not very nice things that went on behind the scenes? Was that what I was? Just someone to smile and make people feel good about Dreamwardens while the other Dreamwardens did crappy things like this?

"Hey, glad to see you didn't get arrested. You look flustered. They punish you badly for whatever it was?"

I was so lost in thought I hadn't seen Russell come up to me. What was I supposed to say here? I couldn't just blow him off.

I tried to force myself to relax. "It was a long interview, and I didn't get to eat through most of it. They gave me a fine, which I guess I deserved. I accidentally talked about something that I learned about when I was dreaming and hadn't been given permission to talk about."

I had talked about what I had done for Arbiter and everything else that had happened that night. My projection technically counted as me dreaming, and that meant I wasn't allowed to tell specific details that counted as personal information to anyone who wasn't there. I got multiple counts of it, but was being let off with a fine. Some of it had even happened in the dream realm, and the Dreamwardens just let me do it then fined me after. It felt unfair.

"Well, figure everyone slips up and makes a mistake here and there. It sounds like you didn't mean to do it. I got a ticket over the summer for running a stop sign. I was distracted and hadn't even noticed it was there. Stuff happens sometimes," Russell replied, then laughed. "My ma about bucked my butt when she heard about it. She doesn't even drive, but she lectured me for a few hours about paying attention when I'm driving. She'll nurture and love me till she gets overbearing, but if I do something wrong, she'll make sure I hear about what she thinks about that for a few hours straight. She can be a little intimidating."

"Didn't you say your mom is an earth pony? Don't you tower over her?" I asked.

He laughed. "Size doesn't matter, she’s got a big personality. Doesn't let being short and squat stand in her way. You remind me a little of her."

"I remind you of your mom?" I asked. Everyone said Russell seemed to have a thing for me. I wasn't sure how I felt about that, and was even less sure how I felt being compared to his mom if he did like me. "I'm not sure if that is flattering or not."

He shuffled his feet. "Uhhh, just a little. You aren't exactly like her, just the big personality and not letting anything stand in your way. Wasn't trying to flatter you… maybe I was… sorry about that."

Okay, that was all kinds of signs that he was interested. I might be dense when it came to displays of attraction, but that was obvious enough for even me.

"My friends have been telling me that they think you're interested in me," I said slowly.

"Well, you're an interesting person," he said giving a sheepish grin, then he winced.

I looked him in the eyes. "Interested in me in more of an attraction kind of way. Is that true? They have been teasing me about it constantly."

"I don't mean to get you teased," he said quickly, looking away from me.

I took a step forward. "Hey, it isn't your fault. I let myself get flustered about it so they do it more. You didn't answer my question though. Do you find me attractive? Even though I'm a pony and you're a human?"

"I take it you aren't interested in humans," he said dejectedly. "I’ll just get going for—"

"Alright, that's you saying yes," I said with a smirk. My stomach felt weird, not the normal rumblies. I couldn't believe I was doing this. My friends were going to tease me to death. Why was I doing this? If this went much longer I was going to puke. I really needed some triple-fudge chocolate cake! "So are you going to ask me out on a date or not?"

Russell looked like he was ready to run. "Um, do you want to come with me and we can have dinner somewhere nice that's away from campus? I'll pay."

Well, I'd pushed him to it. Now I was committed. "Dinner it is! You really know how to win over a fluffy pony!" I said gleefully. "It's a date!"

"Squuuuueee!"

We both turned to see Meadow, Ashley, and Sunflower standing just a short distance away, trying to stay just out of where my range of vision would have been, and there were too many scents around here to pick anyone out correctly. Meadow was the one who had obviously made the sound and was sitting and covering her grin with her hooves.

"So much for, I don't date," Ashley said smugly. "Ignore us, and go have a good time. Tell us details about how it went later."

"Come on," Russell said as he gestured for me to follow. "I know a good place and we can take my car."

I followed him, and it hadn't fully registered that I was about to go on my first date ever. I wasn't even sure who asked who out. Sure, he was the one taking me out to dinner, but I kinda pressured him. Why had pressured him? I was supposed to avoid dates and relationships.

We walked in awkward silence to his car. He wasn't saying anything and I didn't know what to say. I wished he would say something I could respond to, anything at all.

We reached his car. It was older, like thirty years old. Made before there were ponies on Earth. He opened the front passenger door for me and saw that whatever seat had originally been there had been switched out for one that was good for both ponies and humans. I did a quick hop and few flaps and was in the seat and he was shutting the door behind me.

I sat there trying to get my seat harness fastened while he came around to the driver side. I didn't want him to see me struggle with it. Luckily, someone had color coded things on this harness, and whoever was in it last was a big pony, so it fit nicely.

He got in and looked at my harness. "That isn't too loose, is it? My mom stretches it out and I've heard other ponies have trouble with it before."

"No, it fits fine, and I like that it's color-coded," I replied, glad to be able to talk about something.

He started up the car and it did a lot more shaking than any car I was used to. "So, you don't date much, huh?" he asked.

"I don't date at all. This will be my first one," I answered nervously. "Do you have a lot of experience dating?"

"I went to prom, but that was it. Girl I dated that night didn't ever show any interest in doing any more dates. Friends put me up with her," he said as he put the car in reverse and pulled out of the parking spot.

"A human girl?" I asked.

He nodded. "Yeah, but to be honest, I always had a little more preference for ponies. It's not like I don't find humans attractive, but all the strong females in my life were all ponies, so I guess I just learned to be attracted to ponies by extension."

"And I remind you of your mom."

He looked uncomfortable. "Well, the great things about my mom. First time I met you I was really impressed by how quickly you just shook off crashing into a building. Not the potential physical hurt, but the hurt to your pride. You even openly admitted to crashing all the time. Most pegasi wouldn't do that. They'd be embarrassed. They take getting into embarrassing situations badly. You don't do that. You just shake it off and smile. It makes you stand out from the crowd."

"Well, you've been very nice to me every time I have seen you—nicer than you need to be, and I find that attractive," I said. "I don't really know what my preferences are, but both my parents are human, and I grew up around more humans than ponies. I guess that makes me just as comfortable dating a human as a pony."

Just as nervous.

I took a deep breath. "Growing up, I moved from place to place all the time. Most of those places there were very few ponies, and some of them basically none at all. I met a Dreamwarden in my dreams very early on, and she was my best friend for a long time, sometimes my only friend in some places that I lived. Lately, she's been pushing me to give dating a chance. Between her and my friends, maybe I am succumbing to peer pressure."

My eyes went wide. "I shouldn't have said that last part. I didn't mean to make it seem like I was going on a date with you out of pressure. I am attracted."

He chuckled. "You're the one that pressured me. I'd never have gotten the nerve if you didn't push me like that. I think you had me completely yesterday when you saw my skin discoloration and thought it was great then turned around and happily flaunted your own oddities. That second part was how I knew you weren't just saying that. You made me feel special."

If this lasted multiple dates he might learn how odd I could be. I wasn't going to disclose my powers just yet, though.

"Well, it's great to be different!" I proudly proclaimed. "Same old same old gets boring."

"I hope I can keep from getting boring," he said with a grin as he pulled into a parking lot. "Here's the place."

I looked at the sign for the restaurant. "Dave and Buster's? Never heard of it."

"Then you are in for a treat. I think you'll love it."

Author's Note

Yes, I know we skipped over the meeting with the Warden of Order. Wasn't really needed to cover it. Happy early Valentine's Day!

Chapter 57: After Date Glow

I was exhausted as I partly stumbled back to my room from the elevator. I'd given my legs a massive workout today, and I was sure I'd burned more calories than I took in.

When I was almost at my room, I was headed off by Greta, who gave me a disapproving look.

"Are you drunk?" Greta asked as she gave me a scowl. She then reached out a talon and gave me a small push. "You'd better not be drunk—or stoned. I'm required to do a room inspection if you are, and I am NOT in the mood for it right now."

I didn't budge. "No, just tired. I am the Dance Dance Revolution queen! I think my legs are going to fall off."

"Well, your majesty, you're just in time for me to set up your signature for your door," Greta informed me. "You'll be the last one for tonight, and I'll just continue to track the rest of you freshmen down over the weekend. Let's get this over with."

She pushed some sort of small metallic device against the handle of the door, and the bottom half of the door started to glow.

"Put your flank up to the door and touch your mark to it," the griffon instructed.

I did as instructed and felt a weird tingle that made my wings fluff involuntarily. It was like there was electricity flowing through it. The door stopped glowing, and Greta reapplied the metal object to the handle. "If that took, you should be able to lock and unlock the door with your mark by pressing it against the door. Can you check to see if it worked?"

I pressed my flank up against the door and was greeted by a clicking noise. "That's cool. How does it work?"

"I have no idea. I just do what I'm told, and it does," Greta replied in a snippy tone. "Have a good night. I am turning in for the evening."

She walked off down the hall, and I opened up the door and went into my room.

"Look who it is, the committed single for life pony," Nightscape said from her desk as I walked in.

Julie was on her bed and gave me a curious look. "I haven't seen you all day. Did you really go on a date, or are those three in the other room just pulling our tails?"

I grinned. "I did indeed go on a date, and it was great."

Julie moved like lightning, and I was suddenly in one of her bear hugs. "That's wonderful! I'm so happy for you!"

"Ow! Julie, I'm sore," I said as pain flashed through me.

Julie released me instantly. "Sorry! Just wanted to congratulate you. Why are you sore?"

"Did you get laid?" Nightscape asked before I could answer Julie.

My ears flattened. "What?! No! It was a first date!"

”So?” Nightscape asked. "Did he tell you he loved you?"

"No."

"Did you tell him you love him?" Nightscape asked as soon as I answered the last question.

"No!"

"Did you guys at least kiss?" Nightscape asked with a sigh.

"No! It was our first date!" I said with a flap of my wings, then blinked. "Am I supposed to do any of that on the first date?"

"Nighty is just trying to fluff your feathers," Julie said. "Be nice, Nighty!"

"I am being nice," Nightscape replied as she went back to working with her legos.

Julie stuck her tongue out at the night pony then turned back towards me. "But why are you sore?"

I blushed. "We went to a place called Dave and Buster's. The place had a huge arcade. I've been playing games all night long—dance games, racing games, every type of game you can think of. I lost most of them, except the dancing games and karaoke. Russell couldn't top me on those two, but the dancing games wore me out."

"Aww! He went with a fun first date over a romantic first date. Probably a good choice on his part," Nightscape said approvingly.

"Just to let you know, we're listening to all of this," Meadow called out from the other room.

"Then just come over here rather than eavesdrop!" Julie yelled back.

"Why is it a good choice?" I asked.

Nightscape turned in her seat and looked at me. "Because he is making sure you don't get bored right away and that you get to develop a comfort level with him early on. If he started you out with a romantic date, the two of you would just sit wherever, staring at one another, not talking, and convinced it won't work because you're trying to be emotionally intimate when you haven't fully developed the trust and comfort to commit to a full date of being emotional. Fun dates let you ease yourself into it, with little bits of conversation to learn about one another and get comfortable together, and plenty of distractions in-between where there would be awkward silence otherwise."

The other three had made their way into the room, and Meadow raised an eyebrow at the night pony. "Since when are you the expert on romance?"

Nightscape spread her wings wide. "Hello? Which of the six of us is engaged and is currently in a relationship that has lasted more than twenty-four hours? Anyone else but me? No? Okay then."

"I thought night pony courting rituals involved all the mares fighting and the stallion just picking the winner," Ashley said with a smirk.

"That's tribalist!" Nightscape shouted in an offended tone. "We still court just like any other person does. It's just that sometimes we have to beat down a mare that thinks she can muscle in. I'm sure other tribes would do the same thing if they had some hussy trying to pull their coltfriend away. It just comes up more often for night ponies."

"Fair point," Ashley replied with a snort.

"We had a good time," I said with a smile.

"So when's the second date?" Meadow asked, seeming unable to contain her excitement.

"Uh, we haven't set one yet," I replied. "We said we would do something again soon, maybe next week."

Nightscape smirked. "Well, if you're dating a human, I guess you won't need those birth control pills."

My eyes went wide, and I rushed into the bathroom. "I need to take those now before I forget again!"

Everyone watched me in confusion, and Meadow followed after me. "You know you can't get pregnant by a human, right?"

I flew up on the bathroom counter and rushed in my bag. "Yeah, but I am about to call my parents, and my mom is going to ask me if I took them. It's the one thing she is fussing over. I don't want her upset about that before I tell her I have a fine I need her to pay."

"Fine?" Julie asked in shock. "How wild was your date??"

I scarfed down my pills, turned the faucet on, and stuck my head under the sink faucet to get a sip of water. After I was done and turned the sink back off, I looked back towards Julie. "I wasn't fined for anything on my date. I was fined for something with the OMMR. Can't talk about it."

"You got fined by the OMMR?" Ashley asked in disbelief.

I flapped back down to the ground. "Yes. Kinda sore about it."

I saw Ashley and Sunflower share a glance. Maybe they were wondering if that would help Sunflower's ranking. Honestly, I didn't know, but I didn't think so. Dreamwardens couldn't break a rule or even try to; their nature stopped them from doing so. To me, that meant it didn't matter if I accidentally slipped up now on that kind of thing because I wouldn't be capable of slipping up as a Dreamwarden. Maybe it would matter to my ranking If I was doing it on purpose, but it was an accident in this case.

Sunflower stretched her wings and yawned. "I need to get going to bed. I have a long day tomorrow. Congratulations on the date, Rebecca. Goodnight, everypony."

"Don't forget, we have an initiation trip to do tomorrow night," Julie called out to Sunflower before Sunflower could fully leave.

Sunflower nodded. "I'll be here. I'm eager to try new things, but wait for me if I'm running late. I'm not sure how long I'll be out tomorrow. I'll try to call and let you know when I get a better idea."

"Initiation trip?" I asked in confusion as Sunflower left the room.

Meadow snorted in disgust. "Going to one of those dirty hookah bars. I’ve never understood this town's fascination with them. They're horrible. Still, it matters a lot to Julie that we do it, so we're doing it."

I felt kind of the same way about hookah bars, but I remembered what Julie had said about why they were important to her.

"I'll be sure to be there too," I replied. "I have to do some foalsitting tomorrow, so I might be arriving later. I'm not sure if I am getting paid right away. Is someone else paying for those of us without money?"

Julie nodded. "I'm covering everything, don't worry."

"Not paying for me; I've got a member pass," Nightscape corrected.

Meadow looked at Nightscape in disbelief. "You regularly go to those places? Why?"

Nightscape shrugged. "They're some of the few places that stay open twenty-four hours in town that serve food. They're popular with night ponies because of that. Being nocturnal dramatically reduces our options, and there aren't enough of us for most businesses to cater to. You day ponies are so lucky. If a night pony wants to have a nice romantic evening out or place to chill with their fellow night ponies out on the town, it is the hookah bars, Waffle House, or Walmart."

"Waffle House isn't so bad," Meadow replied.

"It is if it is your only option all the time," Ashley said in Nightscape's defense. "I haven't had to deal with many night ponies, aside from the Dreamwardens, in my life, but I'm starting to appreciate they have a lot of unique challenges the rest of us don't think about and make unfair judgments about."

"Thanks," Nightscape replied with a grin. "You aren't so bad, for a piglet."

"You two are impossible together," Meadow said with a frustrated fluff of her wings. She then turned to go back to her room. "I'm going to check Sunflower's bandages before she falls asleep. Can you help me, Ash? Your magic makes it go quicker."

"I suppose," Ashley replied. "Have a goodnight, everyone."

"I suppose I should turn in as well," Julie said with a yawn. "Have to get up early to work out, and I have official team warm-ups tomorrow afternoon. The flight team has its first exhibition match Sunday, and it is on the road this year. It doesn't count, but I still want to put on a good preseason performance."

I checked my phone and noticed that Lántiān had texted me times like she promised. She said only two or three hours, but she was asking for me to work from noon till five. That was two plus three hours, not two or three. I didn't mind since I had nothing else to do, but if she regularly asked for longer periods of time than we originally agreed, that might be why she found herself without foalsitters so often.

"And I need to call my parents before I go to bed," I said as I went over to my bed. "Sleep tight, everyone—everyone but Nightscape."

"Hey, you still have to tell us about you going to Equestria next month!" Nightscape complained.

Julie had already gotten in bed, but she stuck her head out of it to look at me. "You're going to Equestria next month?"

"Yeah, apparently I won a contest," I answered. "I don't have any further details yet. Maybe my parents do. I'll tell you when I know more."

"Huh, Sunflower said she won a contest too. Both of you won the same thing; that's pretty lucky. I wish I had that kind of luck," Julie said wistfully as she curled into her bed.

I got into my bed and closed the curtain. Luck didn't have much to do with the contest since we were just made winners as an excuse. It felt a little unfair to the people who actually entered. Sure, it was only a few prizes that were withheld for candidates, with the rest being real winners, but that was still families had entered that got skipped over.

After dialing my parents, it only took a single ring to get answered.

"Rebecca?" Mom answered with a puzzled tone. "You are calling later than I would expect. Everything okay?"

I smiled tightly. "I'm good. How are you?"

"I'm still wide awake. Your father and I slept in today. Now, what is wrong?"

"Why would anything be wrong?" I asked as innocently as possible.

"Rebecca, you can't hide things from your mother. I can tell by your wording and voice. Tell me what's wrong."

I hung my head. "I got a little fine and need you to cover it for me."

"A fine?" Mom said in confusion. "A fine for what?"

"I said some things to you last night that qualified as other people's private information. I got fined five hundred dollars by the OMMR."

"Five hundred?! That's not a little fine!"

I gave a tight toothy grin. "But you'll pay it for me… right?"

"Of course I'm going to pay it; you don't have that much money," Mom muttered. "Just don't get any more fines. We're well off, but I'm not made of money."

"Thanks, Mom," I said with relief. "By the way… I went on a date earlier tonight."

"Do you hear that, David? She does have time to get pregnant after all! It's pink pajamas for you!" Mom yelled to my stepdad.

I heard Nightscape and Julie both snicker.

"Mom! I'm not going to get pregnant!"

"Maybe not, if you remember your birth control," Mom countered.

"It was a date with a human," I hurriedly explained. "Humans can't get ponies pregnant. We haven't even kissed. I'm not even sure how to have sex with a human."

"I can share some videos with you to help you figure it out," Nightscape called out.

"Please don't," I yelled back at her.

"Hey, can you send them to me?" Julie asked.

"Is that your kink, Jules? Are you a fleshy?" Nightscape said through a bout of laughter.

"What? I'm just curious, and you're the one who has videos ready to go!" Julie protested.

"What's all that noise in the background?" Mom asked.

I instinctually covered my face with a wing to hide my blush. "It's nothing. My roommates are being perverted dweebs."

"Dweebs?!" Nightscape exclaimed. "Well, golly-gee-willikers, have we time-traveled back to the twentieth century? We must have if we're using that language."

"She's not pregnant yet, so you haven't won the bet. I'm not wearing pink pajamas!" I heard my stepdad yell in the background.

"But you look adorable in pink!" Mom countered.

"As a pony!" Stepdad yelled.

"I wonder how many humans rehumanized because they didn't like their fur color," Julie said curiously. "Do you think it is a lot?"

"I'd have rehumanized if I were pink," Nightscape said. "A pink night pony? I'd be laughed at constantly."

"Girls, I'm on the phone with my parents!" I shouted.

"We noticed," Julie replied.

"So when do I get to meet this guy? What's his name? How did you meet? What did you do on your date?" Mom asked as she went into full interrogation mode.

I took a deep breath. "His name is Russell. We met a few days ago when I crashed into the dorm building."

"That's one way to get a guy's attention," Nightscape said with another snicker.

I chose to ignore her. "We've run into each other a few times since then."

"Rebecca is very good at running into people," Julie commented.

I was going to ignore her too. "He has been very nice to me each time. I kinda pressured him into asking me out. He took me out to Dave and Buster's. We had pizza, played some arcade games, and talked some more."

"And when do I meet him?" Mom asked again.

"Mom! It has been one date! We aren't at the meet the parents stage."

"Well, if things progress, will you at least bring him by the house before you decide to sleep with him?"

"Mom!"

Nightscape started laughing again. "I love your mom. She gets such great reactions out of you."

"The average age a pony loses their virginity is sixteen and a half years, a full year earlier than the human average," Mom informed me. "You're eighteen and out of the nest. I'm just being realistic about what is going to happen."

"Sixteen and a half? Man, everyone in here is lagging behind the curve," Julie observed.

"I gotta admit, I was eighteen when I lost mine," Nightscape said wistfully. "I guess I'm slow too."

"I'm not a statistic!" I protested as my face burned.

"Lay off her, honey," Stepdad said in my defense from somewhere closer to my mom than he had been. "Remember when you pressured her about prom?"

"Ooohhh, this sounds like it could be a fun story," Nightscape said in a lecherous voice.

"Okay, I'll ease up," Mom said reluctantly. "I mean it, though. I want him over for dinner if things look like they'll progress that way."

That was going to be a long time from now if it ever happened. I was now starting to dread falling asleep. Miss Seapony was going to be awful tonight.

"Anyway, did you hear anything yet about the details of the contest?" I asked. "The one we entered and won… to go to Equestria."

"Yes, they gave dates and some of the pre-trip details," Mom replied. "You leave from New York, September twentieth, that's a Sunday, and return on the twenty-seventh. Doctors'll thoroughly check you out before you leave and before you travel back—so don't catch a cold. They won't let you cross the portal if you're sick."

"I don't think anyone ever plans on getting sick, Mom," I replied.

"Just be extra careful," she said quickly. "You'll take a plane from Atlanta on the nineteenth and return the same way. Either your father, me, or both will drive you to the airport and pick you upon your return."

"I'll avoid anyone who is sick," I assured my parents. I yawned. "I need to get to sleep. I start my foalsitting job tomorrow. The foal is a little seven-year-old pegasus filly named Drizzle, and she seems like she has a lot of energy that I'll need to keep up with."

"Good luck, it will be a good experience for you," Mom replied.

I remembered an important detail at the last minute. "Oh! I forgot. Maggie and I had a little talk. She needs some time to think about some things, but she believes me. You don't need to talk to her."

"Well, that's good to hear. I hope you two can mend things up," Mom said. "I'll let you go. Love you, sunshine."

"Love you, and tell Dad I love him too."

"I will sleep tight. Talk to you again sometime over the weekend." The call disconnected.

"Hey, Rebecca, you know we are happy for you getting to go on dates and everything, right?" Julie called down to me. "We don't mean to upset you. It is fun to needle you, but if it ever crosses the line, just say something."

"I know what you said earlier, but since it was now true, I figured it was open game," Nightscape said in agreement. "Don't be afraid to tell me I'm going too far."

"Yeah, we can be crude—Nighty in particular—" Julie said in agreement

"Hey!" Nightscape protested.

"—but no one wants to hurt anyone's feelings," Julie concluded.

l felt a pleasant warmth inside as I listened to them. "You're right, Nightscape; it is open game now. I'll let you know if any of you take things too far, but thank you both for saying that."

"Feel free to poke back at us too," Julie continued. "I know I have heard every single jock joke and barb you can think of, and Nighty has a tough hide."

"She couldn't come up with any jokes about me. I'm perfectly perfect in every way," Nightscape said proudly.

Julie snorted and started laughing.

"You are the big bad night pony that gets beaten up by a trio of thirteen-year-olds," I said slyly.

"Those three aren't normal thirteen-year-olds!" Nightscape protested. Julie started snorting and laughing some more, and I heard her trying to muffle it with her pillow. "I'm serious! It's always fun watching when some new recruit arrives and thinks they are all that, then Tempest puts them in a practice bout with one of the twins. Usually lasts about ten seconds before the new meat is crying out for their momma."

"Are you speaking from experience, Nighty?" Julie asked through suppressed laughter.

"I plead the fifth," Nightscape replied, and I heard her getting up. "Anyway, good night to both of you. I'm going to go visit Robby—and yes, I remembered my birth control."

"Have a good night," I called out with a snicker. "I'd say, have fun, but you seem to have that in mind already."

"Yeah, yeah," Nightscape said as I heard the balcony door open. "Sleep well, you two." I then heard the door close.

"Goodnight, Rebecca," Julie said.

"Good night, Julie."

I rolled over and pulled my blankets up over me. It had been a long few days, and I was ready for the weekend.

Chapter 58: Off to Foalsit

Miss Seapony had been insufferable through all my dreams. She gave me nothing but suggestions about spicing up my romance and very detailed pictures about how sex with a human could go. On the bright side, Nightscape was now incapable of showing me anything that could shock me. I was pretty sure I had seen it all before the night was over.

I hoped I could forget some of it before I ran into Russell again; otherwise, I was going to turn pink in front of him.

Phobia Remedy was completely unavailable, and Miss Seapony wasn't able to fill me in on the Warden of Fear's thought process for kidnapping my friend off the street. All she would say was that Phobia Remedy was a being with incredible reach and power, and she was her mother's daughter. Whatever that was supposed to mean.

It was nice to get up and not need to rush anywhere. Sunflower and Julie were already up and out of the dorms by the time I got up, Ashley and Meadow were sound asleep still, and I assumed Nightscape was still out at the Dreamwarden's house doing things that would make Miss Seapony proud and me blush. That left me to do things by myself.

After showering, preening, and using the potty, I moseyed down to the cafeteria. I checked my phone and was at first happy to see a message from Russell. He said that he really enjoyed the evening—which was great, but he also had to help his parents all day today, so he might not see me again until tomorrow. That second part wasn't that great. I supposed I wouldn't have been able to see him much until tomorrow anyway, given I had foalsitting to do and was going out with my friends that evening, but I had hoped to catch him at breakfast.

I had another message from Lántiān, asking me to come over even earlier than she had told me yesterday. Now she wanted me over at eleven instead of noon and still have me stay till five. I hoped she had plenty of food stocked because I was going to miss my lunch. This really better not turn out to be her regular pattern. If she kept doing this, she might find herself out another foalsitter. It would be next to impossible for me to make plans otherwise.

I took my time eating breakfast. I saw Maggie come into the cafeteria, and I know she saw me, but after she got her food, she sat down at a table about as far away from me as she could. I could take the hint on that one. She wasn't ready to talk to me yet. It hurt, but I understood. Well… no, I didn't understand, but I understood she had something personal that was upsetting her, and me possibly becoming a Dreamwarden was tied to that. I'd give her space.

After finishing breakfast, I still had plenty of time before I should head over to Lántiān's apartment, even if I were planning to arrive a few minutes early. It was as good a time as any to get some flying in. I knew I didn't fly as much as I should, and I had an opportunity to get a good hour to an hour-and-a-half in before going to foalsit. I might be a cruddy flier, but that didn't mean I wanted to stay ground-bound all the time. Pegasi were supposed to fly a certain amount every day anyway to stay healthy. Being in college where I was always close enough to everywhere I needed to be to walk, meant I needed to make sure I found flight time every day. I really should start joining Julie for some of her early morning flights. Meadow and Sunflower could use the extra flight time, too; perhaps we could make it a group thing. Maybe that was why they had pegasi stay on the third floor of the dorms; to avoid falling into unhealthy habits.

I flew a wide circle around the monument, keeping a reasonable distance between me and the trees. I wished I could go among their branches to perch, but they had pegasus guards that typically kept anyone from trying to fly in and do that. I didn't know what the harm was, but they didn't want ponies up in the branches. They were massive things, larger than any other trees on Earth or Equestria, taller than any building in town by more stories than I could guess. Scientists said that they should not be able to move nutrients properly through their trunks at their size, but they were sustained by magic all their own. It reminded me that I was living in a magical place, unlike any other in the world. It might have been born of a disaster, but it was beautiful and wonderous.

My flight lasted over two hours, which was a very long time for me. It shouldn't have worn a typical pegasus out, but I was not a great flier, and if I were honest about it, I was out of shape—round as I was. When it was time to fly over to Lántiān's apartment, I was too pooped to poop.

Lántiān didn't live too far from campus. The particular apartment complex I suspected housed quite a few students for the college that didn't live on campus. It was a simple four-story set of buildings with no halls to walk through. Lántiān lived on the ground floor, despite being a pegasus. Maybe she preferred the ground floor for the sake of Drizzle, or perhaps it was just what was available. As I slowed my descent with a circle around the apartments, I suddenly had a pink teenaged pegasus filly with a blonde mane shadowing me.

"Are you Rebecca? You seem like you should be," the filly asked in an upbeat tone. She was a younger teen, thirteen or fourteen from the look of her. She had a cutie mark of three lightning bolts pointed east to west, and she was surprisingly muscular for a filly her age.

"Um...yeah, that's me," I answered in confusion. Wobbling a little as I turned my head to answer her. "Who are you, and how do you know me?"

The filly gave me more space. "Wow, you don't fly too good, do ya? I'm Jackie. You met my stepsister Phobia and little sister Jordan. Grumpy Blue told me she was expecting you and that we could leave when you arrived."

"Who is Grumpy Blue?" I asked, even more confused.

"Ya know, Lántiān," Jackie replied. "Don't tell her I called her that. That's just what I call her because she's always grumpy. She is taking me with her to watch her exhibition today. I'm on the junior flight team at my school, but I want to see the colleges mares do it."

"Oh… nice to meet you," I replied. "You might want to give me more space. I have a habit of crashing."

She might have moved an inch or two further away. "Why are you taking so long to land? Why all the circling?"

"To slow down and come in easy," I replied.

"Uh… you aren't going that fast," Jackie replied with skepticism. "You must be really bad not to be able to land safely at this speed. Come on, just land."

Tact and patience were clearly not this filly's strong suits. No wonder Jordan louded out Jess on her personal information if this was her sister. These sisters just spoke their minds without a thought. That made me slightly anxious about Jordan knowing about my powers. However, Jackie seemed to put her sister to shame in terms of speaking her mind.

I looked around. Maybe she was right. Perhaps I was taking too long to ease into a landing, and I was just overly cautious because I had been in the air for a while. Also, it could be that my pegasus pride was being pricked by having a filly make fun of my flying, even knowing she was completely correct. I banked towards the apartment to come in for a landing.

This turned out to be a bad idea.

Banking so suddenly put me into a tumble, and I struggled to right myself. Have you ever tried to right yourself while spinning in midair where you can't immediately tell up from down? It isn't an easy thing to do. Maybe some fancy professional fliers who do tricks all the time could pull it off with ease, but that wasn't me. Doing a barrel roll tumble from the sky at this height could seriously hurt me, depending on what I landed on. I started to panic, which only made matters worse, but I couldn't help myself. I closed my eyes and prepared to have a big splat.

Something collided with me much sooner than I expected and with a lot less pain than I expected, bringing my tumble to a halt.

"Start flapping your wings, you winged goat. You weigh a ton, and I can't hold you for long."

I opened my eyes to see that Lántiān had caught me in midair and was now struggling to hold me aloft. I immediately started flapping my wings again to go into a hover, and she let go of me and glared through her now messy black mane.

"Leave the tricks to the flight team. Now, get down on the ground," Lántiān ordered harshly.

I started to salute with a wing, which was another bad idea, but I managed to catch myself before I began to fall. My speed had been quenched, so it wasn't hard to just slowly descend now. I went down to the ground, and she followed after.

After we landed, we were quickly joined by Jackie. "That was awesome!"

Lántiān turned her glare on the filly. "No, that was dangerous!" She turned back towards me. "What in the hell were you thinking? Were you trying to show off? You aren't aerodynamic enough to be pulling something like that. You could have gotten hurt or killed!"

I cringed. "I didn't mean to go into a tumble like that. I just banked to the side and lost control. I'm not very good at flying. I tend to crash a lot. Thank you for saving me."

She glared for another moment, then snorted and flicked her tail. "Some ponies with wings don't deserve them. You are the worst pegasus I have ever heard of. Let's just get inside the apartment. You foalsitting, thankfully, doesn't require flight."

I followed her with my tail between my legs. Jackie ran ahead and walked backwards while asking Lántiān questions—at least until Lántiān snapped at her for not looking where she was going. At least she wasn't being testy only to me.

We entered the apartment, and I was a little surprised to see Jordan reading a book with Drizzle.

"You should have seen it, Jor," Jackie said excitedly. "Rebecca here went spinning out of control, and Lántiān came speeding out of nowhere to save her flank."

Jordan looked up at her sister. "I saw it. We watched her go running out of the apartment, and we watched the whole thing from the window."

"Mama is the bestest flier ever!" Drizzle said excitedly, flapping her wings as she did and unintentionally buffeting Jordan with them.

Lántiān's expression softened into a rare smile as she walked over to her daughter and gave her a nuzzle. "Maybe not the best, but I can be pretty great, sometimes. Mama has to do some flying for a few hours. Do you think you can be good for Miss Rebecca and Miss Jordan?"

Drizzle's excitement dropped into despair in an instant. "But I want to come watch you, or you to stay with me!"

"I know you do," Lántiān said regretfully. "But I can't watch you and do my flying at the same time though, and you have a bad habit of running off, and I have yet to find a foalsitter who can keep you contained outside. This is Mama's last year doing this, and then Mama can spend more time with you. Can you please behave for them, for me?"

Drizzle muttered some noncommittal response, and Lántiān sighed.

"So… Jordan and I are both foalsitting?" I asked in confusion. "I thought you could barely afford a foalsitter, much less two."

The other mare's face turned sour again. "Ma'am and Wild Growth decided that you provided inadequate protection and may need guarding as well. Jordan here was drafted to do just that."

"And get my first paying job! No more relying on an allowance for me," Jordan said happily.

My mouth hung open. "We are being bodyguarded… by a filly?"

"I'm thirteen! That's practically a young mare!" Jordan protested.

Jackie grabbed her sister into a headlock and started nuggying her. "Yeah, so grown up, and staring at colts' butts. What's the name of that colt in your class you want to hit the flank of?"

Jordan writhed in her sister's grasp. "Jackie! Don't embarrass me, and let me go! I'll tell Mom and Dad!"

I pointed a wing at Jordan in disbelief. "She's bodyguarding us? Why do we even need a bodyguard?"

Lántiān took a deep breath. "There are still… individuals out there who might try to foalnap my filly or me to try to use us for leverage against my mother. I don't think this is likely, but it is a possibility. We are no longer with Ma'am, so she can no longer protect us. Be happy, this is probably a pointless precaution, and it gets you help and higher pay. Wild Growth is paying you now, not me."

"And no one can fillynap anyone when I'm around!" Jordan proclaimed as she pushed her sister off her using her magic. "Tempest has been drilling us all since we were little on how to stop people from doing that. She said she didn't want us ever to be helpless again after what happened when we were little."

"And Tempest is merciless in her training," Jackie said with a shiver.

"I can grip things strongly in my magic, make strong shields, and teleport two of us in a pinch," Jordan explained proudly. "Auntie Sunset also taught me some tricks… but I don't want to try to use those if I don't have to."

"I'm familiar with Ma'am's tricks that she may have taught you and can testify they are effective, but extremely risky, nor effective against humans," Lántiān said gravely. "Avoid using such magic except as a last desperate resort. You could hurt yourself or Drizzle attempting to do them, and even Ma'am will only try them under the most dire circumstances."

"What kind of tricks?" I asked in confusion.

Lántiān shook her head. "I will not give away Ma'am's secrets, especially ones capable of defeating even the mightiest ponies in some circumstances. Just know that they are dangerous and unpredictable magic, the results of which can be just as deadly to the caster and bystanders as those they are casting at. They are how Ma'am got her scars. You can fell a mighty foe that seems insurmountable, but you may fell yourself doing it. Ma'am was lucky to escape with just burns after her one use of such techniques. Jordan should not attempt such magic unless out of all other options and lives are on the line."

"That's what Auntie Sunset said," Jordan replied. "I'm not even sure if I could do them. It sounds really complicated from what she was explaining. I don't know how anyone is supposed to do what she described quickly. I think it is too hard, not from a power perspective, because even a weak unicorn could cast this, but because of how much you have to figure out in a short period of time. It seems impossible. It's like having a thousand keys and being given a second to identify the right one for the lock. Maybe she can pull it off because of her unique talent, but I don't have that."

"And even if you are able to do it correctly, it might literally blow up in your face and kill you," Lántiān said. on a grim note. "My advice is never to try, and never get in a situation where you must consider such options."

I gulped. "That sounds like a good idea. I don't want to be a roasted-toasted marshmallow."

"I don't wanna be blowed up!" Drizzle said fearfully.

Jackie gave her sister a worried look. "Yeah, don't blow yourself up, Jor. You're my favorite little sister."

Jordan cocked an eyebrow at Jackie. "I'm your only little sister, and I'm only a year younger than you, meathead."

"You silly bookworm," Jackie retaliated with a smirk. She then hugged her sister. "See ya later tonight. I'll tell you all about the stunts I see today."

Jordan rolled her eyes while still being held by Jackie. "I guess so. You put up with me telling you all about the stuff I read, even though I know you think it is boring. I can listen to you talk about flying stuff in return."

"Hey, some of the stuff you read is kinda cool. Maybe you'll think some of the flying stuff is cool," Jackie protested.

"Only when I watch you doing it," Jordan said with a chuckle. "Love you, sis."

"Love you too," Jackie replied, hugging her sister tighter. She then released her hug and backed off.

Lántiān looked at me. "You will be paid upon our return. There is plenty of food stocked, but don't overdo it with the meals and snacks. Drizzle is to have just a simple lunch of either soup and fruit or a sandwich and fruit, and she can have a small snack once in the mid-afternoon to help tide her over fir dinner—which I should be back to prepare. She may play within sight of the apartment, but should be supervised at all times. Make sure she gives Wrinkles food, water, and exercise. Also, make sure she gets her reading practice in."

"I've got the reading covered!" Jordan declared happily.

"And I've got the rest," I answered confidently

Lántiān narrowed her eyes. "I hope so. Be aware; she can be deliberately difficult with her foalsitters. She is trying to force me to be home with her more, but I have to do my flight team participation to maintain my scholarship. If she misbehaves too much, you may send her to her room for an hour at a time. Her window does not fully open, so she'll stay put."

I nodded. "I understand. I'm sure she won't be too much trouble."

"We shall see," Lántiān replied. "There should be a light rain shower this afternoon. Drizzle will want to go out during that. This is acceptable. Just make sure that one or both of you keep your eyes on her at all times because she tends to wander. She should not have Wrinkles out in that weather, so she should exercise him before or after. She should also thoroughly dry herself before getting on any furniture."

"That all seems reasonable," I said in affirmation.

"Lastly," Lántiān continued. "She is free to watch television or play her video game as much as she likes. However, you should monitor what she watches on television to make sure there is no violence, cursing, sexual content, or content that would be scary for a young foal. I have an age restriction set in place on the streaming service, but sometimes things slip through—or she figures out my password to override it."

"Uh...does she figure out your password a lot?" I asked.

"Often enough," Lántiān answered. "Drizzle explores and pushes her boundaries all the time. Knowing there is something there that she can't access is an invitation for her to try. Watch her closely."

"We've got this. Don't worry!" Jordan proclaimed.

Lántiān didn't look fully confident in that. That just made me want to prove to her all the more we had it handled. She'd learn I was reliable and dependable, and then maybe she wouldn't hate me as much.

She turned back to Drizzle and gave her a muzzle and smile. "You be good for these two ponies, my little yǔdī. If you can stay good all weekend, then maybe you can come to watch your mama fly next weekend."

Drizzle laid back one ear and perked the other. "You promise?"

Lántiān nodded. "If you behave yourself all weekend, then it is a promise. You have to be good, though, and show me you will do what your sitters say. That way, I can trust you to be in the stands and not wander off. Can you promise me that?"

Drizzle still looked like she wasn't happy, but nodded. "I promise, Mama."

Lántiān nuzzled her daughter again then kissed her on her nose. "That's my awesome little filly. I love you, and I'll bring you back a treat tonight."

Drizzle jumped up and hugged her mother around the neck. "Love you, Mama. Go win the thingie and show them how awesome you are."

"I'll do that, just for you," Lántiān chuckled as she gently detached her daughter from her neck. She then looked at me. "We're leaving now. You have my number if you need me, but try not to call unless it is an emergency. I need to stay focused. Don't disappoint me, Rebecca Riddle."

"Yes, ma'am," I replied.

Lántiān gave me one final frown, then left, taking Jackie with her and leaving me with Drizzle and Jordan. This would be fine. How much trouble could taking care of a filly be?

Chapter 59: Puppy Time

"Ow! You're pinching my wing!" Drizzle cried out.

"Sorry, I thought that went in that way," Jordan said apologetically.

"Why would you think that!" Drizzle yelled.

"I'm sorry! This is my first time doing this!" Jordan shouted in frustration. "Rebecca, how do I do this?"

I was busy dealing with my opponent on the couch and didn't want to look away. "I don't know how it works either. Why would you think I know?"

"You're the adult, and you're a pegasus," Jordan answered.

"Oh, when the going gets rough, you stop being practically an adult, huh?" I asked with a grin.

"You're still a pegasus; you have to know how this works. Please, help," Jordan pleaded.

"Do I look like the type to wear full-body suits?" I answered with a snicker as I tried to picture myself trying. Yeah… that wasn't happening. I refocused on my foe. "You stay right there; I'm going to get this collar and leash on you yet."

Wrinkles, a white and grey English bulldog pup, crouched his lower body down while wagging his tail. For having massive folds of skin all over him, like the ones I would likely have if someone sucked all the fat out of me, he was surprisingly fast. I had the collar and leash hanging on the edge of my wing, and I just needed to catch and hold the puppy still long enough to put it on him.

I tried to advance slowly, but he hopped backward and yapped, tail still wagging, still panting away. I moved some more, and he started hopping around like a jumping bean. Finally, I dived forward to try to catch him, but he evaded me again, leaving me with my face buried in a plush couch pillow and him jumping off the couch before beginning to hop and run around the couch.

"Wrinkles likes to play. He thinks you're playing with him," Drizzle called out. "Ow! My tail!"

"Sorry!" Jordan apologized again. "I don't know why they make that slit so small."

I picked myself up and looked back at Jordan's progress at getting Drizzle into her Wonderbolts outfit the filly was so proud of.

"Isn't your sister on the flight team at her school?" I asked the younger teen. "Shouldn't you have experience helping her with a flight suit?"

Jordan shook her head as she continued to pull at the suit with her magic. "Jackie just started. They haven't made her wear one yet. Plus, they would teach her how to put it on herself. She'd be embarrassed if she had to ask me for help. Jackie gets weird about showing she can do things herself—at least with anything marginally related to flying. Which I guess would count getting into her uniform."

"Mama has a fancy flight uniform too!" Drizzle exclaimed. "Only hers is mostly gold with blue stripes. She puts hers on all by herself, but she has to help me get mine on."

"Gold with blue stripes, yuck. Why those colors?" Jordan asked as she examined Drizzle's Wonderbolt uniform more closely to see what she was missing.

"Those are our school colors," I answered.

Jordan shook her head. "Glad I'm not going to that school when I graduate. I'm going to Winthrop, like my mom."

"Winthrop's colors are gold and garnet," I said with a chuckle. "I don't think that is better." I looked around for Wrinkles. "Now, where did that puppy run off to?"

Jordan looked around and then pointed. "He's peeing on the kitchen floor!"

Drizzle gasped. "Bad Wrinkles! Good puppies pee-pee outside!"

I dropped the leash and collar and went running for the kitchen. "You haven't housebroken him yet?!"

"We've only had him about a week. He's still a baby and learning!" Drizzle shouted. "He knows Mama doesn't like it when he pee-pees on the rug."

"Well, he didn't pee on the rug. So she won't be upset about that," I called back as I looked at the pungent yellow puddle on the kitchen floor. Wrinkles was now bouncing around me and trying to get me to play with him. I looked at him and shook my head. "I'll deal with you later. I need to clean this up."

I found some paper towels and wiped everything up. Wrinkles lost interest in me while this was happening and went back into the other room. When I finished cleaning, I washed up my hooves in the kitchen sink to get any urine that had soaked through the towels off of me. After finishing up, I returned to the living room. Drizzle now was in her Wonderbolt flight suit—even though her magic was still too immature to allow her to fly—and the filly had succeeded in getting the collar and leash on her puppy.

"Are you sure you can control him on that leash?" I asked the tiny blue filly. "You don't weigh that much more than he does, and I don't want him dragging you around."

"Yeah! I've got him!" Drizzle said as I watched the puppy literally drag her across the floor.

Jordan giggled and lit her horn, grabbing both Drizzle and Wrinkles with her magic and pulling them back towards her. "Don't worry. I've got them if they start to get away."

"Seems like we are ready to go outside," I said, and immediately my phone started running. "Hold that thought." I answered the call. "Rebecca here; who is it?"

"This is Pudding Snack from Capital One on a recorded line. I'm looking for Rebecca Riddle."

"Uhhh...I don't have a credit card. Bye!" I replied.

"Wait! I'm not calling about a credit ca—" The call ended as I hung up.

My phone immediately started ringing again.

"They really want to talk to you," Jordan said in a bemused tone.

I groaned and unanswered my phone. "Hey, I just said I don't have a credit card."

"Hi, it's Russell," the caller responded in a confused tone. "Getting a lot of spam calls?"

I went wide-eyed. "Russell! Hi! Sorry about that. I just had someone calling me about a credit card I don't have. How are you? I thought you were busy today."

"Been hauling dirt for my ma all morning," Russell replied. "Taking some downtime right now, before I get back to work, and decided to give you a call."

"Who you talking to, boy?" a female voice said in the background of the call. "Is that a girl? You datin'?"

"Leave him be, Jasmine," another voice, male this time, said in the background. "He doesn't need you ridin' him like a horse."

"A horse pun, Terrell? I will remember that next time you try to ride me," Jasmine shouted.

"Oh, you don't need to do me like that," Terrell answered back. The two continued to go at it, but their voices faded more in the background, perhaps because Russell moved from where he was at.

"Sorry about that," Russell said in a long-suffering voice. "My ma gets nosey. My parents bicker a little, but they're good folks."

I tittered. "No problem. My mom gets nosey, too, sometimes. I'm foalsitting right now, so I can't talk too long."

"I won't keep you long. Ma is going to be demanding I get back to helping her with her garden any minute now. I wanted to know if you wanted to go catch a movie tomorrow night and maybe get some dinner before."

My ears perked up. "That sounds great. I really enjoyed myself on our first date and looking forward to seeing you again."

"Date?!" Jordan exclaimed. "You went on a date?!"

Drizzle started to hop around. "Rebecca an' Russell sitting in a tree. K-I-S-S-I-N-G!" Wrinkles began jumping around and yapping with his person.

"I don't think a tree branch could hold Rebecca," Jordan said as she calmed down for a second. "She needs to tell us all about this date, though!"

"I'll meet you at the common area of your dorm building tomorrow at six then," Russell said. "Don't let the fillies drive you too crazy."

"And don't work too hard," I replied with a laugh. "See you tomorrow!"

As the call ended, I turned to see Jordan and Drizzle grinning at me.

"I thought you said you didn't go on dates!" Jordan exclaimed.

"I wasn't lying when I told you that. It was my first date last night," I explained.

"Are you going to bring your stallionfriend here?" Drizzle asked. "I had a foalsitter named Miss Puddles that brought her stallionfriend over. They went into Mama's room and jumped on the bed while having a screaming contest. Miss Puddles won, but Mama didn't let her come back after that. I guess she didn't like them jumping on her bed."

Jordan choked back a laugh and gave me a sly look. "Yeah, are you going to jump on a bed and have a screaming contest?"

I gave the teenage unicorn a flat look. "You're too young to be asking about that."

"But she's old!" Drizzle protested.

Jordan turned and stared with her mouth open at the younger filly. "I'm thirteen!"

"Yeah, and that's old!" Drizzle countered.

"It's all relative," I said with a chuckle. "Imagine how old Drizzle must seem to Wrinkles."

Jordan stuck her tongue out at me. "Well, that means you are practically prehistoric!"

"That's Auntie Sunset," Drizzle said confidently. "She is old enough that… that she must have seen the dinosaurs!"

I shrugged. "She's old enough that she spent more years as an adult human than a pony. That counts as old to me."

"But Auntie Sunset turns into a human all the time," Drizzle said in confusion.

Jordan gave Drizzle a stern look. "You aren't supposed to talk about that." She then got a worried expression. "You shouldn't be making up stories about Auntie Sunset doing things."

Drizzle pointed a wing at me. "But she's seen Auntie Sunset turn into a human!"

I nodded. "That's true, but Jordan is right. Don't talk about that, okay?"

Drizzle pouted. "Okay."

I looked at Jordan. "You can relax; I already knew about it. Sunset Blessing used her weird hocus-pocus on me the other day. Being human was a very different experience. Let's not talk about that either."

"What?!" Jordan said in outraged disbelief. "She never let me try that!"

"Auntie asked Mama once if Mama wanted to try it. Mama said a lot of words in Mandarin that she said I wasn't allowed to say," Drizzle chimed in.

This seemed like the perfect segue to change the subject to something less dangerous. "Do you know a lot of Mandarin, Drizzle?"

Drizzle nodded rapidly. "I know lots of words! Mama is always teaching me new words, but talking in it is hard."

"Well, that's better than me. I know some broken Spanish, not enough to hold a conversation. You should be proud," I complimented. "Now, let's go walk your pup and let him do his doggie doo-doos outside before it rains."

The tiny pegasus filly laughed and jumped. "Come on, Wrinkles, it's outside time. Doggie doo-doos! Woohoo!"

"I have never seen someone so excited about dog poop," Jordan said dryly.

The dog immediately picked up his owner's enthusiasm and began jumping and yapping again. I smiled and opened up the front door. Drizzle went galloping out with Wrinkles right on her tail. Jordan took a second to respond, but went running after so she wouldn't lose sight of the pair. I quickly stepped through the door and pulled it closed behind me.

The complex had plenty of open green grass, some short apple trees no more than twenty feet and height, and some bushes. The parking lot was a strip of assigned spaces that ran parallel to the driving area, and each space had a charging station with a lock for owners only to use—most cars in Skytree were electric, as was typical for pony-dominated areas.

Wrinkles was already near a bush, doing his business with Drizzle standing close by. I looked at the sky and saw heavy clouds coming in. My pegasus weather senses weren't great, but it didn't take magical senses to know that it wouldn't be long before the rain started to fall. I needed to keep a close eye on those clouds. It was up to me to be the responsible adult—partly because I was the only adult present, but also because I needed to be sure I didn't mess anything with this job up and have Lántiān hate me even more than she already did.

"I need to go to the bathroom," Jordan announced.

I raised an eyebrow at her. "We were just inside. Why didn't you go before we came out here?"

"You didn't give me time or ask before you opened the door," Jordan whined as she started doing the pee-pee dance.

"Go ahead and go pee," I said with a roll of my eyes. "I can keep an eye on Drizzle for a few minutes without your help."

"Thanks," Jordan replied quickly and went scampering back to the apartment with her back legs clenched up high.

I focused back on Drizzle and Wrinkles. The two were running around, seemingly with no particular direction or goal. I was glad to see them enjoying themselves but felt the need to be cautious.

"Hey, stay away from the parking lot and road!" I called out to the filly. "Stay in the grass."

"I know!" Drizzle shouted back to me. She continued to run around with her dog, giving them both plenty of exercise.

The clouds were definitely getting darker. I tried to feel out things like air pressure and other weather factors out of instinct, but my cruddy pegasus magic betrayed me. For all I knew, Drizzle could feel those things out better than me. I wanted them to get as much play and exercise as I could, but Lántiān had made it clear the puppy couldn't handle getting soaked in the rain.

"Ah! Wrinkles, leave the kitty alone!"

My head snapped back from the sky to Drizzle and the pup. Wrinkles had based a tabby cat up a tree, and the feline was now hissing down at the down as Drizzle tried to get her puppy away from the tree. I considered flying up and rescuing the distressed cat, but thought better of it. The cat was safe in the tree and not too high up to get back down. If I tried to get it down, it would almost certainly try to fillet me. I wasn't in a hurry to get ripped up by the arch-nemesis of all pegasi. The cat would be fine, and the dog would get bored or distracted.

Distraction came quick. A squirrel came running by, and Wrinkles immediately started running after that instead, dragging Drizzle along for the ride. I almost laughed, but my breath caught as I saw that the chase was going to drag them across the parking lot, and there was a car coming!

I went running, adrenaline pumping, and beat my wings to get airborne to catch up. This was not something I would typically try to do with flight, but it was the only way to close the gap between us fast enough. I flew over Drizzle and came crashing down on the leash, bringing Wrinkles to an unceremonious stop. A millisecond later, Drizzle went crashing into my rear.

"Owwie," Drizzle whined. I didn't know why she was acting hurt. I was the one who just face-planted into the dirt. She had face-planted into me, and I happened to know I was much squishier than the ground. Even Wrinkles had it worse than her; the leash had given him a momentary choke.

A drip of water hit my snout. That finalized things. It was time to go back inside. Wrinkles had enough exercise for the moment.

Author's Note

Sorry about the delay. Been exhausted and out of energy lately.

Chapter 60: Heritage

"What the hell?!" Jordan cried out and immediately covered her mouth. That was low-level cussing, but it was still cussing, and we were watching a young filly.

I quickly shut the television off, and Drizzle practically squawked in protest.

"Hey! The movie wasn't over!" Drizzle complained as she flapped her wings.

I gently stood up. "Your mom said not to let you watch anything scary or disturbing."

"Seriously, W-T-F!" Jordan exclaimed again. "How could a story about bunnies get so dark so quickly?! I'm going to have nightmares from watching that!"

I frowned at her. "It said it was based on a book. Isn't reading your thing? Shouldn't you have known and warned me?"

Jordan shook her head. "There are a lot of books. I haven't read them all! I never heard of Watership Down before today. I saw the description and thought it was just an old cartoon about cute little bunnies. How was I supposed to know it was going to involve all that! I'll read it later."

That caught me off guard. "You are going to read the book after seeing that?"

"Well, yeah," Jordan replied as if it was obvious. "It seems like it is a famous book, and famous books are famous for a reason. Seeing that cartoon caught me off guard, but now that I know what to expect, I won't get so upset when the book undoubtedly does something worse."

What a strange little unicorn. "Whatever makes you happy, I guess."

"Watching the movie will make me happy," Drizzle interjected. "I'm brave like Mama and Auntie Sunset! I won't get scared."

Jordan flicked her ears and looked at the pint-sized pegasus. "Phobia says that if you think you are brave and you never get scared, then you aren't brave; you are just too stupid to register the danger. Auntie Sunset says that when something scary is going on, she pees on herself, and she's not ashamed to admit it."

Drizzle gasped and flapped her wings some more. "Auntie Sunset is brave! She saved me from bad people when I was a baby."

Jordan nodded. "I heard about that. That was brave, but she was also terrified the entire time. When I was your age, I got into a terrifying and dangerous situation where I could have died, and I almost got my best friend killed more than once because I locked up and froze not once but twice because I was so scared. I don't think I would now, but that's just because Tempest has trained all of us not to do that, not because I won't still be scared."

"And your mom said not to let you see anything scary," I concluded.

Drizzle pouted. "You're no fun."

Honestly, I felt left out. I didn't have a story of bad people trying to get me like these two did. In comparison to theirs, I felt like my life was pretty dull. I felt like I was unfairly privileged. Sure, I had started with a rough life, but it hadn't been dangerous like their experiences had been. The only danger I was ever in was the danger I put myself in by being a crappy flier. The danger and excitement didn't feel like they matched up.

Drizzle huffed and flopped over on her back. "So, what are we going to do for fun instead?"

"You were supposed to practice your reading," Jordan suggested because of course Jordan would. "We can do that."

"That's not fun," Drizzle whined. "Can we dump a bucket of water on Rebecca? I like it when she's wet."

I held up a wing. "Fun as that might sound, I don't think we should get into a habit of abusing me for entertainment. Practicing your reading sounds like a great plan."

Yep, I had the responsible adult foalsitter thing down—no letting her terrorize me for laughs.

Drizzle pouted some more. "Okay. I still think you're more fun when you're all wet."

I wasn't going to comment on that. "Where are your books?"

She rolled over, so she was no longer on her back, but she was still laying down flat with her legs and wings spread-eagle. "In my room."

Jordan hopped to her hooves. "Great! Let's go look at what you have, pick something out, and get to reading because reading is the greatest adventure!"

I did everything I could not to laugh. That was corny, even for me. Still, she was about to be in her element, and she was enthusiastic about it. It felt good watching someone loving something so much they had no problem saying corny lines out loud. That was enough to make me smile—even if saying reading is the greatest adventure wasn't one of the funniest things I had heard today. Was I easily amused? Maybe, but there wasn't anything wrong with that or anything wrong with someone getting corny over something they were passionate about.

"Lead the way, Drizz," I said, still smiling.

She groaned and slinked off the couch to the floor, stood up, and trotted off with me and Jordan following. We went down a hall, and Drizzle stopped briefly to let Wrinkles out of the bathroom, and the puppy promptly got right in her face and started licking. I didn't think Wrinkles was that conductive to reading, but he at least got the filly to perk up and start giggling.

Drizzle's room was done in a stereotypical pink. It had two low-hanging hammocks and a small bed, all three filled to the brim with stuffed animals. There had to be over a hundred stuffed animals in this room, and I wondered how she managed to sleep in her bed with the number of stuffed animals she was sharing it with. I didn't even see a pillow on her bed—it looked like she just used a pile of stuffed animals for one. I hoped she didn't drool in her sleep, something I was very guilty of doing. There were a few posters on the walls with the names of ponies posted on them—Rainbow Dash, Sapphire Skies, Sunrise Storm, Lightning Bolt, Spitfire, The Wonderbolts, and one of her mom in flight team uniform. The ones for her mom, Sapphire Skies, Lightning Bolt, and Rainbow Dash all looked like they were personally autographed. It was pretty clear Drizzle idolized fast pegasi. It wasn't that uncommon. I had even briefly had a Rainbow Dash poster when we moved into a house for the first time, even though that was before I started flying and when I would realize I would never come close to measuring up.

I also noticed a few drawings on the walls, which seemed to be mainly her and her mom. There was also one that looked like it was just Chinese calligraphy, but not knowing any Chinese, I had no idea what it said. The room was neat and without clutter. Drizzle seemed like one of the rare foals who didn't need to be told to clean her room, which didn't surprise me. Lántiān struck me as a parent who ran a tight ship and would instill a need for cleanliness in her daughter. There was a circular fuzzy green throw rug in the middle of the room, a closed closet, a toy bin labeled toy bin, and two small bookcases—one of which was filled with books, and the other looked to be filled with a bunch of odd knick-knacks. The knick-knacks consisted of snow globes and various little figurines that didn't count as toys.

Jordan walked over to the bookshelf and started looking it over. "Okay, let's see what we have here. Hmm… you got a lot of books about traditional Chinese stories, and a bunch of books I am pretty sure are translations from Mandarin."

Drizzle climbed on her bed and was joined by Wrinkles a moment later. "Yeah, Mama likes to read those to me. Do you have something different to read?"

I laid an ear back. "Do you not like these books?"

Drizzle's ears sagged. "I do… it's just that… it's a me and Mama's thing. She likes telling me all about China and stuff."

I smiled. "Alright, I'm sure Jordan can figure out something else to read."

Jordan blinked. "Um… I guess I can. Give me a minute to fetch my pad. I can see if I can find something online." The young unicorn then stepped out of the room.

While she was doing that, I stepped over to the bed. "You sure have a lot of stuffed animals."

Drizzle looked around and giggled. "Maybe."

"Do you have a favorite one?" I asked as I sat down next to the bed.

She nodded and reached around with her head to grab one close to the pile I assumed she used for a pillow. My eyes widened as I recognized it. It was a very stuffed stegosaurus in Sunset Blessing's colors. Drizzle set it down in front of herself and hugged it.

"Is that supposed to be your auntie?" I asked, remembering the term the foals called her by.

"No!" Drizzle yelped and pointed a wing at her toy. "This is Supersaurus! Sometimes I have bad dreams that a big purple dinosaur is coming to get me, but Supersaurus comes and chases the bad dinosaur away."

"I see," I said with a knowing nod. I was guessing that Miss Seapony was doing it and using the toy dinosaur for a stand-in. Why color it like Sunset Blessing, though? Why was the nightmare a purple dinosaur?

"There used to be a TV show about a big purple dinosaur," I said. "It was for kids, kids even younger than you. Is that the dinosaur you are afraid of?"

Drizzle gripped her toy closer to her. "No. I saw that TV show. That's just Barney. I don't like Barney, but Barney isn't the big scary dinosaur. The big scary dinosaur is really tall, and has three giant horns, and it wears a baseball cap."

"A baseball cap?" I asked in confusion. That was an odd detail.

Drizzled nodded. "Yeah. I used to have a stuffed animal of it, or at least, Mama said I did. She says she put it in a can and burned it."

"Oh… what a… perfectly normal reaction to a stuffed animal," I said slowly. I spotted a stuffed animal sitting in one of the hammocks. "Isn't that a purple dinosaur in a baseball cap?"

Drizzle followed my gaze then laughed. "That isn't the bad dino. That is Steggi, the baseball stegosaurus! My mama said that the baseball team in Denver gave him to me, and they had a big news conference and everything where they took pictures with me and introduced Steggi to everybody! I have pictures, and mama has a video."

That made me grin. "That was nice of them."

Drizzle nodded some more. "They still send us tickets every year for every game. Mama will take us down to Atlanta once a year to watch one, but I think she sells all the other tickets. Most of the games are far away. They have a special kids day every year, and Mama drew advertisements for it this year. She says it is her first big commission. You wanna see?"

"Maybe later. After you read," I answered. "So, did you win a contest or something?"

She shrugged. "I don't know. You have to ask Mama. What's a commission? Mama said it was a big commission, but didn't tell me what a commission was."

I thought of how to explain it. "For artists, it means someone paid your mom to draw something for them. I guess in this case, they are asking her to draw things for posters and fliers and things like that. Those posters and fliers and stuff help get people interested in kids day, so more people show up."

"Mama is the best artist ever! So they'll love it!" Drizzle exclaimed.

That was a slightly insensitive thing to say to an art student, but Drizzle was little and didn't know any better. Lántiān was probably a better artist than me anyway, and I was studying to be an architect, not a graphic designer, so there was no need to feel offended. Anyway, kids should think their parents are the best at everything… at least until they became teens and suddenly started thinking the opposite.

Jordan returned, tablet floating in her magic. "Okay, I have looked up second and third-grade reading level books and cross-referenced with Chinese authors. I think I have a few options."

Drizzle started pouting again. "I wanted American books, not Chinese ones."

I frowned. "Are you sure? I know you said these books here were a you and your mom thing, but I didn't think you meant all Chinese books."

"Chinese stuff is okay with Mama, not the rest of the time," Drizzle said with a humph.

I considered her. "You don't really consider yourself Chinese, do you?"

She laid flat on the bed. "I don't remember anything about China. This is home. China is nice to hear about when Mama talks about it because it makes her happy, but…."

"But you don't really care," I concluded.

She looked ready to cry. "Don't tell Mama. It will make her sad. I don't want Mama to be sad."

I looked at Jordan, and Jordan shrugged to indicate she didn't know what to do. She then went back to searching on her tablet—probably trying to change her searches not to include Chinese authors. That left me with a sad filly to cheer up. Thanks for the help, Jordan. You are really helpful.

I put a wing over Drizzle's dejected form. "I get it. Your mom tries hard to get you interested in where you came from. You know it is important to your mom, so you listen to her reading Chinese stories and teaching you Chinese words. You do those things, but you are mainly doing it to please her, am I right?"

Drizzle just sat silent, not responding. I sighed before continuing.

"I'm guessing it was a big deal when you asked to change your name. Were you afraid and took a long time to do it?" I asked.

"Yeah," Drizzle said quietly.

I rubbed her back with my wing. "But she let you do it."

"I could tell she wasn't happy about it. She still messes it up," Drizzle mumbled.

"She might not have been happy about it, but she let it happen, and she did that because she cares about you," I said quietly. "She doesn't want you to be unhappy. She loves you more than anything. You can talk to her about how you don't feel connected with China."

"There's nothing wrong with not feeling a strong tie to your heritage," Jordan interrupted. "Rosetta made us all do this big family history research thing because Rosetta is really big on heritage. My parents, when they were still human, had very different heritages. My mom was African American, and my dad was Irish and English. I found out that one of my super-great grandparents on my dad's side was a slaveholder back in the Civil War, and one of my mom's super-great grandparents might have been a slave on that property, and that made conversations in the house super-awkward for a few days after we found out."

I laid my ears flat. "It is super-awkward just hearing about it, and I'm not sure telling us that is helping."

Jordan flattened her ears. "Sorry. They got over it after Phobia fussed at them and said everybody has evil people they wish they weren't related to in their family history… and proceeded to start naming off some super bad people that each of the Elements of Harmony had way back in their family trees. Did you know that Rarity had a—"

"Jordan, not helping!" I hissed.

"Sorry, but if you think about it, we are all related if you go back far enough. So that means we are all related to every serial killer there ever was. Hitler is on our family tree somewhere, Hitler."

I didn't know how, but Jordan was somehow making this progressively worse. I didn't know what form of worse could come next after Hitler, but I wasn't going to find out.

I slapped my face with a wing. "Jordan… just… go to the other room for a few minutes, so I don't have to think about how Hitler is like my hundredth and fourth cousin ninety-seventh removed or whatever."

Jordan flattened her ears, having picked up that she might have taken this conversation in the entirely wrong direction. She nodded to me and silently walked out of the room. I'd need to say something to her later to perk her up, but Drizzle was my immediate concern.

I looked back at Drizzle, who still looked miserable. "Now, let's talk about this reasonably. Have you ever thought about why teaching you about your heritage is so important to your mom?"

Drizzle shook her head and waited for me to tell her.

"Your mom, like me, and every pony from Earth who is over fourteen, was born human," I said gently. "For many ponies, they left all that history of where they came from behind after they transformed. Becoming a pony was like a reset on all that to them, but not every pony felt that way. Your mom still feels a big connection to everything that led up to her, and that is a good thing. Our histories don't begin with the creation of ponies on Earth, it has a lot of history that came before, human history, and that is our history too."

"But we learn about history in school," Drizzle said.

"You learn about a part of history at school," I corrected. "I'm guessing they teach you about American history. It is good for you to learn that because you are making that history part of your story too. It is the history of the nation you live in and the culture you want to make yourself a part of; it is important to know, but you have a whole different set of history that was yours up until six years ago, and they probably don't teach you much about it in school. Your Chinese heritage is part of who you are and will always be part of your story. If you are learning just the history they teach you in school; you aren't learning the whole story."

"So… it's like a school thing?" Drizzle asked in confusion.

"Not completely," I replied, unsure how to explain it. "She doesn't want you to forget where you come from because she feels like she is losing part of what connects you to her. Chinese history is a bigger part of her because she spent more than half her life in China. Your grandma, when she was still alive on Earth, spent a lot of time teaching her about that history…."

I had a sudden revelation about Lántiān at that moment. It felt like it should have been obvious, but I never claimed to be the smartest pony. I beckoned Drizzle to come off the bed and sit next to me on the floor. She did as promoted and waited for me to continue.

"As I was just saying, back when your mom was still human, your grandma spent a lot of time teaching her about the history and culture of China. That was a special time for your mom. That was before there were ponies or Dreamwardens and everything in the world felt like it was safe and made sense. It was a time when your mom was really happy and a time before her relationship with your grandma got complicated. Her best memories from growing up were being taught Chinese history by your grandma. She wants to share that same bond and experience with you."

I brought my face down close to hers so I could look her in the eyes. "It isn't just bad guys hurting you that she is afraid of either. She is also scared of drifting away from you like she did with your grandma. She's afraid that if you don't care about where you come from, you'll stop caring about her, and it will just be like her and your grandma all over again. She loves you more than anything. You are the most important person in the world to her, and she doesn't want that to happen."

"Rebecca Riddle."

I jerked my head up and saw Lántiān standing at the doorway to the room, her expression blank. She was back early.

I jumped to my hooves. "I'm sorry, I didn't originally intend to get into this conversation. We were just going to help Drizzle with her reading and—"

Lántiān raised a wing to cut me off. "I am not angry, but I think you should wait in the other room while I speak to my daughter. She may have questions about what you discussed, and it is better that she asks me. Please, wait in the other room, and I will come to speak with you shortly before seeing to it you are paid."

She stepped inside and stepped to the side so I could exit. I started walking out and looked back at Drizzle, who seemed nervous.

"Hey, remember, your mom loves you no matter what, and nothing you could do can ever change that. Listen to her, and don't be afraid to be honest with her. She wants you to be honest with her." Or at least, I hoped she did. It was hard to read Lántiān.

Drizzle seemed to perk up a little and smiled as she nodded to me. "I'll remember."

Walking past Lántiān and her scrutinizing gaze was enough to make me nervous. I hoped I hadn't made things worse by getting involved with something I had no business getting involved with. She didn't say anything while I exited, and she gently shut the door behind me once I was out.

Chapter 61: Mister Gilmore's 'Angels'

I sat with Jordan and Jackie in Lántiān's living room. Jackie was excitedly telling Jordan about all the things she had seen, and Jordan was doing her best to sound interested in flight team stuff, even though the young unicorn probably felt even less enthusiastic about that subject that Drizzle felt about China. I wasn't paying much attention to them. I was waiting for Lántiān to come out and tell me whether I had done something wrong; she didn't want me foalsitting anymore, cussing me out, or all three.

I needed a distraction.

"How are you two getting home?" I asked the two younger teens.

"Our dad is going to come to pick us up. Our parents both drive," Jordan said.

"I already called him when I landed here," Jackie said and spread her wings. "I could fly back on my own, but he doesn't like me flying around town by myself. He says I have to fly with an adult or group of two or more friends if I leave the neighborhood."

"And I don't have a license to teleport that far yet," Jordan added in. "I'm only licensed to blink teleport."

Jackie went over to a window and peeked out. "Dad should be here any minute. We don't live that far away."

"Oh, your mom isn't coming too?" I asked, just making conversation.

Jackie shook her head. "She teaches, and she keeps busy with school stuff. She runs some clubs and stuff for students. She'll get home after us. Dad usually cooks dinner. He works from home. He helps people figure out why their internet isn't working and stuff."

I remembered something. "Didn't your dad used to be married to Sunset Blessing?"

Jackie shrugged. "Yeah, he divorced her around the time I was born. They aren't really much alike… at all. Dad's just a regular guy. I'm perfectly fine having a regular dad. We have enough crazy weirdos in the family. Being a regular person in this family is like being a superhero. When almost everyone is super, those who aren't are."

"I don't think that's the way the expression goes, Jackie," Jordan chided. "And we are regular people, and so is Mom."

Jackie laughed. "Jor, Mom is a regular pony too, I'll give you that, but you and I have been trained since we were little by a Dreamwarden's personal bodyguard. How many kids get trained so they can effectively fight off a marine by the time they are twelve?"

Jordan looked down at the floor. "Well… it depends on what marine you are talking about, and I wouldn't hurt them. Just annoy and delay them till they gave up on trying to get me."

My ears flattened. "What was that about fighting marines?"

Jackie strutted away from the window. "Yeah, I'm pretty tough and can do some fancy flying techniques; that's why I am going to be the best filly on my flight team this year."

Jordan gave her sister a flat look. "Charlotte and Arachne could still each beat you up, even if they were hog-tied."

That brought Jackie's strut to an end and made her fluff her wings. "Yeah, well… the freaky Terror Twins just prove the point that this family is full of weirdos."

"You shouldn't call them that. They are our friends," Jordan scolded.

Jackie shook her head. "Charlotte might be our friend, but Arachne doesn't care about anything but her siblings, her monster spider, and herself. Arachne doesn't like us; she tolerates our lowly presence. She even tries to lord over her siblings."

There was a knock at the door, and Jordan jumped to her hooves, trotting to the door. "Daddy!"

Jackie flew ahead of her sister and cut her off. "Jordan, you know better than that. Never rush to open a door, even if you are expecting someone. Aren't you here to bodyguard in addition to foalsitting? If Tempest heard about this, she would put you through the wringer."

Jordan stopped and sighed. She then lifted her leg and dialed her phone with her magic. "Hey, Dad, is that you at the door to Lántiān's apartment?"

"Yeah, it's me," the phone answered. "You know you could have just answered the door. I knocked."

Jordan rolled her eyes. "Jackie is being a pain."

Jackie spread her wings. "Hey! I'm trying to protect you! You know Tempest will grill you about every detail of today, and for everything she thinks is a mistake, she will demand you do some sort of exhausting training to correct. If she thinks you did something extra sloppy, she might have you do a round with one of the Terror Twins."

"Jackie! Don't call your nieces the Terror Twins!" their dad yelled from the other side of the door.

Jordan gave her sister a smug look and giggled. "Yeah, Jackie, don't call them names."

As Jordan went to let their dad in, I tried not to be jealous. I didn't have a big family. It was just my parents and me. I didn't have siblings, aunts, uncles, nieces, or nephews. All I knew about my grandparents was they kicked my mom out of the house and cut all ties to her when she got pregnant with me.

I was adamant that I didn't want foals. I couldn't put them through the stuff that came with me being a Dreamwarden, but that only came into effect if I became a Dreamwarden. I wasn't the only one in the running to be the next Dreamwarden. Sunflower could be Dreamwarden instead or someone else. I could refuse to become one as well; it wasn't like I didn't have the right to refuse if they chose me.

Urgh, but then I wouldn't be able to do all the cool Dreamwarden things I wanted to do; being able to inspire creativity with access to everyone, help out foals that need a friend, cheer up the outcast who needs to understand they are special and don't need to conform to other's definition of normal. I could be a great Dreamwarden that helps make people happy and feel better, and I could help so many more people than regular old me could ever do.

I knew it was me forcing this to be a choice, but the fact that any foals I had would be in danger was something that had occurred to me not long after I first entered puberty. And… oh no, even someone like Russell, who I was just dating, could be in danger. I got so caught up in the moment and got in a relationship. What the heck was I going to do?

Jordan and Jackie's dad was an old green unicorn with a heavy amount of grey in his blue mane. He had some deep lines on his face. Wasn't he supposed to be around the same age as Sunset Blessing? He looked older than her for some reason. She looked old, but not this old. I suppose she could have married someone much older than her.

He smiled as he hugged his youngest. "So, how did your first day as a working mare go?"

Jordan hugged her dad back. "It was okay, but not very exciting. No villains showed up."

He blinked. "Um, I would hope not, not for foalsitting."

Jordan broke the hug and raised her head proudly. "I'm not a foalsitter. I'm a bodyguard."

Jackie fluffed her wings again. "Dad… you did know that Wild Growth and Sunset Blessing hired Jordan to bodyguard the filly and the foalsitter, right? Because Drizzle is a person of interest?" She pointed a wing at me. "I mean… look at her. The foalsitter is so out of shape that Jordan is more intimidating than her." She turned her head to look at me. "Um, no offense."

I touched a hoof to my gut. "None taken. I'm a butterball. Old-timey humans see me and want to put me on a Thanksgiving table."

The old unicorn shivered. "Please, don't compare yourself to a Thanksgiving turkey again." He looked sternly at Jordan. "And you, you're a person of interest too. You need protecting, not the other way around. You're a kid!"

Jordan laid her ears back. "Dad, I'm a young mare. I've been fighting bad guys since I was six. I can do this."

"Dad, It's not like they think there's a major threat," Jackie interjected. "They've been letting Drizzle go without bodyguards till now. Auntie Sunset and Wild Growth just got a sudden need to start caring for some reason, and they still aren't putting much effort into it. This can't be dangerous."

He facehooved and shook his head, then looked at Jordan. "You were not fighting bad guys at six. You were stuck in a locked building with a pair of crystal ponies that were out of their minds, and you did a whole lot of running for your lives. Wild Growth had to save you, and even after she saved you, you needed to be saved again by Jessica. I love you, but you aren't some action hero."

"Auntie Sunset has been teaching her magic," Jackie said helpfully. "And we train with Tempest all the time."

"Self-defense courses," their dad said as he turned to his other daughter. "I'm fine with the two of you getting self-defense classes. They aren't for you to go looking for trouble. Also, Sunset is stuck in that mansion of hers in Denver because she got herself hurt defending that filly."

Jordan and Jackie looked at each other before turning back towards their dad.

"You don't know?" Jordan asked. "I was sure you would know."

"I'm shocked too," Jackie said in amazement. "Auntie Sunset is ghosting dad."

I pointed a wing at the door. "Should I wait outside while you guys discuss this? This sounds like family drama."

"Yes," Jackie said.

"No," Jordan said right after. "Rebecca knows about Auntie Sunset."

Jackie turned and gaped at me. "The Thanksgiving turkey knows about Auntie Sunset, and Dad doesn't?"

"I don't know what?!" their dad yelled. "Are you telling me that Sunset is getting you both involved in her crazy bullcrap?"

I inched toward the door. "This sounds like a family discussion. I really should go."

"Rebecca Riddle." I turned and saw Lántiān standing behind me. "If you run off now, you don't get paid. Further, I want to have words with you."

"Hey! I want to talk about what my daughter is doing here," Jackie and Jordan's dad protested.

Lántiān gave him a tired look. "Look… Thomas Gilmore, was it? Your ex-wife and Wild Growth are overprotective. Jordan is in no danger. My next-door neighbor and the pony across the hall are secret service agents tasked with protecting my daughter and me. If anything were ever to happen, there would be an army here within minutes. Jordan is just an extra layer of what is already excessive security."

"WHAT?!" Jordan yelled in outrage.

Jackie burst out laughing. "Tempest had you out with training wheels on!"

I looked at Lántiān in confusion. "Why do you need to hire foalsitters if you've got them? And where were they earlier when Wrinkles almost pulled Drizzle out into the street?!"

Lántiān covered her face with a wing. "Again? I need to get that dog some obedience classes, but I'm already near bro— never mind. Our neighbor would have teleported her and Wrinkles to safety. And they aren't paid to foalsit… I asked before."

"But my daughter is still getting wrapped up with all this stuff," the old unicorn growled. "I can't help that my eldest is up to her head in all this craziness, but I try to keep my younger two out of worrying about bodyguards and whatever other insanity that is going on. And are you telling me that Sunset is out galavanting around instead of sick at home like she claims?"

"Yes, Ma'am is galavanting around, and I don't know what she gets up to or do I care," Lántiān answered. "However, I do know that your house is watched at all times, just like my apartment. You're Phobia's father; they are her sisters. Do you honestly think the authorities would leave you unguarded? This is Skytree. It hosts most of the Warden of Fear's family and has the most powerful magical artifact on Earth, sitting dead center in the middle of town for everyone to look at. You can't take three steps in this town without tripping over someone who is guarding something. It is probably the safest city in the USA."

"I'm sure you're exaggerating," the old unicorn replied.

Lántiān sighed. "I can go down to the local mall, sit in the food court, and start picking out bodyguards and who they are bodyguarding. Wealthy people from everywhere send their kids here to keep them safe because it is practically part of the city's industry to do that. Add in the CEOs, the other random rich people, important people like Wild Growth, and we are just overrun with people that need protection. Rebecca Riddle probably has no shortage of bodyguards. Am I right, Rebecca Riddle?"

"Um… I have a few," I said as I tried to make myself look small, not an easy feat.

Jackie raised an eyebrow at me. "Why do you have bodyguards?"

I had to think of a good answer fast. "My mom is a big executive at PonyCo, so, maybe that?"

Nailed it.

Jordan flopped on the floor. "I feel like I was lied to about what I was doing."

"You were bodyguarding," Lántiān confirmed. "You just weren't the only one bodyguarding."

Jordan lifted her head then flopped it down. "Then why even bother with me? I'm extraneous."

I knew the reason, but I wasn't going to say it. They had me and Drizzle together in one place.

Lántiān shrugged. "Ma'am and Wild Growth wanted someone closer. If someone did try something, unlikely as that might be, you would make a nice little speed bump."

"My sister is at least a big speed bump," Jackie said defensively and sounded mad about it. "You should be nicer to my sister. She came out here to watch your kid and did her job without complaint when she could be doing anything else with her Saturday. I've seen you be nice to people before, so I know you know how not to be a condescending bitch."

"Jackie, language!" their dad shouted.

Lántiān frowned and flicked her ear. "I didn't intend to behave like...that. I was just clarifying the situation because your father seemed concerned. Jordan is in no danger. If something did happen, I expect she would prove to be an annoyance to any would-be foalnapper that would delay them long enough for authorities to arrive. I also don't find the position of bodyguard an awe-inspiring one in this town, but I am grateful for the safety that it provides."

You know, if it weren't for the fact that Lántiān had made it abundantly clear she didn't like me, I could almost blow off her behavior towards me as her having really bad social skills.

It wasn't my place, and I would probably get yelled at, but I was going to step in.

"Lántiān doesn't have any issues with Jordan, and I'm sure she is happier knowing Jordan was here today with Drizzle and not just me," I said in her defense. "Jordan, I was happy to have you helping today." Most of the time, anyway. Lántiān wasn't the only one who needed to work on some social skills. Seriously, that whole last bit with Drizzle about her Chinese heritage was a disaster on Jordan's part, but Jordan was my friend, and she was trying her best. "I look forward to you helping in the future."

Their dad rubbed his head. "Well, I suppose she isn't likely to be in any danger doing this job. I won't object to her continuing. She and I are going to still have a long talk about this whole business, when and where she has been talking to my ex-wife, and what Sunset has been teaching her."

Lántiān's eyes narrowed. "In that case, you might wish to discuss her having learned Ma'am's secret technique. It is extremely dangerous, not something any adult, much less a filly, should learn."

The stallion scowled. "What's she talking about, Jordan?"

Jordan gulped and stood up. "I don't think I could actually pull it off, so you don't have to worry about me trying."

"What is it, Jordan?" the stallion repeated.

Jordan stepped back nervously. "I really shouldn't be giving away Auntie Sunset's secrets."

"Jordan! Tell me immediately, young filly, or you are grounded for a month," he snapped.

"Wow, Jordan never gets in trouble," Jackie said in awe.

Jordan gulped. "Okay, I'll explain it in simple terms, but it is much more complicated than this, okay?"

Her dad continued to glare at her without saying anything, and she gulped again.

"Alright…" Jordan said slowly, cantering in place nervously. "Every bit of magic anyone does is a spell, whether they think about what they do or not. Every spell is like a code, like a program in a computer. Each rune is a segment of that code."

"I understand that much already," her dad interrupted. "I might not be a mage, or know as much as you, but I understand the elementary-level stuff."

"I have to make sure you understand what we are discussing," Jordan said quickly before continuing. "Normally, when someone is thinking about casting a spell, the code is tight and well-formed. However, if someone is emotional or sloppy with their spell casting, that code gets looser, and there is space to insert other runes into the code. Most unicorns try to overpower a spell when fighting magic; it is an instinctual way of fighting with magic. Auntie Sunset isn't going to be overpowering anyone with her magic; she isn't strong enough."

"And just like you aren't strong enough yet," Jackie added in.

Jordan gave her sister an annoyed look, but nodded. "Yeah, so since overpowering is out of the question, Auntie Sunset falls back on what makes her a great mage. She might be famous for knowing a lot about transformation magic, but her big strength as a mage is her ability to amalgamate spells—that's combining spells to make something else. Normally, this takes a lot of power too, more than she has. That's why she does more designing than casting, but with her technique, she can take the power of another pony and use it to fuel the amalgamation. She basically hacks the other pony's spell."

The stallion's eyes narrowed. "And what happens then, and why is this so terrible?"

Jordan gulped. "In theory, Auntie Sunset could completely hijack their spellcasting for a few seconds and make them cast something utterly different of her choice. That isn't likely, given she has only a split-second to think about it. So instead, she creates an infinite feedback loop and depending on how strong the caster is that she just hacked, the stronger the result will be. For a weaker caster, the spell will do a minor backfire and give them a headache while knocking them senseless—in theory, anyway, but for a stronger caster, the spell can blow up upon completion—I'm talking about fire and brimstone explosion. She said she did that kind of thing only once. It killed the unicorn she hacked, and the blast from the explosion scarred her for life."

"YOU ARE NEVER TO DO THAT!" the stallion yelled at the top of his lungs.

Jordan cringed. "Daddy, I don't think I could if I wanted to! You have a split-second to recognize what the other pony is trying to do, find the vulnerabilities in their spell, and know precisely what to insert based on the situation. Do you have any idea how unimaginably hard that is? Do you know how many ways you have to know off the back of your head to make a spell go wrong based on the situation? I understand the theory, but I have no idea how Auntie Sunset managed it. It's fu— um, insane."

"Nice saving throw to not cuss," Jackie chuckled.

I wanted to help Jordan out some more. "You know, sir, Jordan seems like she's pretty talented and intelligent. I'm sure she knows how to keep herself, and us, out of danger. She didn't explain that like a kid, but like a magic expert who knows what they're doing and recognizes and respects how dangerous this stuff can be. You should be really proud of how mature she is. You did a great job raising her to be a capable young mare."

He gave me a raised eyebrow, and I gave him my best smile. He then shook his head and looked at Jordan with his ears sagged. "Fine, I trust you know what you're doing. It's hard not to look at you and your sister and see my baby fillies who need their dad to take care of and protect them. Your friend is right, you're starting to transition into young adults, and although you might not be adults yet, I need to stop treating you both like helpless foals."

"Or innocent ones," Jackie chimed in. "Have you seen Jordan's porn stash?"

Jordan's fur went from lavender to a very dark purple. "Jackie! How could you rat me out like that?!"

Their dad's face darkened slightly as well. "No, but your mother talked to me about it and says she is taking care of the situation—as well as yours, Jacqueline. Don't try to hide what goes on with you by pointing a hoof at your sister. It was an effort not to storm in and get involved when I found out, but your mother convinced me I might be too restrictive in my approach and counterproductive if I got involved. I trust her. Just don't bring it up around me. Let me have some fatherly illusions about you two being my innocent little angels who would never think about that stuff." He paused and smirked. "Oh, but you are getting grounded, Jackie."

"What?! For what?!" Jackie whined.

"Trying to deliberately embarrass your sister," he said with a stiff nod. "I don't mind you tattling about things when Jordan might be putting herself in danger—I actually hope you do in those cases, but trying to embarrass her is not a good reason to tattle. Have some more loyalty to your sister. I expected better of you. You know it's your job to watch your sister's back."

Jackie hung her head and looked at Jordan. "Sorry, Jor. I shouldn't have done that." She then turned and looked at her dad. "So, what's the damage? How long am I in for?"

"Early bedtime for the remainder of the weekend," he answered.

Jackie shrugged. "Okay, it could be worse. I was expecting worse."

"And I am going to tell Tempest," he tacked on.

That made Jackie's head shoot up. "What happened to tattling is wrong!"

"She can drive home the lesson better, and since it's part of your self-defense training, it will be more productive than me just restricting you from some things," their father said.

"Sorry, Jackie," Jordan said in a low voice.

Jackie gave her a little smile. "Don't be. It's my fault, not yours."

Lántiān cleared her throat to get their attention. "If you are done. I can see to it that Jordan gets her wages. Will she be returning tomorrow to continue her job?"

Jordan looked at her dad. He sighed again. "Yeah, she can continue doing the bodyguard-foalsitter thing."

Lántiān nodded. "Good." She then briefly looked at me. "Stay here. I still need to discuss today with you, and see you are paid. I prefer they are all gone first."

I saluted. "Yes, Lántiān, ma'am, sir!"

She grumbled and went to go pay Jordan while I waited nervously for whatever chewing out was coming.

Chapter 62: The Stiff Mare

The Gilmores finally left after a great deal of the two sisters ribbing on one another, much to their father's consternation. He seemed to understand that they were being good-natured about it rather than nasty. He did cover his ears when the two of them started teasing one another about their tastes in colts, and I wouldn't be shocked if they were doing it on purpose to needle at their dad. The likes weren't that surprising. Jordan found colts with bold colors or two-tone manes very handsome, and Jackie was all about wingspan. I could tell Jordan had a dirty joke on the edge of her tongue about her sister's tastes but wasn't going to say that in front of their dad. The two of them would have fit right in with my friends the way they talked about guys.

But they did leave, eventually, and that left me sitting in the living room with Lántiān.

She looked at me. "Drizzle is bathing Wrinkles, then gathering her bed stuff to wash, setting up the Roomba for her room, and finally, she was told to go play quietly in her room after she is done with her chores. We should not be interrupted."

"That's a lot of chores," I said.

She raised an eyebrow. "I disagree; it is barely anything. She needs to be responsible for her animal. Running a single load of laundry is hardly a major task, and the robotic vacuum does its job on its own once it is set up. I don't ask much from my daughter, but I ask her to keep up with her room and pet. I will be asking her to assist me tonight with cooking as I continue to educate her about preparing food. Being a parent means teaching your foals responsibility and life skills. When she is older, she will take on more chores. These will do for now. Responsibility should be slowly increased, not dropped on a foal all at once. My mother did that to me, and it messed me up."

My ears sagged. "I'm sorry that Miss Seapony did that to you. I know she didn't mean to hurt you. She loves you."

Lántiān's face twisted into a sneer. "I'm well aware my mother loves me, but as Ma'am would say, that doesn't mean she didn't royally fuck up."

I didn't know how to respond to that. I knew her mother was a very touchy subject, especially between us. I didn't even know how much I should be defending Miss Seapony other than insisting that she did, in fact, love her foals. It was best to let the subject lie.

"You wanted to talk to me about today?" I prompted.

She seemed to calm down visibly. "Yes, you mentioned that Wrinkles tried to drag my daughter out into the street. I'm assuming you were the one that stopped that from happening?"

I nodded. "I belly-flopped on the leash and stopped him in his tracks. Jordan had stepped inside for a moment, so she couldn't help right then."

Lántiān nodded. "Our neighbor would have probably prevented that, but I can't be certain they were watching at that moment. If they weren't, then you saved my daughter. Thank you."

"You're welcome," I said with a small smile. "I wouldn't want her to get hurt, even if that wasn't my job."

She nodded again. "Try to ensure in the future that Jordan is where she needs to be when you are outside. I am putting that responsibility on you. You could have saved yourself some grass stains and some panic if she had been there."

"I'll make sure Jordan remembers to use the potty before leaving the house," I assured her. "I was annoyed by it too, at the time, but didn't realize how much of a problem it was going to turn into."

"Now you know," Lántiān replied. She then looked back towards the hall and back towards me. "I most wanted to talk about the discussion you were having with my daughter when I walked in."

I shivered. "What did she say to you about it?"

Lántiān gestured for me to sit on the couch, and not wanting to argue, I did. She joined me on the other end of the sofa.

"Drizzle and I had a talk about what's important to each of us," Lántiān said slowly. "Thanks to what you said, she understood much of my feelings… I am assuming you learned those things from my mother. You are lucky she is dead, and the dead have no secrets. It is a stupid loophole, but it is a loophole. Without that, you might be in line for a fine."

"Some of it was just guesses, based on your art and things I heard her say," I said quietly.

"The art you saw me show her in a dream?" Lántiān asked with a raised eyebrow.

"Um… yeah…"

She covered her face with a wing and shook her head. "Rebecca Riddle, for one hoping to be a Dreamwarden, you are terrible at following their rules. I will state to them tonight I permit you to use that information. Perhaps that will spare you punishment, but please, do not disclose my private thoughts again."

"Lips sealed," I said quickly.

She sighed and looked away. "It is hard for me to let go of certain things. You are no doubt all too aware of this, and I apologize for that. I am trying my best to be reasonable and fair. This doesn't just extend to things involving you. I still consider my home China and still consider myself and my daughter as temporary USA residents until our homeland is free. It is hard for me to admit that freedom may not come in my lifetime. It hurts to admit it, so I don't, and I maintain the false hope that me, my brothers, and my daughter can go home again soon and everything will be good."

I risked speaking up. "But that isn't a realistic thing to expect to happen, even if your homeland was freed today."

She was silent for a few seconds before nodding. "You are right. My brothers have adopted Ma'am as their new mother, and their home is with her. My daughter has spent almost her entire life in this country. She barely speaks any Mandarin. Her friends and family are all here. For all important purposes, this is her home, and it would be cruel to ask her to leave it behind. My mother may have forced me to flee mine, but at least she was thinking about our safety, not her selfish wishes. I know she would have wanted to stay if she felt we were safe. She loved China, loved it fiercely. My mother is a pony of many deep attachments, and letting go of China must have hurt her deeply."

"And now, you're wondering if you need to let go too?" I asked.

She laid her head down on the edge of the couch. "Yes."

"What about Drizzle's heritage?" I asked.

She looked at me and lifted her head back up. "Drizzle appreciates me teaching her about China because it is time spent with me and time spent learning about me. She wants to know all about me, but she doesn't want to be me. She might have accepted me teaching her as much about China as I did to get my approval, and that is just her repeating my mistakes and my mother's mistakes."

"So… what are you going to do instead?" I asked.

She took a deep breath. "I will teach her only so much as relates directly to our family and me, or as much extra that she asks about. I shall not force her to be Chinese. I shall accept she is an… American and she will grow up to have an American husband and American foals, and I will do my best to be her American mom."

I tilted my head. "You know, it sounds like you aren't all on board with this, just a little hesitation, just a little… teeny-tiny, almost unnoticeable. I am only barely picking up on—"

"I get the point, Rebecca Riddle. Please, abstain from annoying me. I'm trying hard not to dislike you."

"Okay, okay," I replied quickly. "I think you should be honest with her that it will take time for you to adjust to the idea. She's going to notice that you aren't thrilled about it. She already notices that you don't always say her name right. Kids can be perceptive. By the way, you can call me Rebecca. Saying my first and last name like that sounds a teeny-weeny bit hostile. I do appreciate you trying not to hate me. It makes me feel a little better. Do you have any cake?"

"No, I do not have cake, Rebecca," she snapped. "You need to lay off the cake. Your weight is not healthy. You'll develop high blood pressure if you don't lose some weight, and that can lead to early heart attacks. We don't need another undead Dreamwarden because you couldn't stop stuffing your face."

That dragged me back to something I was thinking of earlier. "I need some advice. Can you help me out? I figure you'll be honest with me."

Lántiān flattened her ears and glared at me.

I started trying to shuffle off the couch. "Or… you can just pay me, and I'll get going."

"Get back on the couch," Lántiān ordered. I hopped back up and planted my rump firmly in place. She glared at me some more. "Why do people I don't like always come to me asking for advice?"

I gave a big grin. "Your charming personality?"

She snorted. "You and Ma'am. You're enough to make me scream. What do you want me to give my valued opinion on? I already gave you advice. It was to stop eating so much, you fat tub of lard."

I blinked. "I'm going to say this as nice as I can. You need to work on your people skills. It seems like you like to mentor, so I'm surprised you come off as rude as you do."

She gave me a long look. "How do you know I like to mentor?"

"Well, Julie says you took her under your wing last year when she was starting on the flight team, and she appreciated how much you helped her. Now you had Jackie with you today, showing her the ropes. It just makes me think you care a lot about helping others be great, even if you act all prickly and mean."

She flicked an ear. "What advice are you seeking?"

I stared down at the floor. "I am not promised to be the next Dreamwarden. There are other candidates, and we are all still being considered. I can also refuse to become one even if I end up the pick at the end. I'm dating this guy—"

She sat up. "You are dating? It must be your personality. Continue."

It was my personality, so I didn't get mad at her implication. "I'm dating this guy and thinking about how being a Dreamwarden would impact getting married, adopting foals, and all that. I always thought it was something that would be completely unfair to any family I might have. I mean, look at Phobia's family and them training their kids to be like killer ninjas."

"I would not label Jordan and Jackie as killer ninjas," Lántiān replied in mild amusement.

"I was thinking more of Phobia's actual foals," I clarified. "Everybody keeps talking about how scary Arachne and Charlotte are."

Lántiān shrugged. "They are night ponies whose aggression has been directed into combat training from early foalhood. I think you have missed that those two fillies feel they have something to prove, which drives them even harder. Learning to be brutal fighters is a form of independence for them. Both seek to hear their praises sung, not for their mother's approval, but to not live in her shadow forever."

I blinked again. "Really?"

"You are not the only one who can be perceptive, Rebecca. I know what I have observed. The Terror Twins wish to make names for themselves and not forever be referred to first and foremost as Phobia Remedy's daughters. I understand the feeling. I would hate always to be referenced as Yinyu's daughter rather than myself or as Sunset Blessing's ward. No one wants to be merely an accessory to someone else's identity, not anyone with any self-respect anyway."

I smirked. "Jordan and her dad were just getting on Jackie's case for calling those two the Terror Twins."

She snorted again. "It is a good way of referencing them, although I suppose it is unfair. They may be twins, and they may both fight like terrors, but they are very different ponies. Charlotte is moody and resents the pressure put upon her by her birth but has a good heart. All that I will say about Arachne is that she is well named, a spider. Lumping both under a single title implies they are the same, and they are not."

"People should be judged as individuals," I agreed.

She tapped a hoof on the couch absently. "Phobia's foals are not the only ones to look at. You can use my brothers and me as well. I will try to give you a fair and honest answer."

I waited as she took a deep breath and looked me in the eyes. "My brothers live a wonderful life, and I cannot say mine is unpleasant. Yes, there is always security around, but at this point, I have grown used to it. My relationship with my mother is strained, but I cannot say her being a Dreamwarden is the primary reason for that. She was nocturnal; I was not. She spent much of her time when we were both awake taking strangers into her bedroom. She had pressures from the Chinese government that she dared not speak to me about. She had two more foals that were also not nocturnal, and it fell to me to take care of them. There also was never a father figure in my life to give me support where she did not. I can't say all that is the fault of her being a Dreamwarden."

I flattened my ears. "Um… do you need a minute after saying all that? I know you don't like talking about that."

She bit her lower lip and shook her head. "I'll be fine, but thank you for your consideration. If I need to, I will scream into a pillow later."

"I guess that is better," I said with a nervous laugh. I raised a wing in a weak cheer. "Yea, progress.

She raised an eyebrow at me and just stared. I put my wing down and gave more nervous laughter. "Are you sure you don't have any cake? Maybe some cookies? I'm not going to lie; you kinda intimidate me, and I normally don't get intimidated. You look at me, and I imagine you're having fantasies about ripping my spine out through my nose."

"You are a bizarre ball of mush, do you know that?" she asked without changing expression.

I gave a toothy grin. "I like to think of myself as unique."

"Right, we'll go with that word," Lántiān said slowly. "So… how long have you been dating this pony?"

I perked up. "He's actually human. His name is Russell. He goes to our school, and he's really sweet. We had one date so far, but we are lined up for a second!"

The flat look returned. "Just to clarify, in case I'm missing something. You're concerned about the impact you becoming a Dreamwarden will have on any future foals you might have, but you're dating a human? And this human you have been on one date with, so it isn't even that serious a relationship?"

"Well, we could adopt," I pointed out.

She wiped her face with a wing and groaned. "The point is, don't you think you are worrying about something that may not be an issue? You have been on one date; that is too early to be worrying about your entire future family."

"Do you have experience dating?" I asked.

That evil eyebrow of hers went up again. "Why, no, of course not. Drizzle just magically appeared one day, and I have no idea where she came from."

I gave an embarrassed chuckle. I guessed that whoever had knocked her up hadn't been with her for her personality. What would it take to get her to be nice? Is this what counted as nice with her?

"Yeah… forget I asked that. That was a very stupid question."

That made her crack a smile. "That we can agree on. Rebecca, my advice is to not worry about it unless it looks like the relationship will go that way. You pointed out that you may not even become a Dreamwarden, so you could be worrying yourself over nothing. Does this human have magic?"

I shook my head. "He said he never got ETS."

She nodded. "If the relationship does advance and you do become a Dreamwarden, that could be a benefit. I imagine being in a relationship where you know everything that goes on in your significant other's mind would be challenging. It could be a relief to have a partner you couldn't mindread."

I blinked. "I hadn't considered that. I have thought about all the social and family implications of becoming a Dreamwarden for years, but with the very real possibility it could be happening and happening soon, it just makes me get so flustered and second-guessing myself and think about all this stuff I never considered before, you know? I'm usually very calm, easy-going, go with the flow, but this is the first time in a long time that I am stressed—like, really stressed."

She gave me what I swore might be a sympathetic look. It was hard to tell with her. "It's a life-changing decision that you can't change your mind on after you have made it. It makes sense that you would be stressed. You would be even stranger than you are if you weren't stressed." She looked at my stomach. "I think you're lying about never getting stressed. Your requests for cookies and cake make me think you are a stress eater, and your girth tells me there has been a lot of eating over time."

I touched my pounch. "Yeah, but normally I have easy access to sweets. I haven't had that since starting college. Comfort food helps all that stuff not to get to me."

"That is not good for you," she said flatly. "I'm not trying to be insulting, but you really need to come up with a more healthy way of dealing with stress."

"I know, but cookies and cakes taste so good," I pouted. I took a deep breath and then smiled at her. "Thanks for talking to me and trying to be nice. Does this mean we are friends now?"

She shook her head. "No."

My entire posture deflated.

She gave me a considering look. "But… it's getting better. I don't want to pull your spine out through your nose anymore. Perhaps just pluck your wings, shave you bald, and tie your tail in knots."

I cringed and gave some nervous chuckles. "Um… progress… horay."

She got down from the couch. "Progress indeed. Let me pay you now. I only need you for a few hours tomorrow, earlier in the morning. So tomorrow should be easier."

Well, progress was progress. I would just have to work on getting her not to hate my guts slowly.

Chapter 63: An Unexpected Interrogation

The rest of the day was spent with my roommates and bathroommates. We went to a hookah bar, taking a bus since Ashley obviously couldn't fly and we weren't going to have her travel alone.

By the time we were done with the hookah bar, my head hurt, and my nose was stuffed up. It had been fun, for a while, to sit and sing songs. Most of my group weren't very good singers, and we laughed at each other for how badly we were destroying the notes, but that seemed to be the norm for the patrons of the hookah bar and all part of the fun.

Now I was just ready for bed. We had all taken time showering to get the stink of the place out of our fur, and everyone but Nightscape was tired. I didn't even remember laying down in bed.

"Rebecca Riddle, prepare yourself to be questioned."

I looked around myself in confusion. I was in what looked like the center of a giant amphitheater. The entire place seemed to be done in white marble, and the sky was star-filled. There were shadowy figures out in the seats that I couldn't make out. The Dreamwardens surrounded me in a circle, evenly spaced apart so that I couldn't look at them all at once. They were all in their dream forms—Phobia Remedy was a shadow with glowing eyes, Arbiter was her standard angelic form, Ghadab was a figure on fire, Miss Seapony was in her seapony form, Psychic Calm was a stag, Avtandil was a shadowy figure with a white cape and no face.

It took me a moment to figure out that Phobia Remedy had spoken, and I faced her. "What's going on? Am I in trouble for something?"

I had heard of the old Dreamwarden trials. Was this a trial?

Her eyes focused on me from within the shadow. "You and the other top five candidates shall be questioned. You shall not see other candidates nor hear their answers, but they shall receive the same questions. The audience around you are the representatives of the nations that the Dreamwardens have treaties with. Your appearance, name, even the normal sound of your voice, shall be kept from them, but they shall hear our questions and your answers. They shall hear us identify you as Candidate Purple. Do you give permission for them to hear your answers?"

This was some type of test, a test they hadn't warned me about at all. They wanted us to be unprepared for it.

"I agree to all of that," I said, practically squeaking.

The eyes slowly blinked. "All candidates have agreed, so we begin."

"Rebecca Riddle," Ghadab spoke first, and I turned to face him. "There is currently an ongoing war in the nations of Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, and Tajikistan. This war centers around tens of thousands of pony migrants from the Middle East that have settled in the region and formed a Celestia worshiping cult. This cult has spread to many of the humans in the region as well. Militant groups and troops from the three nations have all gotten involved to suppress this cult's growth and force out the migrants. Should the Dreamwardens get involved or stay out of the situation, and if we were to get involved, what action should we take?"

Okay, count me as entirely unprepared. I felt like I was in a nightmare where I showed up to class to take the final exam and had missed every day of class up to that point.

"We await your answer, Rebecca Riddle," Ghadab said in a neutral tone.

Answer… right. I needed to answer the question. "Um… I would get involved and work towards a solution that involves the least amount of people getting hurt. I don't know what that is yet, because I am not familiar enough with what is going on to say, but I would be open to listening to all sides for suggestions."

All was quiet for a moment. I wondered if they were judging my answer or laughing at me for being completely clueless.

"Rebecca Riddle," Avtandil said, making me have to turn completely around to face him. "Human magic is still a relatively new thing and has to date been unpredictable. There is a belief that, inevitably, all humans will eventually develop magic over several thousand years with some regions—such as the United States, possibly reaching this point in just a few centuries. The Blessingist group seeks to speed up this process. Should the spread of magic in humanity be encouraged, discouraged, or left to advance at its normal rate?"

Wait? They weren't going to tell me what they thought of my answer to the last question? Were they just moving onto the next one right away?

"Your answer, Miss Riddle?" Avtandil prompted.

"I think that this question is none of the Dreamwardens' concern and should be handled by the different governments since they may have very different opinions on what to do," I answered, a little more confident in this answer than my previous one.

"Rebecca," this time, it was Miss Seapony that spoke, and I again had to almost completely turn around to face her. "Night ponies and crystal ponies seem to be recessive tribes. This means that, unlike the main three tribes, there is zero possibility of a night pony or crystal pony birth unless one of the parents is of that tribe, and then it is only a fifty-fifty chance per birth in mixed unions—at this point, that number will decline in future generations. With their numbers already low, and many of them turning to mates outside their tribe, there is a genuine chance these tribes could go extinct within a thousand years' time. Should we be interfering and trying to encourage them to stick to mating within their tribe—something that can cause friction in their communities and with other tribes, or should we let nature take its course and let the tribes slowly descend to extinction?"

Extinction? Seriously? No one ever told me that two of the tribes were facing extinction! Sure, they said it would take like a thousand years, but it was still extinction they were talking about.

"Rebecca, what is your answer?" Miss Seapony asked, keeping her voice calm.

I fidgeted in place. Why were they asking me all these big questions out of the blue? I knew why, because these were important issues that Dreamwardens could possibly get involved in. They could directly reach any magic-user in our universe, which gave them options even governments didn't have. There was the overhanging question of whether they should or whether they should keep strictly to dream realm and mind magic affairs.

"I think we should want to help save the tribes and work in partnership with governments to explore options that best fit the capabilities and cultures of the different nations. It should not be a one size fits all approach," I answered. I hoped that they liked that answer. All these representatives were listening and judging. This was even more about them than the Dreamwardens.

"Miss Riddle." I had to turn around again to see Psychic Calm speaking. Were they doing that on purpose? I bet they were. They were trying to keep me from settling.

He regarded me with a blank expression, although it was hard to tell on a deer. "Some nations have expressed concern about the freedom of Equestrian dreamwalkers to visit dreams while on Earth, particularly Princess Luna. Should the Dreamwardens step and restrict her movement in the dream realm while she is visiting to only pre-approved individuals, or should we simply continue to apply the rules in the same way we would any Earth-born individual?"

Now they were hitting me with a question that I knew they would have a very different opinion on than the governments did. The treaty governments wanted assurances that the Dreamwardens were loyal to their interests before the interests of Equestria. Hold it… wasn't Equestria one of the treaty partners? No matter how I answered this question, a lot of people were going to be unhappy with the answer.

Psychic Calm didn't prompt me; he just stared at me, waiting.

I gulped. Just going to answer it as best I could. "I think… I think that unless she commits a crime, or unless she commits to an agreement with governments that restricts her, we should treat Luna and the other Equestrians like anyone on Earth. If they have some sort of agreement in place, we should enforce it, but otherwise no extra privileges and no less."

"Rebecca," Arbiter said, yet another person I had to turn around to see. "Piggybacking off of what you just said; some nations are asking for us to put restrictions on their residents using the dream realm—restricting access or denying access altogether in some cases. This would be by their national law and not something their citizens individually agreed to. Should we or should we not honor these laws?"

I wanted to cry. All the governments in the treaty were here, listening to my answer. If I said no restriction, then I was effectively blowing them off. If I said restriction was okay then I was effectively surrendering them full authority over the dream realm and possibly overriding the will of the people. What was I supposed to answer in this case?

"Everyone is waiting on your answer, Rebecca," Arbiter prompted.

"I need a minute to think," I replied. "Just give me a minute." A minute? I needed about a year.

It felt like all eyes were on me, which I suppose they were. What were they seeing and hearing? I knew the Dreamwardens were masking me somehow, but could the audience still tell I was flustered? How were the other candidates doing? I could imagine this kind of pressure might have Sunflower in tears. She barely knew anything about the world as it was, and they were hitting her with these kinds of questions. It hardly seemed fair. I guessed I should be happy I might be doing better, but I still felt sorry for her.

"You must give me an answer, Rebecca. Whatever answer comes from your gut," Arbiter said with the calmest insistence I had ever heard. They were giving no emotional reaction to any of this.

I shook my head. "My gut says no to any outright ban. If they want to talk about restrictions, I would need more specific information about what kind of restriction and what the justification is."

"Rebecca Riddle," Phobia Remedy spoke up, getting my attention. I didn't have to turn all the way around for her; she was just to Arbiter's right. "We have access to some knowledge of alien technology from past Dreamwardens. This knowledge is at times patchy, as our older memories are often incomplete, and these holes in our memory get worse the more generations back we must go. It is a group effort between the six of us to put together any detailed information about such things based on who can remember what. All of that is not directly related to the question I am about to ask you, only indirectly."

Are you kidding me? She said all that and didn't even make it to the point?! Most evil current Dreamwarden!

Phobia Remedy's shadow gave me a slant eye. "Don't make that face at me."

Was I making a face? Did all those representatives just hear her tell me that? How long till this nightmare ended?

"To get to the question," Phobia Remedy continued. "Should the Dreamwardens be obligated to share alien technology that doesn't advance our goals with the nations of the world?"

That doesn't advance their goals? What goals was she talking about that depended on giving people alien tech? Didn't Miss Seapony die because China wanted to ransom her kids to get alien tech knowledge from her? I didn't want to give them anything. They were bad people!

"No!" I shouted. "And what goals are you talking about?"

"We ask the questions, Rebecca Riddle," Ghadab chided. "Your next question is about OMMR fees across international borders—"

My ears sagged. This was the worst!

Chapter 64: Asprin, Comfort Food, and Poltergeists

I woke up and winced at my headache. It was too early, and it was still dark outside.

"Need some aspirin?"

I turned to see Nightscape, illuminated by the soft evening light coming in through the balcony doors, working with her legos.

I sat up, groaning. "How'd you know I need aspirin?"

Nightscape gestured towards the bathroom with a wing. I could hear the shower running. "Sunflower and Ashley are already up. Sunflower was crying and complaining about a headache. Ashley had to give her a shoulder to cry on. Julie and Meadow are still asleep, so keep your voice down."

I didn't like being right about how that ordeal would hit Sunflower.

"Any chance we could all take a walk down to Walgreens?" I asked. "I want to buy some snacks, and I want to be able to talk to Sunflower about why our heads hurt."

She frowned at me. "I don't know. You need to lay off the sweets."

I glared at her. "I need my comfort food right now, Nighty. That was a bad dream, a horrible dream."

She sighed. "Go ask Sunflower and Ashley if they are up to it. I'll come with you if they are, but I don't know if they will want to. You guys are up extremely early for day ponies, and Sunflower is in rough shape. What did they do to you two? She was crying about how she didn't get the study guide."

"A test we probably got an F on," I answered before walking into the bathroom. "Sunflower? Ashley? How are you guys doing?"

"I want to die!" Sunflower cried from the shower.

"She's doing great," Ashley said. "So much better than she was five minutes ago."

I forced a smile. "Sounds… wonderful. Hey, I was going to go down to Walgreens and get snacks. I need happy food, and I think you could use some happy food too if your dream went about the same as mine."

"Mine probably went worse! I made a complete fool of myself!" Sunflower lamented.

Meadow stepped into the bathroom, rubbing her eyes. "What's with all the yelling?"

I had to think fast. "Sunflower had a nightmare. She had one of those where she shows up to class naked."

Meadow yawned and gave me a confused look. "But we're all almost always naked when we go to class. We're ponies; we rarely wear clothes."

I rubbed the back of my head. "Yeah, isn't it weird we get those nightmares just like humans do? What's up with that?"

Meadow tilted her head. "Really? I've never had a dream like that."

"Oh, you are so lucky!" I gushed. "They are terrible!"

"Very traumatic," Ashley agreed through the shower curtain.

"I didn't even know where whatever-istan was! I had to ask them to show me a map!" Sunflower cried. "Everypony must think I'm an idiot!"

I waved a wing in front of myself. "See, it's a result of college stress. She needs to cool off, relax, and everything will be okay."

"And all the night ponies and crystal ponies are going to die because of me!" Sunflower wept.

Nightscape stuck her head into the bathroom. "What was that about I'm going to die?"

"Nothing to worry about," I assured her.

"Um… I typically worry when someone announces my impending death—this might be the only time it has happened, but I think it is worth running one for one on the worry about it meter," Nightscape replied.

"No one is dying!" Ashley yelled. "Sunflower isn't dying; Nightscape isn't dying. It was just a bad dream."

"Rebecca and I are Dreamwarden candidates, and we just flunked the Dreamwarden test!" Sunflower announced. It still sounded like she was crying.

My eyes went wide for a second as I stared at Meadow. Meadow just gaped at the shower curtain for a few seconds before shaking her head.

"I see what's happening here," Meadow said.

I gave a nervous smile. "You do?"

Meadow nodded. "Yep, she is having one of those waking nightmares, and she is a little delusional."

Oh, thank you! I nodded quickly. "Yes, that's exactly it. You don't need to worry about it. Ashley and I have it covered. Go back to bed and get some rest."

"We're going to take her out for some air; we'll drag Nighty along with us to keep us all safe," Ashley added in. "Sun, we can go get you some nice flowers to snack on, and then a nice big breakfast with extra pancakes. I can then take you out to the Monument like you've been wanting to go, and we'll get there before all the crowds. Doesn't that sound nice?"

"I guess," Sunflower said miserably.

Meadow stretched and turned to head back into her room. "Okay, I do need to get some more sleep. I still have a sinus headache from the bar. Pick her up some melatonin; that should help her."

"Good idea," I agreed. I then waved goodbye to her. "See ya later. Sleep tight."

I waited until I heard Meadow getting back into bed before turning my attention back to the occupied shower. "Let me get my saddlebag, and we can head out. I just got paid, so I can cover purchases. We can talk about the dream on our way to Walgreens. I don't know how Julie didn't wake up too."

"She wanted to sleep in today, so she put earphones on," Nightscape replied. "All she can hear is soothing rain sounds, twelve hours worth. She mentioned it before we went to bed, don't you remember?"

I shook my head. "I was completely out of it last night when we got back. I don't even remember going to bed."

Nightscape chuckled. "Can't take the hookah smoke, huh?"

My head still hurt, and not all of it was from the dream. "Guess not. Do you still have that aspirin?"

"I'll take some aspirin too," Sunflower said as she opened the shower curtain. Her eyes were bloodshot from all the crying.

We took a minute or so to get medicated and for me to grab my appropriate saddlebags—I had one set for school and one set for going out. It didn't take long, and the four of us were soon on the elevator going down to the ground floor. We kept silent as we went. We would talk once we were away from everything.

After getting off the elevator, we started heading towards the exit when I spotted something unusual out of the corner of my eye.

I came to a stop and pointed a wing. "Hold up! Is that what I think it is?"

Everyone stopped to look where I was pointing. Sitting on the far side of the room, next to the elevators for the human side of the building, was a raggedy brown doll.

Nightscape shivered. "I'd recognize that thing anywhere. That's Phobia Remedy's creepy little doll she keeps in that case."

Ashley shook her head in denial. "I'm not going anywhere near that thing. If it really is just getting up and taking off out of her house on its own, then that thing is haunted or something. That's all kinds of bad ju-ju."

I gave a nervous look back and forth between them and the doll. "We can't just leave it. Phobia Remedy will want it back. She'll be upset if we saw it and left it."

Ashley took a few steps back and gestured at her scars. "You can get it if you want. I'm not touching that thing. I have lived through a psycho, and I don't want to live through a poltergeist."

I turned my head to the security guard on duty, a middle-aged human woman sitting behind a desk. "Hey, ma'am! How long has that doll been sitting there?"

She looked up and looked over at the doll. "It wasn't there ten minutes ago, and you four have been the only ones down here in that time. You trying to play a prank? Teleport a creepy doll in and act surprised? Get that thing out of here."

It showed up just in time for us. That made it all the more creepy. It might technically belong to Phobia Remedy, but that thing came from Sha'am Maut, and I didn't want to pick up anything she had owned, even if I knew it was the right thing to do.

Nightscape groaned and pushed ahead of me. "I guess this is technically a job for Ashley and me, and Ashley is a chicken. Out of the way, Marshmallow. Let Auntie Nighty save you all from the widdle scary doll."

"I'll sing eulogies at your funeral!" Ashley shouted after her. Nightscape waved her quiet with a wing as she marched towards the doll.

Nightscape confidently walked over to the doll and started reaching out to pick it up with a wing. At that very moment, the elevator door opened, and she jumped into the air and did a dive bomb towards the nearest couch.

"The brave night pony shows her stripes!" Ashley roared with laughter.

I wasn't concerned with that. I was concerned with who was on the elevator—Maggie.

Maggie stepped off the elevator and looked at Nightscape. "Something wrong?"

Nightscape peaked out from the couch. "You just startled me. Hey! Aren't you that girl that Phobia picked up? Did you put the doll out? Are you in league with the ghost of Sha'am Maut?"

Maggie gave her a dirty look. "What doll? No, I'm not in league with a ghost; definitely not in league with Sha'am Maut. Are you on drugs or something?"

Nightscape emerged from behind the couch. "That doll right… where the hell did it go?"

"I told you, the damn thing is haunted," Ashley said with smug satisfaction. "Next thing we know, it will be climbing out from under our beds and holding knives to our throats. You watch. It will happen."

Maggie focused her eyes on me. "Bec? What are your crazy friends going on about? And what are you doing up so early?"

I looked around. "It's a long story. Um… you wouldn't happen to see an old ugly doll anywhere, would you? It was just in front of the elevator doors before you came down?"

"It got up and ran away!" Ashley insisted. "I told you, the thing is haunted!"

"I didn't see it move," Sunflower whispered. "It just isn't there anymore."

Ashley gave her a scowl. "That's just a testament to how quickly it moves. Haven't you ever seen a horror movie? Haunted objects quietly sit there, and the second you blink or turn away, they have taken off and moved across the room."

"Should we look for it?" I asked, still looking left and right.

"I don't think we'll find it if we do," Ashley asserted. "It goes where it wants to go."

Sunflower shivered. "I don't feel safe walking to Walgreens right now. I had a bad enough experience at the Dreamwarden's house when it took off the first time."

Ashley glanced at Maggie. "Maybe you shouldn't talk about that right now."

The distraught and now scared pegasus gave an angry flap of her wings. "I don't care who knows I was a candidate to be a Dreamwarden. I failed so hard last night on that test I can't be in the running anymore."

Nightscape, Ashley, and I hurriedly looked at Maggie and the security guard to see if they were listening. Maggie had obviously been listening and was now frowning at Sunflower, but luckily the security guard had gotten up and was entering the restroom at that very minute. I was pretty sure she hadn't heard that, and if she did, then she might have just blown it off as part of our supposed prank.

"You're all going to Walgreens?" Maggie asked. "I'll give you a ride."

"I don't think—" Ashley started to say.

"We accept!" I blurted out. Ashley glared at me, and I gave her a weak smile. "Maggie already knew about me, and there's no way you are going to blow off what Sunflower said to her. The car ride will give us extra privacy."

Ashley looked away. "Fine. I suppose that will help keep Sunflower from blurting things out along the way until we can get her settled down."

"Why is she so much more upset about this doll than the rest of you?" Maggie asked.

"She isn't," I replied. "Sunflower and I had a kind of test last night when we were dreaming, one I don't think any of the people getting interviewed were prepared for, and she's upset she might have looked like an idiot. I'm not upset that I might have looked like an idiot because I'm sure I probably said a bunch of dumb stuff. I don't think the point was for us to know the answers."

Sunflower looked up at me. "It wasn't? Then… why did they ask us those questions?"

"I'll explain in the car," I assured her. Then looked at Maggie. "Thanks for doing this. Does this mean we are talking again?"

"Maybe," she answered. "Mainly wanted to know about the doll thing, but now I want to know about your test. The reason I'm up so early is one of the girls I share a bathroom with woke me up by making a commotion in the bathroom about how she just failed a test. That was kinda weird, considering she had been asleep, and we haven't even had two days of any single class yet."

Nightscape looked at Ashley. "You don't think it is seriously possible, do you? Three, in one school?"

Ashley looked at Maggie. "Is she a freshman?"

Maggie nodded. "Everyone in my hall is a freshman. She has a weird accent—something European I can't place. I tried checking on her to see if I could help calm her down, but her roommate came in the bathroom and slammed the door in my face."

"Protective person hovering around her," Nightscape said quietly. "It might not mean anything, but that could scream bodyguard. Still, three in one school? There are only five of them. What are the odds of that happening?"

"Not so low as you might think if Dreamwardens are pulling strings," Ashley replied. "I'm guessing the candidates all fit a profile—similar interests, age, and disposition. They aren't exactly the same, obviously, but they need to check off certain points on a list. Also, you know Phobia Remedy doesn't like to travel, but she likes to meet people in person. Having them all together also gives the Dreamwardens the ability to watch them under similar conditions and pressures. I wouldn't be shocked if the other two were in town as well—if this is what is going on."

"Maybe you should all continue this conversation in my car before you get yourselves in trouble," Maggie suggested.

We all nodded in agreement and followed her. I was hoping things could thaw a little more between us. However, I couldn't help thinking that the doll had meant for us to run into Maggie this morning.

Chapter 65: Four Ponies and a Human Get into a Car

We filed into the car, with me riding shotgun out of habit, and as soon as the doors were shut, everyone had something to say. Everyone wanted answers, but everyone also had a separate most pressing question, and it wasn't obvious who was asking who what.

"Tell me what's going on," Maggie demanded. "Are you saying I am possibly sharing a bathroom with the next Dreamwarden?"

"What was that about night ponies are all going to die?" Nightscape asked.

"How many people are we getting involved in this?" Ashley asked.

"What was the test about if it wasn't about the questions?" Sunflower asked.

"Can we go to IHOP or Waffle House?" I asked.

Nightscape took control of the situation. "Everybody hush! Let's start with the doll. Phobia put up cameras to watch the case after it vanished last time. I can call Tempest and ask her if it is still there, and if it isn't, how long has it been gone. Be quiet for a moment while I call."

We waited as Nightscape dialed the number, and the phone rang. It only took a few moments.

"Hello? Nightscape, correct? What do you need?" Tempest asked over the speakerphone.

"Hey, is that doll there right now?" Nightscape asked.

"It just returned," Tempest answered with a grunt. "I watched the camera feed. It was there, and then it wasn't. No flash to indicate a teleport. It returned much the same way. It wasn't there, and now it is. How did you know it left? Did that pegasus draw another picture?"

"No, it was just sitting around in the lobby of our dorm building," Nightscape replied. "We tried to grab it, but it pulled the same vanishing trick."

We heard Tempest groan. "Keep me advised if you see it again. I am tempted to support Sunset Blessing's suggestion and just burn the thing."

Nightscape blinked. "Sunset Blessing looked at it?"

"Yes, she came in as a consultation after Crystal failed to detect any magic in it. Sunset Blessing examined it and its case closely and found nothing that could cause the vanishing and reappearing, and she has personal experience with unusual teleportation methods. She called it a demonic toy and told us to burn it. However, the Dreamwarden does not wish to destroy it at this time. It has disappeared two other times, for only a few minutes each time. This is our first report of where it ended up."

"It wasn't doing anything, just sitting on the ground near an elevator," Nightscape reported. "Still, it freaked us all out."

"Who is all us?" Tempest asked.

"Me, Ashley, Sunflower, and Rebecca" Nightscape listed off.

"All people the Dreamwarden has had an audience with recently," Tempest said in a considering voice. "Audiences I was not partial to the reason for. Phobia and I will need to talk. We have an ongoing security breach with this doll, and I need to understand the connections. Keep me advised if you see it again."

"Yes, ma'am," Nightscape replied. The phone then went dead. She looked at the rest of us. "You know as much as me after that call. The doll just leaves when it wants to and comes back when it wants to, and no one knows why."

"What is the doll?" Maggie asked.

"Super creepy old doll that Sha'am Maut used to own," Ashley replied. "She left it to Phobia Remedy in her will, but only after Sha'am Maut retired from being a Dreamwarden and Arbiter took her place. No one is sure where the doll was held between Sha'am Maut's first and second deaths. Some lawyer from India just showed up at her door shortly after the Cataclysm with the doll and a hoof-written note from the Queen of Mean herself. The doll's old, like almost a hundred years old, and handmade."

Nightscape groaned. "She died, and then she died again in the dream real—"

"Went into the eternal dream," I corrected.

"Whatever. It's effectively dying again," Nightscape replied. "Now she's back again? What is she, a cat?"

"The Dreamwardens said they don't detect her presence. They said they would know if she were around," Sunflower said in a low voice.

"Not if she never sleeps!" Ashley suggested.

Maggie shook her head. "I write fanfiction, but I've got nothing on your wild imaginations. It's just a doll."

"Someone else could have done something to the doll," I suggested. "To make us think she's back."

"Who could do something that both Sunset Blessing and Crystal couldn't detect upon inspection?" Nightscape asked. "And they would have to sneak into Phobia Remedy's house without being detected. Do you know how many people are guarding that place? And that's just the ones we see. The government does surveillance too! It would have to be an inside job, and there's no mage talented enough on the inside."

"There's Sunset Blessing herself," Ashley suggested. "She knows how to pull some crazy stuff—with someone else casting for her. She could have been lying about not detecting anything and just putting on a show."

"Or it could be the Dreamwardens putting on a show and trying to fuck with you," Maggie suggested.

Nightscape pursed her lips. "I suppose that's a possibility."

I shook my head. "The Dreamwardens can't make things happen in the waking world. Plus, Phobia Remedy doesn't lie."

"Incorrect," Nightscape said quickly. "Phobia Remedy doesn't say anything untrue—at least as far she knows if it is untrue. That doesn't mean she doesn't lie. She can mislead you."

Ashley held up a hoof. "Or—and hear me out. What if it is one of the other candidates doing it? We all know that Rebecca and Sunflower have freaky weird magic."

Maggie turned in her seat. "Which one of you is Sunflower, and what magic are we talking about?"

Sunflower hung her head. "That's me. I draw things."

"Wow, how terrifying. Please, save me; she has a crayon," Maggie said flatly.

"You'd have to have been there," Ashley said with a shiver. "Anyway, if all the top five candidates are here in town, and all of them match a similar profile, then we must assume that the other three candidates have weird magic of their own."

"And the doll led us to the elevator right before Maggie came out of it, and she unintentionally blabbed about another potential candidate," I pointed out.

"Am I going to get hauled off again for this by the men in black?" Maggie demanded.

I shook my head quickly. "No, we won't let them do that to you again. Will we, girls?"

"Think once was enough," Nightscape replied and gave Maggie a sheepish smile. "We're sorry about reporting you to Phobia. No one expected her to do that."

"We should tell Meadow and Julie, too," Sunflower said as she laid down and looked miserable. "I hate keeping secrets from friends."

Ashley raised an eyebrow. "You tried telling Meadow just a few minutes ago. Luckily, she thought you were delusional. Are you done with that, announcing you are a Dreamwarden candidate to everyone? It's technically your business, but it can't help your chances, and it makes my job of guarding you much harder."

"Sure, but I think I blew it anyway. Last night was bad, horrible," Sunflower said mournfully. She then looked at me and jerked her ears. "You said that you don't think the answers mattered. Why?"

"Because they deliberately blindsided us," I replied. "If they cared what we thought about all that stuff, they would have prepped us a little or at least mentioned any of the stuff at some point in the past. All the delegates might have cared, but the Dreamwardens didn't."

She lifted her head. "So why'd they do it?"

"The obvious answer is to see how you would respond to the stress," Nightscape replied.

Ashley took a deep breath. "And you don't seem like you are doing so great with that, no offense. I doubt this is the end of it for you. They aren't going to can you over one bad day where they were deliberately trying to make you stress out."

"And you took the time to ask them questions back to clarify things you didn't know," I reminded her. "I should have thought to do that. I know there were a few questions that I completely made up answers to because I was too embarrassed to admit I had no idea what they were even talking about. Remember that one about allowances or whatever?"

"Civil allowance credits in developing nations?" Sunflower asked.

I pointed a wing at her. "That one. I had no idea what they were talking about and made something completely up. I bet you took the time to ask what the heck those were."

Nightscape looked at me in horror. "Tell me you aren't serious. You didn't just make up something out of the blue without even knowing what the subject of the question was about."

I nodded. "Sure did. Talked about them making sure they do their chores and learning responsibility."

Nightscape slapped a wing to her face. Sunflower actually chuckled.

I looked back and forth between them. "I'm guessing that answer made me look like a complete and total fool."

"Putting it very kindly," Nightscape replied, not exposing her face. "You probably gravely insulted a bunch of third-world nations. What were you thinking, fat for brains!"

I shrugged. "Whoops!"

Maggie looked at me in disbelief. "Did you hear what she said?"

I nodded. "Yeah, but there's nothing I can do about it now. It already happened. I hope I do better next time."

Ashley took a deep breath. "In summary, Sunflower showed at least some modicum of wisdom by asking about things she didn't understand, but blew the stress test. Rebecca breezed through the stress test but managed to look like the biggest damn jackass idiot there could be when answering questions. It doesn't sound like this human girl that Maggie shares a bathroom with did great on the stress test, and who knows how she did on the questioning. I think that you are still in the running, Sun."

"I'm not perfect on the stress thing either," I pointed out. "Chubby pony wants her cookies and cake! When are we leaving the parking lot?"

Ashley chuckled. "Gotta love Rebecca; she keeps her priorities clear."

Maggie started the car. "She's supposed to be on a diet. All that stress eating isn't good for her. It's going to come back and bite her eventually. I'm tempted to skip this trip to protect her from herself."

I perked my ears. "You still care about me?"

I flinched when she gave me a dirty look. "Yes, I care about you. I have a lot of complicated feelings about this Dreamwarden thing, but I don't hate you. I don't know Sunflower or the girl that shares a bathroom with me either, but I also don't hate them. It's just complicated, okay?"

"Maybe you should talk to us about it," Sunflower suggested. "We aren't Dreamwardens yet, and we might never be. If you don't like Dreamwardens, then it isn't just helping you to tell us; it lets us know a perspective about Dreamwardens that we didn't before—maybe it will change our minds."

"Proud of you, Sun," Ashley congratulated. "Saying stuff like that is why you deserve your shot at this."

"It's up to you, Mags," I quietly said. "We promise not to get mad if you say stuff we don't like. No judgments. You're upset at Dreamwardens for a reason. Telling us helps us make decisions about what we want to do, and if one of us does become a Dreamwarden, it lets us know what to avoid doing. Plus, I want to be able to hang out with my best friend again. You're important to me."

She banged her fist on the steering wheel twice, making me and everyone else cringe. She then shut the car back off and took a deep breath. "Fine. Just… give me a minute."

We waited, and it was almost a full minute before she started talking. "There are no ponies in my family, but there is one person, my aunt on my dad's side, who is rehumanized. My aunt had been a night pony for a little while after ETS. She had been all onboard with the pony thing and the great new world we were in."

"Why did she rehumanize?" Sunflower asked.

Maggie scowled. "It was Sha'am Maut. Sha'am caught her trying to spread visions and tortured her. My aunt didn't give up the first time, but after the second time, she was done. She rehumanized so she would never have to deal with Dreamwardens again and got critical of ponies after that, and it kinda spread to my dad and the rest of the family. There's always been some prejudice of ponies since then in our family, but we especially hate Dreamwardens."

My ears sagged, and I looked at Sunflower. Sunflower seemed confused. "But we aren't Sha'am Maut. Everypony knows she was bad. We'd never do stuff like that."

"I don't even want anything to do with her evil little haunted doll," Ashley added in. "I can promise you, Rebecca and Sun aren't at all like her."

Maggie slammed her steering wheel again."I know that! I have known Rebecca for years. I know she would never even think of doing that kind of stuff. It just horrified me that she is associated with the group that Sha'am Maut was in. It's like hearing she not only signed up for but was being put in a position of leadership in the Communist Party. I am sure there are plenty of communist people who are great people with great ideals, but there's this whole history of bad people you can't help associating with them. I'm not sure that works as a comparison, but that's the best I can do."

"Um… we aren't communists," Sunflower replied.

Maggie shook her head. "I was trying to think of something with bad connotations which isn't bad in and of itself. I know you aren't communists. The term Dreamwarden carries a lot of bad history with it—a bad history that involved them torturing a member of my family. It's hard not to hate them. Phobia Remedy even talked about giving my family reparations and gave me a personal apology for what happened, and offered to present the check to my aunt personally. It helps, but only a little. However, getting dragged off against my will didn't make it seem as good as it might have otherwise been. They are still doing crappy things."

"I still need to yell at her about that," I said.

Ashley looked at me in shock. "You are going to march up to the Warden of Fear and yell at her?"

I nodded. "She did something wrong and needs to get called out for it. It doesn't matter how powerful and important she is. If she votes for someone else because of that, then I didn't want her vote anyway. Miss Seapony said we shouldn't be worrying about doing whatever any Dreamwarden wants anyway. We're supposed to be individuals and stand up for what we believe is right. We can't be afraid of them. Miss Seapony says she supports me, but she might not always agree with me, and I might not always agree with her."

Sunflower sat up and blinked. "I understand. We are being judged by the strength of our convictions, not about whether we agree with theirs."

"Exactly," I said with another nod. "That's how Sha'am Maut got so out of control anyway. None of them were willing to stand up and say this isn't right until she had already done tons of terrible things. We can't be like that. If one of the Dreamwardens does something wrong, we have to have the courage to say something."

"So, what are we doing about the doll, and are we going to try to meet the other three candidates?" Nightscape asked.

"I can try to get you in to see the girls across the bathroom from me," Maggie offered.

"When did you become a member of this team?" Ashley asked.

Sunflower blinked. "We're a team?"

Ashley frowned. "Well, the team is more Nightscape and me trying to keep you guys safe and help you have your best chances of being elected Dreamwarden."

Maggie pointed a thumb back at herself. "I'm on the team because I got hauled off by Phobia Remedy's goons and because I want to help Rebecca out."

My eyes watered up. "You want to be best friends again?"

She looked at me and narrowed her eyes. "You would make a nicer Dreamwarden than any of those creeps that currently are, and if we have to have Dreamwardens, I would rather they be people like you who give a damn about how they dish out justice." She paused. "And it has been lonely without you to talk to. Who else is going to listen to me as I go through my existential crisis and pretend to be interested in my bad fanfics?"

I smiled. "Jordan seemed to like your fanfics."

Maggie laughed. "Jordan is a horny little thirteen-year-old who will take any piece of smutty writing she can get her little hooves on. I don't think she cares if it is good or not."

"Phobia Remedy's little bookworm sister?" Nightscape asked in shock, and both Maggie and I nodded. Nightscape gave an evil chuckle. "Oh, that's rich. I need to tell the other mares on night duty at the Dreamwarden's house. They'll start passing her books every chance they get."

Ashley glowered at Nightscape. "Don't go trying to corrupt the youth."

"Sounds like I don't have to do anything on that front; seems like she is corrupt already," Nightscape sniggered. "I'd never have pegged her as the deviant. It's always the quiet ones."

"Leave her be, Nighty," I chided. "Jordan's mom knows and is reviewing the… the smut… with Jordan, so she doesn't get unhealthy ideas. I don't think she would appreciate Jordan getting too much reading material for her mom to keep up with reviewing." I looked at Maggie. "But can we please go get snacks now?"

"Low-fat snacks," Maggie suggested.

My eyes bulged. "But that stuff never tastes right!"

"Keeping you safe from yourself, Bec," Maggie replied as she started the car again. "Anyway, everyone needs to strap in. I don't want any bored morning cops ticketing me because you weren't wearing your harnesses."

Chapter 66: An Unexpected Lead in Walgreens

Walgreens, a haven for college students throughout Skytree; great for making snack runs at unusual hours. Open twenty-four hours and full of a little bit of everything for inflated prices that make you go why am I paying twenty-five dollars for a bottle of shampoo I could buy at Walmart for eight? Then you remember; Walmart is across town, and Walgreens is right there. We had arrived, and it was time to get snacks. The marshmallow needs her munchies.

"Okay," Maggie said as she locked the car. "Try not to take too long. I don't want to be late for breakfast at the cafeteria."

"And Meadow will worry if we are still gone when she gets up," Sunflower added on.

Ashley grunted. "Meadow can call us if she is worried, and we'll tell her we're fine. She can hover and be protective—not in a bodyguard way, but she can be placated easily enough."

"Cancel out all the Dreamwarden talk while we're in the store," Nightscape scolded. "You're going to get us funny looks, or worse, people who actually ask questions."

We filed in through the automatic doors onto the grey carpet within. The rug just inside the doors was water-stained from people tracking their soaking wet hooves and shoes into the store, although it looked like at least one big bottle of something must have busted open on the spot at some point in the past. The store wasn't that old, so it didn't have that old musty drugstore smell. The first thing anyone noticed after coming into the store was an island checkout next to a regular checkout, which looked like it was just a dumping ground for extra bags and unopened cases of merchandise. There was a makeup counter just beyond that, which seemed to be serving the same purpose of being just a place to dump things. Then there were the aisles of goods, with signs on the ends of each identifying what was within each section.

There was also a big red sign saying that flying was strictly for getting goods off shelves, not for transversing the store, and that any winged pony that flew over the shelves would be asked to leave—which was pretty standard. It didn't bother me because I knew that could only lead to me knocking things over, but I had heard pegasi complain it was discrimination before.

Music started to play on the store radio, an altered version of the This is Halloween song, called This is Skytree. Fall had arrived, and with it, the long Halloween season of Skytree.

"Never heard of a place going so all out for Halloween until I got to this city," Ashley muttered. "Halloween is still months away, but they are already starting."

"Comes with having the Warden of Fear living in the city," Nightscape said. "How many cities can boast that they have their own Queen of Nightmares? Whether you are celebrating Halloween or Nightmare Night, she's the perfect icon for it."

"She doesn't seem like she should be," I said. "She scares so easily."

Nightscape looked around, and I saw her looking at Halloween decorations that were now on sale. "Not so much on that night. She is in command of the situation and therefore feels secure. Haven't you ever been out to town hall for the big sing-a-long they do there where the mayor declares her ceremonial Queen of the City for the night?"

I shook my head. "Never have. You'd think I would, but that event is always so crowded that my parents never want to go."

Nightscape chuckled. "They roll her up to town hall in a dark limo, watch her ascend the stairs of town hall as they sing her praises. She flares her wings and acts suitably scary, makes a speech, and rings in the festivities. Some trick or treaters will be brought in to give her candy offerings. She ends up donating all the candy she receives to kids who are stuck home, sick in bed."

"Aww, that's nice of her," Sunflower said with a smile.

Maggie scowled. "It's nothing but a PR move to try to make her seem like a fun holiday character, like Santa, rather than the monster she really is."

Well, our talk in the car hadn't gotten Maggie over her grudge. I hadn't expected it to, but it was a little disheartening that she was still making a point to call Dreamwardens monsters—and not the fun holiday ones.

I grabbed a shopping cart, which was pony-sized, but was one of those you had to prop your forehooves upon and balance walking on two legs with. It wasn't challenging, but it was always annoying. Ponies just weren't built to be doing that much walking on two legs, me even less so. Still, if you were in a store getting more than one thing, you probably needed a cart.

Maggie grabbed her own cart. "I'm going to go get some drinks I can put in my little fridge—Gatorade and maybe a half-gallon of milk. I'm also going to check on some regular food, like cereal and ramen noodles."

Ashley and Sunflower headed off in another direction. "Getting some stuff for Sunflower's bandages and some sleep aid," Ashley announced.

Nightscape started wandering off too. "I'm going to go check personal lubricants. Robby and I used the last of ours the other night."

I didn't need to know about that last one, but Nightscape took joy in making others uncomfortable.

That left me to get snacks by myself. I was okay with this; no one could complain I wasn't getting something healthy.

It didn't take long to find the candy aisle and start browsing some goodies. I started loading up—gummy worms, mini-muffins, mini-cookies, Lindor chocolates, two different types of trail mix, Jolly Ranchers.

"Hurry up and pick something out, Méng."

My ears perked at the voice the next aisle over. I knew that voice. I also recognized the name that was said. What was she doing here? It was enough to make me get nosey and nosey enough to stop picking out snacks.

I walked over to the next section and saw Sunset Blessing in her human form, wearing blue jeans, a t-shirt, and a purse. Her arms were crossed, and she was watching as Méng looked over a bunch of electronic chords. He grabbed a packaged chord skillfully with a single hoof, read over the packaging, then put it back on the shelf before looking over all the selections again.

"What was wrong with that one?" Sunset Blessing asked him.

"I didn't like the data transfer rate," Méng replied and picked up another to start reading.

Sunset Blessing sighed. "We are at Walgreens; I don't expect you are going to find the top quality stuff here. I will get you to a Best Buy or something as soon as I can. Just pick something out that will tide you over for a day."

"If it isn't good enough, my stuff will lag," Méng said with a whine.

"Fine," Sunset Blessing groaned. "Just try to be quick. I don't like leaving your brothers by themselves."

"Shadow Dancer is there. You could have sent him with me," Méng reminded her.

"Just hurry up, Méng."

His posture slouched. "Yes, Auntie."

I stepped closer. "Hello?"

They both jumped at my voice and looked over at me. Both quickly relaxed after seeing who it was. Méng returned to browsing, and Sunset Blessing stepped closer to me.

"Miss Riddle, nice to see you again," Sunset Blessing said with a smile. She looked at my cart. "Early morning snack run? I might buy some beef jerky for myself before I go. It's one of the few snacks my colts won't try to snatch while I'm not looking."

My ears flattened. "You eat meat? I thought that you'd be vegetarian."

She laughed. "I'm only vegetarian at home. Charlotte, that's me, is an omnivore when out and about. There's nothing wrong with meat if your digestive tract can handle it. One of the benefits of being human is expanded meal options."

I blinked. "Isn't Charlotte the name of one of your grandfoals?"

"Who do you think she is named after?" Sunset Blessing said with a smile. She dropped her smile and looked at Méng again. "What's taking so long?"

"I told you. I'm trying to find the best one," Méng replied.

Sunset sighed as she looked back at me. "He is such an electronics geek. Nine years old and already knows how to take a computer apart and put it back together. I'm proud of him for being so talented, but he gets so picky about even the simplest pieces of hardware and even wires. He misplaced some chord, and we are here getting him something so his stuff will work. He is so much handier with his hooves than any adult pony I know. I don't know how he can do all that tinkering with just his hooves."

Méng giggled. "You are such a Foundie, Auntie."

"Hey! Respect the elder generation," Sunset Blessing fussed. "We laid the groundwork for your comfortable life."

"You are still a Foundie with four back hooves," Méng said with another giggle.

"Hey! Be nice to the Founding Gen," I scolded him.

He stuck his tongue out at me. "You're just saying that because you're a Foundie too."

"I'm New Era Gen; thank you very much, you Beta," I replied. It was like the Foundation Gen, and Beta Gen forgot my whole generation existed. Each of them just lumped us with the others, either Founding or Beta, even though we were our own thing.

Sunset Blessing sighed again. "Back in the day, we used to complain about Boomers and Millennials; this isn't anything new."

Méng looked at her in confusion. "What are Boomers and that other thing?"

"Two different generations that all get wrapped up together with even more generations to make the Foundation Gen. No one seems to remember anymore that Foundation used to be made up of about four different generations," she replied.

"Who are you talking to, Marshmallow?"

I turned to see Nightscape, who was quickly joined by the others.

I wasn't sure. "Oh, she's—"

"Charlotte Newman," Sunset Blessing announced. She stepped past me and looked at the others one at a time. "And let me see, Sunflower Smiles, Margaret Smith, Ashley Santos, and Nightscape soon-to-be Middleton. How nice to meet you all."

Ashley immediately widened her stance. "How do you know our names. Did Rebecca tell you?"

I shook my head in denial.

Sunset Blessing smirked. "It's my job to pay attention and keep an ear to the ground, even if I don't report back to my superior everything that I hear. Not everything I hear are things she needs to know. I also keep informed of who comes and goes from Phobia's house. Nightscape, you're, of course, a frequent visitor, but the rest of you are all very recent. People don't visit that place for no reason."

"I don't trust you. We aren't telling you anything about the reasons," Ashley said, gritting her teeth.

Sunset Blessing chuckled. "Let me make some guesses then, shall I? Margaret or I guess you go by Maggie, correct? You have been a long-time friend to Rebecca, and Rebecca has an important secret. Maybe she shared that secret with you?"

Maggie took a step back.

Sunset Blessing nodded. "I thought so. Let's see; Sunflower Smiles recently visited Phobia with Ashley Santos. Was seen leaving looking very distraught and with a heavily bandaged leg that wasn't bandaged when you arrived. Recently got a full scholarship to a local art school despite a less than an exemplary educational record. I'm not calling you stupid, but you got a far better scholarship than students with far better records. It makes me wonder why. Could it be that you have the same secret as Miss Riddle? It would make sense."

Sunflower gulped, and Ashley stepped defensively in front of her.

Sunset's smile got wider. "I think I'm batting a thousand. I already know Rebecca's big secret; therefore, I know yours as well. It's fascinating seeing you two together. Are the other three nearby? I know Blanche Laurent and Yolanda Day share a bathroom with Miss Smith here, and they recently traveled together to Phobia's house as well."

"I didn't know their names or that they visited Phobia Remedy's house," Maggie said. "We don't hang out."

The smile dropped from Sunset Blessing's face. "You didn't? Pity. That means I gave away some information that I didn't need to give out—my fault for getting too cocky and overconfident. Information is one of the most valuable things in the world. I like to control what I give out."

I built up a little courage while she was talking. "We could use some information. What do you know about the doll?"

Now she was frowning. "That Phobia should just destroy it. However, I did recently get an unconfirmed report of it appearing somewhere. I just informed Phobia about it last night."

"Where?" I asked. "We just saw it a little while ago in our dorm building."

Sunset seemed like she was considering whether to answer. "Moses was possibly seen with it, but if you want to see him, you'll either need a court order or Phobia to take you along for a visit. I believe she is visiting him today. She usually visits him for an hour or so on Sundays. It's one of the few trips outside the house she takes like clockwork. I warn you, even if she says you can tag along, no one willingly goes to see Moses except her. Seeing Moses is always an unpleasant experience."

Sunflower cringed. "Why is that?"

"I don't want to spoil the surprise," Sunset Blessing said with a smirk. "Do you want to see him? You aren't in any physical danger from him, but you need to be brave. Cowards who visit him don't do so well."

I looked at Sunflower. "Up to you. I want to get answers, but I know you get nervous."

She licked her lips. "I'll do it. I need to learn to be brave."

"This is an excellent opportunity to test how brave you can be. Most people who visit him run away screaming," Sunset Blessing said. She then reached into her purse and pulled out a cell phone. "Give me a moment to make some calls. I need to call Phobia, and I need to call Rebecca's foalsitting job."

"How the hell do you know so much?" Nightscape demanded.

Sunset Blessing shrugged. "Rebecca has my permission to explain it to you when you are all in private. I trust you can all keep secrets. Consider knowing my secret my way of paying you back for knowing yours. Now hush, I need to complete these calls. Are you almost done, Méng?"

"Yes, Auntie," Méng replied as he tucked his selection under a wing.

Nightscape's eyes went wide. "Méng? Auntie? Holy shit! You're—"

Sunset moved with incredible speed for a middle-aged woman and put a finger up to Nightscape's mouth. "In private, please." The line must have picked up. "Hello? Phobia? Two of your candidates want to meet Moses when you visit him today."

What she said about Moses seemed ominous. What were we getting ourselves into?

Chapter 67: Prepping for Horror

We all returned to campus, but for me and Sunflower, our time back was a short stay. We had time to put our purchases back in our rooms and eat breakfast in a hurry; then, we waited out in the parking lot. Crystal's big van drove up in front of us, and Tempest shepherded us into the vehicle.

"Hi, Rebecca! Guess we are taking Drizzle on a field trip today," Jordan exclaimed as we got into the van.

"Field trip! Field trip!" Drizzle shouted excitedly.

"Incorrect," Phobia Remedy said. "You two will be going with Tempest and Crystal to the park. The rest of us are going to be going somewhere else."

The van was full of people. It was me, Sunflower, Drizzle, Jordan, Phobia Remedy, Tempest, Crystal, and a human girl I didn't know. Phobia Remedy wasn't wearing clothes this time—not much anyway. She had her phone on her leg, a very dark pair of sunglasses, and a big white sun hat with a dark green bow around it.

The human girl looked at Phobia Remedy. "Where are we going, Miss Remedy, and who are these two ponies?"

Phobia Remedy gestured to me and Sunflower in turn. "This is Rebecca Riddle and Sunflower Smiles. Rebecca, Sunflower, this is Blanche Laurent. Blanche, these two recently found out about your status, and they share the same status. I decided to have you three meet and undergo this test together. Please, don't go looking for the other two. They are in Skytree, but I would rather not have all the candidates meet. I am only letting you three because circumstances steered it that way." She seemed annoyed.

Jordan looked at the three of us. "Candidates for what?"

Phobia sighed. "Jordan, they are Dreamwarden candidates. If you fail to keep this secret, I will never trust you with another secret again. Do you understand me?"

Jordan's eyes went wide. "Like… Dreamwarden-Dreamwarden, or like something else, like bodyguards."

"Like Dreamwardens, Jordan. Do you understand me about keeping this secret?" Phobia Remedy said as her eyes bore into Jordan's. "You manage to keep my mother's secrets; can you keep this too?"

Jordan gasped in excitement which transformed into a high-pitched squeal.

"Jordan!" Phobia Remedy hissed.

"Yes! I can do it!" Jordan finally blurted out.

"Good," the Dreamwarden replied, seeming more relaxed. "Know that your foalsitting slash bodyguarding job is as much you guarding Rebecca as it is Drizzle. Drizzle is still your priority, but you are protecting Rebecca too, got it?"

"Yes, Phobia," Jordan said with a rapid nod and then did another excited squeal under her breath.

"They are like GranGran?" Drizzle asked.

Phobia looked at the young pegasus and gave a gentle smile. "One of them might end up being like your GranGran, and just like your GranGran, you should never talk about that with anyone, okay? It is to keep you safe, just like them."

"Okay, Auntie Phobia," Drizzle replied. "Does Mama know?"

The Dreamwarden shook her head. "She knows about Rebecca, and that's all she'll know about. You don't discuss this with her, got it?"

"I got it, Auntie Phobia," Drizzle said with a beaming smile. "I promise. I won't say nothin'."

"You did not answer where we are going, Dreamwarden," Blanche said. She did have a sort of European accent, as Maggie said. I couldn't place it either, but it didn't make her hard to understand; her English pronunciation was perfect and what she said seemed always to be understandable.

"The Skytree Medical Center for Magical Abnormalities' long-term stay facility," Phobia replied. "It is on the edge of town. Crystal shall be dropping the four of us off and returning later. Tempest doesn't do well with who we are going to see, and Crystal needs to drive the others around."

"Tempest, your elite bodyguard, does not do well?" Blanche asked, voice shaking slightly. "What are we going to encounter?"

"His name is Moses," Phobia replied. "I want to give you as little prior prejudice against him as possible. However, it would be irresponsible if I didn't advise you of some things. Primarily, it would be best if you didn't take your eyes off him at all after we meet him, no matter what you may think you see out of the corner of your vision. Tempest is terrible at following this direction. That is why she is not coming. She can tell you that you want to obey this instruction."

"I feel ashamed to admit I have failed in the past at this and support what the Dreamwarden says," Tempest said from where she was riding shotgun. "You do not want to fail at this, not unless you have a good psychiatrist."

Sunflower squeaked. "If this pony has dangerous magic, wouldn't it be better if Crystal came to protect us?"

Phobia Remedy shook her head, but it was Crystal that answered. "No can do. I can protect myself from him, but I can't protect anyone else without accidentally hurting the guy. You have to remember; this is a clinic; these aren't bad people. They are just poor saps that got dealt an unfair hand when they got their magic. If it had been around at the time, a good friend of mine, Jessica Middleton, would have probably ended up there for a while until she got control of her magic. They are there because they have dangerous or very disruptive magic that they can't control. It isn't their fault. The clinic is there to help them learn how to control their magic, not to hurt them."

Phobia Remedy nodded. "It is mostly humans at the clinic, but there are some ponies too. Stays can last anywhere from a few weeks to a few years. However long it takes to get their magic under control. We expect Moses will be there for many years yet."

Blanche wrapped her arms tightly around herself. "A place I might have ended up at if it had been around when learning to control my magic."

Sunflower hung her head. "A place I wonder if I should be at."

Phobia Remedy gave them grim looks. "Perhaps with your magic, Blanche. Sunflower, I don't see yours on the same level of danger or disruption. You might visit the regular clinic for help if you wish, but I don't think you require extended stays anywhere."

I looked at Blanche. "What do you do? I can show you what I can do sometime, and Sunflower can tell you about what she does, but she can't predict when she'll do it."

Blanche looked at Phobia Remedy and got a nod. She then took a deep breath. "I make short-term constructions, illusions that are solid, but they only last a few seconds."

I smiled. "That seems handy! I astral project."

"I go into a trance and draw visions," Sunflower said quietly. "I have no control over when it will happen or what I will draw. It just happens." She held up her hoof. "Last time I did it, I had nothing to draw with, so I took a bite out of my hoof so I could draw in blood. It seems like my magic is dangerous to me."

I touched a wing to Sunflower's flank. "I know you are still shaken up about that, but you'll figure out how to control it better, and that was the only time it did something that bad, right?"

"Yeah," Sunflower said in a depressed voice.

I needed to cheer her up. "And remember what you want to do as a Dreamwarden. Go ahead, say it."

She cracked a shy smile. "To encourage everypony to experience the world and see all the amazing things out there."

"And you are about to go meet an amazing pony," I reminded her. "He might sound scary, but—"

"Sometimes it is scary, going out into the world and seeing new things," Sunflower finished and gave a more relaxed smile. "It's dangerous business, walking out your front door. Is what Ghadab would say."

"My brother loves Tolkien," Phobia said wistfully. "I advise keeping any other secrets to yourselves for the remainder of this ride. My little sister and Drizzle can only be reasonably asked to keep so many."

It was silent for a minute or two after that. It was Sunflower who broke the silence.

"I'm looking forward to the trip to Equestria," Sunflower said with a tiny smile. "It will be great, getting to see a whole different world. It felt like a big deal, coming to Skytree, but now I get to see places even further away."

"Trip is dependent on that no world-ending disasters are going on in Equestria at that moment," Phobia Remedy interjected.

Sunflower gaped. "Does that happen often?"

Phobia Remedy shrugged. "Often enough. Twilight and her friends will take care of it if it does."

"Skytree is very different from home," Blanche agreed, choosing to ignore talks of Equestria facing ongoing apocalypses. "I am not used to so many ponies in one place. We have ponies back home, but not this many. It will be strange, going to a land where there are barely any humans."

"Where are you from?" I asked.

"Brugge, in West Vloandern," Blanche replied, then blushed. "That is West Flanders in English. It is part of Belgium. I am half Flemish and half French. My family travels across much of Europe for holidays. I have seen many places and know many languages and dialects."

"Were you a pony that rehumanized?" I asked.

She shook her head. "I never became a full pony. I had contracted ETS, and my transformation had advanced to a later stage, but it was never completed. I sat for months in a partial state before being able to receive treatment. I do not remember it, but I have seen pictures. I had a horn, a tail, light blue pony ears, my feet were hooved, and my hair was the color of a ripe melon."

"I just recently found out what I would look like as a human," I chirped, then bit my lip. "Although I can't say how, and I feel bad for that because I think everybody else in the car knows how and it feels like you are the only one getting left out."

"I don't know," Sunflower said.

"I don't either," Crystal added in.

I looked at Sunflower. "Um… the person that we talked to at Walgreens. Trying not to say much when I don't have their permission to tell anyone other than who was at Walgreens with me."

"It was my mother, Sunset Blessing," Phobia Remedy said. "It may be petty, but she messed with my plans for candidates and figured out the identities of three of them—possibly more. That is your privacy she is invading and your secret that keeps you safe that she violated, so I will rat her out as having shown Rebecca how she would look as a human. She needs to learn to keep her nose out of Dreamwarden affairs. Being my mother and Arbiter's widow does not give her the right to root around in our affairs. Do keep the knowledge that she is out and about to yourselves. She called and informed me in the waking world, so I'm violating no rules by revealing this information."

Sunflower gave Phobia Remedy a wide-eyed stare in shock. "You would do that to your mother?"

The Dreamwarden nodded. "She may be my mother, and I love her, and I see to her protection, but she is too nosey for her own good. I'm going to be saying some things to her in private about this. No one, not even her, will be allowed to mess with our vetting process without receiving repercussions. Dreamwarden selection is a critical duty, and one I am not letting get hijacked by outside forces."

"Speaking of which," I said in a low voice barely above a whisper. "I'm mad at you for what you did to Maggie. That wasn't right."

"You can't question the Dreamwarden's actions!" Blanche gasped.

Phobia Remedy looked at her. "She actually can. If you get selected, you'll find that your actions are very often questioned. Crystal and Tempest question me and do so often. Sometimes they even sway me. You learn to appreciate people that question you, some of them, at least. Others are just going to argue over anything you do, and nothing you do will satisfy them."

"For the record," Crystal called back to us from the driving. "I told her I disagreed with the whole grab the girl thing. I told her that she should let me drive her out there, let her roll down the window to show who she was, kindly ask the girl to get into the car to have a conversation, and if she refused, then she could have Tempest grab her."

"I'm not sure if that is much better," I said. "It still sounds like you were bullying and intimidating my friend."

"I think that was at least part of the point. We can continue this conversation tonight. I will make time for it," Phobia Remedy said. "That gives you time to think of how to better frame your argument over what I should have done instead, and perhaps even speak with your friend first for further suggestions. For now, we are about to arrive at our destination."

We each looked out our closest window. We were beyond the city border out in what was commonly referred to as the wilderness. The wilderness was just a long stretch of highway with nothing but trees to see for about thirty minutes or so of driving. There was nothing visible along the road aside from an occasional speed limit sign. If there was anything around us, the dense trees kept it from view.

I was about to say that there wasn't anything here when Crystal slowed the car down and turned onto a narrow dirt road, one so narrow I didn't think it would be possible for two vehicles to pass each other on it. I quickly buttoned my lip.

The trees seemed like they were pushing in on all sides and their branches blocked out the sun. It was like we were driving through a patch of night as we went along the path. Phobia Remedy was probably very comfortable in these surroundings, but they felt oppressive to me. I glanced over and saw Sunflower had cringed down, and I recalled that she was slightly claustrophobic.

It took us about two minutes to get clear of the trees, and it opened up again to reveal a tall red brick building. We drove by a sign that indicated we were in the right place and then went by a parking lot that was about half-filled, mainly with pony-sized cars. We drove right up in front of the entrance, which had a big set of double-automatic doors, and Crystal parked the car.

"Just give me a call when you're ready to leave, boss," Crystal called back.

Phobia Remedy nodded. "Blanche, if you would, could you get the doors?"

Blanche opened up the door and stepped out, and Sunflower and I followed her out quickly, eager to get free of the van and stretch our wings. Phobia Remedy took her time exiting the van, and when she stepped out, she took an extra few seconds adjusting her hat and sunglasses. I guessed it was kinda bright out, now that we were out from under the trees. Blanche closed the van behind her, and Crystal quietly drove off.

We let Phobia Remedy take the lead as she casually walked through the doors. Inside was a lobby that looked like it could have been any clinic lobby I had ever seen. Complete with a human receptionist sitting behind a desk. The receptionist looked up as we entered, and I saw her mouth form a flat line briefly before being forced into a smile.

"Madam Dreamwarden, you are early," the receptionist greeted. "The patients are still enjoying their morning outdoor time. You might need to wait."

Phobia Remedy gestured to us. "Don't worry. I don't intend to start early. These three need to fill out the forms they need to see Moses. They will be joining me in visiting him. I assume them taking time to read over and sign everything will account for the early arrival."

The receptionist hiccuped and looked at us before turning back towards the Dreamwarden. "You understand—we can't be held responsible for anything."

Phobia Remedy waved a wing. "I believe that is what your paperwork says. I understand, and they've been given a brief guideline on how to conduct themselves in front of Moses."

"We have blindfolds available if you want them," the receptionist said nervously. "I know you don't need them, but your guests—"

"They will be seeing him with their eyes open and uncovered," Phobia Remedy said with a note of finality.

"On your head," I heard the receptionist mutter. She then sat down and started printing off the paperwork. She then picked up a phone and hit a button. "Hello? The Dreamwarden is here, but she says she'll be in at the normal time. She has guests with her. Yes, I know. Are you going to come argue with her? I know. I already told her that we won't be responsible. Yes, I do have emergency services ready to dial if need be. No, she didn't ask for any extra staff to be present. I understand. I'm getting them their paperwork now."

None of that did anything to make me less nervous. What was the big deal with this Moses guy? It was like I was going to meet Sha'am Maut herself instead of just someone who had been reported being seen with just her doll.

I took a seat, as did everyone but the Dreamwarden. After a few minutes of printing, the receptionist gathered up all the paperwork and divided it into three stacks. She then walked over to each of us and plopped a large pile of papers down next to each of us. There had to be at least thirty pages in each stack. She then set out a pen on each stack.

"I need you to review each form thoroughly before signing," she announced. "I will review each form after you turn it in and make sure you have not missed any signatures." She then did that thing Catholics do where they make a sign of the cross in front of themselves. "God save your souls."

Yep, not comforting at all.

Chapter 68: The Most Terrifying Pony Alive

We sat waiting for the receptionist to review the paperwork. Me, Sunflower, and Blanche in the lobby chairs, and Phobia Remedy sat on the other side of the room—I was pretty sure she was napping. I had tried reading all the forms, but they started to all blend together after a while. I got the gist of it after the first few pages. The clinic claimed no responsibility if I was injured, maimed, experienced severe mental or emotional trauma, burned, driven insane, or died. On the bright side, I wouldn't be billed for any damage I did while in a panic or trying to defend myself. At least I didn't have to worry about asking my mom to pay any fines for me again.

The silence while waiting was too much for me, so I turned towards Blanche with a big grin.

"Hey, my best friend shares a bathroom with you. She said you were not too happy this morning," I said.

Blanche went wide-eyed. "She knows about me?"

"Well, she didn't know until today," I replied. "She says she heard you crying, went to check on you, and your roommate slammed the bathroom door in her face. She left her room to get some air and ran into us and told us about it. We suspected it at that point, but we didn't know for sure until S-B told us. She will keep your secret. She knew about me before today but just found out about Sunflower."

She looked down at the ground. "I am sorry about that. Yolanda gets very protective. I wish Yolanda had been able to come along. I feel safer with her about."

"I feel safer with Ashley watching me too," Sunflower said in a sad tone. "It seems like whatever this is, it is going to be bad. I wish Ashley were here."

I shrugged. "I'm not sure any of them could help. Phobia Remedy said that her bodyguards wouldn't be of use. She makes this trip here every week and is letting us do it, so it can't be that dangerous."

"The forms we just signed say otherwise," Sunflower said with a grimace.

"They wouldn't let Phobia Remedy in if it were dangerous," I insisted.

Blanche looked over at the Dreamwarden, who was snoozing. "They said it was not dangerous to her, but implied to dangerous to us. There's only one thing that could mean, mind magic. Dreamwardens are immune to it, but we aren't."

Sunflower looked confused. "But aren't they supposed to punish ponies that abuse mind magic?"

Blanche nodded. "Yes, but remember what they said. This is a clinic, and the people here cannot control their magic. This Moses pony is not using his magic on purpose. Are they going to punish someone for something they have no control over? They can sever the ability to do mind magic, but it isn't like them giving or taking away dreamwalking; it can damage the mind. It is not something that is done lightly. They aren't doing justice by doing that, not with someone who doesn't intentionally do people harm. It is punishing a victim."

"I suppose," I replied. "I still wish they would warn us what exactly he does. Mind magic covers a lot of stuff."

"Whatever it is, it's bad enough for the receptionist to treat him like a literal demon," Sunflower whispered with a pointed look at the receptionist.

A door next to the receptionist's desk opened, and a human man in a white doctor's coat stepped out. He glanced at us, then the sleeping form of Phobia Remedy. He then turned and leaned in close to the receptionist to whisper, low enough I couldn't hear it. They whispered for about thirty seconds before he straightened up and smiled at us.

"Hello, I am Director Falon. I am in charge of this facility. I am ready to escort you in once we wake the Dreamwarden and monitor your stay by camera. For staff safety purposes, they will not be available for the duration of your meeting with Moses. For your safety, please follow the Dreamwarden's instructions to the letter, and please be kind and respectful to our patient and his caregiver. Try not to upset him; it gets worse if he gets agitated and impacts a larger area. If he is calm and you need to escape the impact of being near him, get at least twelve feet away. If he is upset, you need to go further away. This door will remain unlocked on the other side for you to escape. I know it is difficult, but try not to run if you need to leave. It upsets him."

He had a caregiver? Was he sick? At least it meant someone other than Phobia Remedy could stand to be around him.

"You can't tell us exactly what he may do?" Blanche asked.

Falon shook his head. "Patient confidentiality rules may seem to be counterintuitive at times. I can tell you safety precautions to take, but I can't tell you the full nature of what he can do. Privacy rules do not cover safety precautions, but the nature of his magic is protected. I don't make the rules; I simply enforce them."

"And rules and regulations are important." We all looked to see Phobia Remedy was awake and walking over to us. "They don't just protect; they give the world some measure of predictability, and with predictability comes comfort and a sense of security. Chaos and unpredictability are very frightening. Sometimes people don't like rules, but they have to follow them anyway."

Falon kept his expression blank, which made me think he had a lot to say that he wasn't going to say because it would get him in deep doo-doo. He instead nodded to Phobia Remedy. "Are you ready, Madam Dreamwarden?"

"I'm ready," Phobia Remedy replied. "You don't need to lead the way. There is no rule requiring it, and I know you are eager to head to your safe room."

My senses were tingling, and my senses said there was hostility here. I wondered why the doctor and Phobia Remedy didn't seem to like each other.

"As you wish, Madam Dreamwarden," Falon replied. He then went back out the door and held it open for us.

We all walked through with Phobia Remedy bringing up the rear. As soon as she was through, Director Falon stormed off, leaving us standing in a nature-filled courtyard about the size of Walgreens with stone benches, a few scattered trees, and walls on four sides—no bushes. A few tables were set up with seats, one with a pair of unicorn colts sitting at it playing checkers and a nervous-looking crystal pony stallion standing near them. I listened to their conversation as Phobia Remedy led us past them.

"Hurry up, the Dreamwarden is here," the stallion said to the colts.

One of the colts looked at us, then back to the game. "Music isn't playing yet. We have time to do a few more turns."

"You know Ulga and Moses will be down here soon if she's in the building," the crystal pony pleaded. "Everyone else has gone to their rooms. Please, you can come back to the game after Moses's hour is complete. It isn't going anywhere."

"You could just run off now if you are so worried," the second colt suggested as he lit his horn and moved a piece. "We can make it back to our rooms by ourselves."

The stallion gave a half-hearted stomp. "You know I can't leave patients unattended!"

I didn't get to hear the rest of the conversation because Phobia remedy led us through another set of doors going back into the building on the opposite side of the courtyard.

We were now in a long hall that ended with an elevator. All the doors to either side were closed, and the only thing else to see was there was an opening for a service desk or something halfway down the hall. Phobia Remedy just calmly led us down the hall.

"Why did the doctor guy not like you?" Sunflower asked her as we walked.

"It is a personal issue between him and me," Phobia Remedy answered. "One that I, unfortunately, had to settle by going to his superiors and have them make clear to him how it was going to be if he wanted to keep his job. You need not concern yourself with it."

We passed by the desk with the open window and saw a human scrambling to get some last-minute tasks done. When she saw the Dreamwarden, she squeaked and somehow became even more frantic to finish what she was doing. Phobia Remedy ignored her and kept on walking.

Music started to play over, What a Wonderful World—the original version from Louis Armstrong. It felt strangely out of place with the tension all these staff people were showing.

I gave a startled jump, as did Blanche and Sunflower, as the desk window slammed shut. We heard the closest door to it lock. Throughout the hallway, we heard doors locking.

Phobia Remedy came to a halt, staring up at the elevator's lights, which showed what floor it was currently on. I saw the light move from the top floor to the next.

What a Wonderful World kept playing.

"Stay back from me about fifteen feet until he notices you, so you don't startle him," Phobia Remedy instructed. "Once he takes notice of you, get in closer, and keep your eyes on him."

We all backed up as the song continued to play, and the elevator continued to descend.

I heard someone in the room closest to me. They were crying loud enough for me to hear through the door repeating, don't open your eyes to themselves over and over again like a mantra.

The elevator descended another floor. The song continued to play.

"I am not sure why we need to see this pony," Blanche said nervously.

I stepped an extra step back. "He was seen with the—"

The elevator reached the bottom floor, and I closed my mouth. The song seemed like it was on a loop.

We all held our breaths as the doors started to open.

Out of the elevator stepped a cream-colored earth pony mare with a dull brown mane. She stared straight forward, and her eyes were glassy and clouded over. Right behind her was a very young, like, too young to even go to school, earth pony colt with orange fur and yellow mane. I looked behind them to see if there was anyone else, but it was just these two. Was that little colt the pony everyone was scared of?!

The mare's ears twitched, and she sniffed, still without breaking her blank gaze. She then smiled. "Miss Remedy, you have brought guests. Moses will be so pleased. Moses, go say hello to your friend." She had one of the weirdest sounding accents I ever heard—like Russian only extra Russian if that was possible.

The colt broke from behind her and hurried forward, coming to an abrupt halt in front of the Dreamwarden. He then sat down on his haunches and raised his forelegs pleadingly to her. "Hug!"

I don't know why I was surprised, but I was when Phobia Remedy wrapped a wing around him and pulled him close to give him a warm embrace. It wasn't even a just be friendly or polite hug. It was a warm, loving, hug of someone who dearly cared for and loved who they were hugging.

The mare stepped forward and stood beside the Dreamwarden and colt, never turning her head, never blinking, never even moving her eyes. I felt stupid as I only now started to realize she was blind. It looked like she was staring at us, but her eyes never focused on anything. Now that she was closer, I could see scars and burn marks around her eyes.

"Friends of the Dreamwarden, I am Ulga, Moses's adopted mother," she announced. "Please, be kind to my son; he can't help it."

With that announcement, the colt stuck his head out over Phobia's shoulder as she continued to hug him. He spotted us and ducked back into hiding on the other side of her.

"He has seen you," Phobia said calmly as she released him from her grasp, exposing him to our vision again. "Come forward slowly, so you don't scare him, and only look at him. If you see anything on the edges of your vision, ignore it. Don't look at me, Ulga, each other, or your surroundings. Just focus on Moses. Whatever you think you see, it isn't important. It isn't real."

The music played on.

"He doesn't seem that scary," Sunflower said nervously. I turned out of instinct to look at her and noticed something dripping from the ceiling. I started to lift my gaze to see.

"Rebecca, what did I just say?" Phobia asked, making me quickly turn to look back at Moses. She didn't snap or raise her voice. There was no harshness to her voice at all. Still, I somehow heard the command in it.

We slowly approached, as instructed. The colt cringed, and I came to an abrupt stop, and I heard Sunflower and Blanche do the same. We kept our eyes on him as Ulga came over to him and gave him a gentle hug and kiss on the head.

The music played on.

"No need to be frightened," she said in a kind voice. "They are friends. Maybe you can give them each a hug and see that they are nice?"

Moses slowly crept towards us as we stood still. The colt was practically hugging the floor with how low to the ground he was creeping, and he kept looking back and forth between each of us fearfully. At this point, I was pretty sure he was more terrified of us than we were of him. My eyes flicked to his flank and bulged slightly as I saw he already had a cutie mark—a pitch-black butterfly resting on a black flower. How did a colt this young already have their mark?

The music played on.

He got close to each of us and looked at each of us slowly as if gauging how scary we were. He eventually settled on looking at me and sat upon his haunches, lifting his forelegs to me.

"Hug?" he asked with a voice that was partially hopeful and partially terrified.

"You can hug him," Ulga instructed. "Be gentle. He doesn't meet many other people. Also, please close your eyes while hugging him."

I sat and reached forward with my forelegs, as non-threatening as I could, and was able to pull him close to me. He stiffened, but then threw himself into the hug, gripping me tightly while rubbing his head against me. I closed my eyes. I heard him crying—crying with relief like he couldn't believe he was being held by someone new. What was life like for this colt? Did he ever see anyone but Ulga and Phobia Remedy?

The music played on.

"What could this colt do to inspire such terror?" I heard Blanche say.

I then heard her take a few steps towards me. Moses must have heard them, too, because he suddenly jerked out of my grip as he was startled. I opened my eyes and looked over at Blanche, ready to tell her to kindly back up, but the words died on my tongue as I looked up at her.

Impaled on the wall behind her, with multiple metal spikes, was the lifeless form of me. I shook my head in disbelief at the gruesome sight. There were spikes through each of my wings, each of my legs, and one right through my belly. Flies hovered around my body as blood poured from the wounds. Yellow muck dripped my mouth as my head hung limply with the eyes sightlessly staring forward.

"Don't look. Bad!" Moses called out from beside me, and I turned to see him crying as he looked at me. "Big bad! Don't look at bad!"

The music played on, What a Wonderful World.

Author's Note

Chapter 69: Empathy for Monsters

I didn't look away from him again after that. I watched him as he went through hugging Sunflower and Blanche. I thought I saw things on the edges of my vision—blood dripping, flashes, fire burning. I reminded myself that it wasn't real and not to look. I didn't want to see those horrible things.

"Moses's power is he shows your death," Phobia Remedy said quietly as we watched Blanche hug him. He seemed so eager for any love and contact. "He is incredibly powerful for a colt his age and will only get stronger as he grows older, perhaps as strong as the most powerful ponies alive. I worry so much for him. This isn't a healthy place for him. I have tried pulling strings to get him away from here, but even a Dreamwarden can be blocked by bureaucracy and fearful bigots who want to lock away people that are in need rather than help them."

Blanche continued to hug him with her eyes closed, but still lifted her head to speak. "Can't the crystal ponies help him?"

"No, his powers don't turn off. They can shield others from them—for a time, but the constant effort makes them give out after a while. They could try draining him directly, but draining someone that much, especially one so young, that can seriously hurt him, maybe even kill him," Phobia Remedy replied. "The only ones who can go near him without fear of his visions are Dreamwardens and the blind."

"I am not blind by choice, but I have found it an unexpected blessing," Ulga said softly. "Still, I have to regularly remind myself that we are in a better place than we were."

I didn't turn my head to look at her. "Where were you before this?"

"A place filled with real death, not visions," Ulga said softly, almost tearfully. "By the time I lost my sight, I had seen enough death to last a thousand lifetimes. Bodies lying in the streets, in the rivers, all left to rot. We lived in constant fear and hid in caves. We had been so hopeful when we all gathered in those lands, but they became a living nightmare. The Great White Alicorn have mercy on the dead. They suffer no more."

"You remember our question about the ongoing war?" Phobia asked us. "Meet some of the victims."

"I lost my eyes when we were making our final run to make it to the safety of the Russian border," Ulga whispered. "My human friend… he fought so hard to get us there. He was filled with bullet holes, but he still somehow pushed on. Moses treated him like a father. My friend said he was not, that he had found Moses beside the river and named him after that patriarch because he was drawn out of the river. When we reached the Russians at last, my friend dropped down and moved no more. They said that he had been dead for months already. I didn't want to believe them, but he never slept and took wounds that should have killed him time and time again. I believe that he was an angel sent by the Great White Alicorn in our time of need. Maybe he was only there to rescue Moses, and I was only a lucky pony who accompanied them, but he was heaven-sent."

"What was his name?" Sunflower asked.

"Ayedonno," Ulga said with a bitter half-laugh. "It wasn't until they taught me English that I realized what he was saying and how ignorant we had all been. Most of what we said between us was done by drawings and gestures. We never learned much of one another's languages, just a few words. You may be amazed how close you can become to someone even when you don't understand a word they say."

It took me a second to figure out what was funny about the name. Ayedonno, say it slightly differently, and you get I don't know. The man had been literally telling them he didn't know his name, and they took that as his name.

"I drew a man and a colt," Sunflower said, barely above a whisper.

"It wasn't until my mother brought up Moses in her call that I realized you had drawn him from a few years ago," Phobia said. "The Russians burned Ayedonno's body before we could examine it. They called him an abomination, a walking corpse, a zombie. If he had magic, then he indeed never slept because we Dreamwardens never knew him. The Russian troops were so spooked by whatever necromancy was at work to make him that they wanted nothing to do with those associated with him. Hence Ulga and Moses had to come here. Moses's powers didn't manifest until a few months ago."

"Ayedonno was my friend, and I know he never slept," Ulga forcefully asserted. "He was a good man. He guarded us, kept us safe, loved us. They should not have treated his body so and insulted his honor. He deserved a proper burial, not to be treated like a monster. Monsters are not so kind and gentle. Monsters don't have compassion. Monsters don't weep. Ayedonno was not a monster. He was a human man; the best human man I have ever known."

Phobia grunted. "Come here, Moses. Time to get some sun. Upsies."

Moses broke away from hugging Blanche and hurried over to the Dreamwarden. She bent down and let him climb on her back before she stood back up.

"Follow me," Phobia instructed, and she started walking back down the hall towards the courtyard.

We followed, all keeping our eyes tied to Moses, but I still saw things on the edges of my vision. As we walked down the hall, we passed a hospital bed I was sure was not there before, and I heard heavy breathing coming from it. I already could tell it was just another of his visions, but I still looked up at it. There I lay, old, on a ventilator, with IVs and tubes hooked up to me. An older man stood next to me, crying and gently touching my face with his hand as I passed away. I caught sight of the spots on him—Russell. I turned my attention back to Moses. That wasn't so bad. It seemed that some of his visions weren't horrors, even if they were still death.

"Bad! No look!" Moses cried out.

"I didn't look!" Sunflower exclaimed.

"Me either. I have been following directions," Blanche added in.

Phobia let out a long sigh. "Rebecca, you are as bad as Tempest."

"Sorry," I apologized quickly and quickened my pace.

"At least you don't seem to be crying out in fear," Phobia said in an exasperated tone.

"That last one wasn't so bad. It was kinda nice, in a way. I think I was just old and had a loved one there as I passed away," I said. "The first one was bad and gory, but you said they aren't real."

"Still, stop looking," Phobia said firmly. "Your disobedience will end up carrying over to the other two. I also expect if you keep looking, you will end up seeing something that will get to you. I'm all for people facing their fears, but if one of you panics, it will upset Moses, and that causes a chain reaction with his range suddenly extending and patients here getting caught in it. Then I have a bunch of panicking people with dangerous and disruptive magic to deal with—that's what we would lightly call a situation. Follow instructions."

"Hey, are these visions the actual ways we die?" I asked. "As in, are they like different possible futures?"

Phobia reached the door and waited as Blanche opened it—which seemed to be challenging to do while not taking her eyes off of Moses. "The future is open to possibility, Rebecca, but no one can tell it. Even Storytellers only know the pattern of the Story, not the ending. They could be possible futures, but I prefer to think they are fabrications of our imaginations, often the darkest parts. After all, this is mind magic at work. If they were more likely possibilities, I would expect many more people would be dying the same way. Doomsday is coming, and I rarely have heard anyone mention dying in the manner that corresponds with that. Therefore, I dismiss them as any foretelling."

"What is that about doomsday?" Sunflower asked nervously.

"Nothing to worry about at this moment," Phobia replied as she led us out into the tranquil courtyard.

To our shock, the two unicorns were still there. We couldn't look at them because that would mean looking away for Moses, but we listened to them.

"Looks like we took too long," one of them said.

"Dreamwarden lady, please wait so we can get out of here," the other said. "We're just barely in his range. Stand still for a moment, and we'll get out of your fur."

"No offense to the kid, but we catch on fire when we get enraged or terrified," the first one said. "Definitely don't want us mixing with him."

"Where is the staff member who was here?" Phobia asked the pair.

"Said he couldn't wait any longer," the second of the pair of colts replied. "You know how the staff gets here. All of them are scared shitless of the squirt."

"We, ourselves, have got nothing against the kid. We're just a bad mix," the other replied. "We'll be going now."

I heard them hurrying off. "They catch on fire?" I asked. "Isn't that like a kirin thing?"

"Kirin and unicorns share many traits, just like night ponies and pegasi," Phobia answered. "Igniting on fire is not a common unicorn problem, but it is common enough that it is well-documented in Equestria. Princess Twilight Sparkle is the most famous non-kirin that suffers from the occasional combustion. Most of the kirin tribe was absorbed through interbreeding long ago. Some of the traits sometimes resurface even if the remaining kirins exist primarily in isolated areas of Equestria now. Those same traits resurface in our ponies. You'll find that many, but not all, odd magical traits pop up from time to time in the population are from extinct or near-extinct tribes of ponies. I expect if our night ponies and crystal ponies go the same route to extinction that future ponies may occasionally display their traits. Natural mind magic is actually one of the traits from an extinct tribe. Night ponies display that long-gone tribe's traits more often than other tribes do, due to similar magical alignment, but all tribes have some potential for the trait to resurface."

The Dreamwarden bent down and let Moses climb off her back. The colt did so, and he immediately went to investigate a flower that had a butterfly on it. He crept up to it and watched it, looking like he was holding his breath as he did. I was reminded of his mark and looked at it again.

"What's with his mark?" I asked.

"It is fairly simple. A black butterfly and a black flower are both symbols of death in some cultures," Phobia replied.

"He seems so innocent and sweet for having such nasty powers," Sunflower observed.

"He is innocent and kind-hearted," Phobia agreed. "And I hope he stays that way, and he doesn't become bitter and angry at the isolation that is imposed on him."

"Why do they keep him here?" Blanche asked. "I understand keeping him away from the general public if he has no control of his powers, but placing him close to people like those unicorns that could catch on fire, along with whatever else patients here can do, seems like they are setting him and the others up for disaster."

Phobia sighed. "That is one of many arguments I have had with the staff here and higher authorities. You are right; it is a bad combination. It also is detrimental to him in other ways. Those with authority to make those decisions are more concerned with keeping possible troublesome magic users away from them rather than giving them the care they really need. Don't get me wrong; many staff members here legitimately care about the patients, including Moses. They aren't the ones making those decisions; they are only doing their best to help within the confines they have been given to do so. I'll continue to argue for better conditions with those in power, and I hope I will eventually make progress."

"Are you going to be conducting your lesson this week, Dreamwarden?" Ulga asked. "You do not have your crystal pony with you."

"I am doing a different lesson than normal," Phobia replied. "I am going to let him practice what we have already gone over with normal people present."

Ulga gasped. "Dreamwarden...is that wise?"

"What do you mean, have him practice?" Sunflower asked worriedly.

"You three are going to deliberately expose yourselves to seeing his visions," Phobia replied calmly. "We shall do it in a controlled way. The goal is to see how long he can hold things back. Moses and I have been practicing for the last few months. It is time to work with people that can't protect themselves."

"You just fussed at me for looking!" I exclaimed.

"Yes, I did," Phobia agreed. "You were looking at a time when he wasn't focused on controlling his power with no plan on how to deal with things. We will have a plan so you don't randomly panic, and he will be trying to control it now. You have the right to refuse to participate. If you do not wish to participate, let me know now."

It didn't seem like Phobia Remedy ever gave much warning about anything. She just decided to do things, and you could either adjust or fall flat on your face.

"You said seeing that stuff is bad," Sunflower said nervously.

"Bad! Bad!" Moses exclaimed.

Phobia sighed. "As Rebecca can tell you from her disobedience, the level of horror can vary widely. It can be something peaceful, or it can be something that will give you nightmares for a while. Moses will attempt to keep his powers under control for as long as he can, so you may not immediately see anything."

"Immediately?" Blanche asked.

"He will eventually fail," Phobia confirmed. "This is partially a test to see how long he can do it. It is difficult to see how much progress he is making without subjects. Normally Crystal would assist, but she is not available today."

"You made her unavailable," Blanche said accusingly.

"Indeed, but I also needed to test you three and expose you to the dreaded mind magic Dreamwardens protect everyone from," Phobia continued. "It is important you understand who and what we protect from. Most mind-magic-users don't do things deliberately, but can have severe negative effects on others. I am the only mind-magic-user among the Dreamwardens, and you do not want to be exposed to my powers assaulting you. I can control mine, but it is far more debilitating than this. Moses is the preferable option."

"What about the doll?" I asked. "That was why we wanted to meet him. I thought this was about that."

"We will discuss the doll with him after," Phobia replied. "I made the decision that you need to face what we fight and understand that most of those doing these things aren't bad people. Everyone is a victim—both those caught up in it and those the magic originates from. You need to have empathy for each. Do any of you wish to abstain from this test?"

If we said no, it would probably hurt our chances as candidates. I knew all three of us must be thinking it. My suspicion was confirmed when we all kept silent.

"Very good," Phobia said after a moment. "What you will do is simple. On my command, you will all turn your backs on Moses and start silently counting to yourselves. When you see a vision appear, stop counting, close your eyes, and call out the number you reach. You might all say this in unison, or it may come at different times. Once that's done, you can turn your attention back to Moses. Remember, whatever you see isn't real. Don't let it get to you. Keep calm and close your eyes when it comes. Do you understand?"

"Yes," we all said more or less at the same time.

Phobia bent down next to Moses, who looked as nervous as we did. He seemed very aware of everything being said and what it meant—surprising, considering how young he was. Then again, this was his life. He lived in fear of hurting people with his magic every day. That had to be unimaginably rough for a little kid.

"I need you to try to control your power like we normally do," Phobia informed him. "This time, it isn't going to be Crystal who can just block you out. The staff here really should be doing this, but we are going to do it instead. They promise they will try not to get upset. If they do, they know it isn't your fault, okay?"

"But it bad!" Moses asserted again, pleadingly.

"Don't get upset," Phobia repeated. "You want to get where you can get out of here, right? You'll never get there without practice. I want you to be free. Ulga wants you to be free too. Once you have control, you can start doing all the things you've been missing out on—birthday parties, ice cream shops, playgrounds, seeing new places, and playing with other foals. I don't expect you to have full control today, and nobody is going to get mad at you for it, but we need to practice, okay? We all care about you."

"You saw me not get upset twice already. It will be okay, little guy," I reassured him.

Moses gave the three of us a timid look. "No get mad? No run away?"

"I won't," I replied quickly and confidently.

I heard Blanche lick her lips. "I can't promise I won't get upset and desire to run away, but if I do, I won't be mad at you. It isn't your fault. You can't help any of this, and it is completely unfair to you that you got stuck with magic like this."

"I want to be brave," Sunflower said quietly. "I don't want to be a coward who runs away, especially if somepony needs me. I will be brave for you because you need ponies to be brave for you. I can't help you if I'm not willing to be brave. Sometimes you have to be brave to help somepony, even if you are scared."

"We need to break you of that pony pronoun habit, but I understand it's only what is natural for you and what you were brought up with," Phobia said to Sunflower. "Those of you who don't get chosen may still have places in the OMMR if you are interested, and we want to make sure we are using inclusive language."

"Can they hear us out here?" Blanche asked.

"No, only see what's going on by camera, and it isn't that great a picture outdoors," Phobia answered. "Ulga and Moses won't discuss anything. Moses wouldn't understand what we are discussing, and Ulga is only concerned about Moses's well-being, not Dreamwarden politics. She has her secrets that she'll probably take to her grave."

"I have little desire to talk about the details of what happened back in the old country," Ulga replied in a quiet voice. "I did hear you mention a doll. I am not sure how you would know—or at least, how you would know outside of reading my memories, but I have vivid memories of a strange doll back in the old country. Ayedonno used to follow the doll. I tried to pick it up a few times, and he always laughed at me for it. I didn't understand why until I found it was soon gone each time and appeared again later. He would follow it whenever he saw it, like an omen. It would always end up ahead of us, sometimes not seen for days at a time, no matter how far behind we left it. I wondered if it was the Great White Alicorn guiding us to safety."

"Celestia had nothing to do with that forsaken place or with that doll," Phobia replied. "We will talk about the doll later. For now, Moses is my concern. Let us begin."

I gulped and took a deep breath.

Chapter 71: Storytime

The three of us were largely silent on the ride back to the school. I interacted with Drizzle and Jordan a bit, asking how their time out together went, but I couldn't share how my visit with Moses went. This, of course, got Jordan to vent in frustration about everything always being a secret. Phobia didn't budge on the order to keep our mouths shut. She had briefly reasserted it before we had been picked up, stating that she had no way of knowing if Moses had Sha'am Maut's soul, but no one could be allowed to suspect such a thing. It could only come back negatively on Moses and do him no favors. Whether Moses was Sha'am or had no connection at all, he was still a foal in need—a foal with mind magic, which made him a concern for Dreamwardens and the OMMR.

We were dropped off at the school and stood around for a moment, quietly processing the day.

"So, I guess I should get ready for my date," I said, breaking the silence.

Blanche gave me a surprised look. "You are dating? Does the stallion know about you?"

I shook my head. "No, and he's a man, not a stallion. This will be only our second date. I'm not ready to tell him about everything yet. I'm not even sure what the best way to break that news is if it gets that far. I have decided to take a wait-and-see approach. If I don't get selected, it won't matter anyway."

"Phobia Remedy said we couldn't talk about what happened with Moses with anypony else, but do you think we can talk about it with each other?" Sunflower asked. "I really want to talk about it. I don't know as much about stuff as you two. I need help figuring things out. I don't like feeling stupid."

"You aren't stupid, Sunflower," I assured her.

She gave a frustrated flap of her wings. "I know that! I know in my head that I am not a stupid pony, but I'm an uneducated one, though. Back home, everypony treated me like I was so smart and knew everything everypony else didn't. I spent lots of time in the library. A lot of that was copying book covers, but I read the books too. I learned a lot. I didn't go to regular school. I had to prove I was good enough to get a high school diploma with tests, and I was mostly self-taught. Stupid ponies can't do that. I know I'm not stupid."

Sunflower took a deep breath. "But now I'm not back at home, and I'm learning that I might have been one of the most knowledgeable ponies in my little village, but that doesn't take much to do. I didn't have the same education you two had, and I'm wondering if I'll ever catch up to everypony here. I may not be stupid, but when I hear you easily recite off facts that I don't know, I feel like it. That test last night made me feel that even more, and today hasn't helped at all."

I looked at Blanche, and she shrugged. I then lifted my leg and started dialing Russell.

"Hello? Rebecca? What's up?" Russell asked as he answered the call.

"Hey, I might be running a little late for our date," I explained with a smile. "I have a friend who needs me to sit down and talk with her for a little while. It shouldn't take too long. I can give you a call when I'm done."

"No problem. It is easy enough to adjust. Everything okay?" Russell asked.

I nodded absently. "Yeah. Everything's fine. She just had a rough night and morning. I was there for most of it. A lot of personal stuff happened that I can't talk about. I don't want to go blabbing her business, you know?"

"Perfectly understand," Russell confirmed. "You wouldn't be a good friend if you did. I won't go asking you about it. You do what you gotta do for her, and give me a call when you're ready."

"Thanks, Russell. I'll try not to take too long. I'm looking forward to spending time with you again."

"Same. Um… spending time with you, that is, not spending time with me. I kinda spend time with myself all the time already."

"Dork," I giggled. I might have tittered. What is the difference between a titter and a giggle? I wasn't sure. "See ya soon!"

"You too! Hope your friend feels better."

The call ended, and I smiled at Sunflower. "Okay, you want to talk about it, we can talk about it. We need to find somewhere private, though. I don't think we are even supposed to talk about this with our protective roommates."

"The library," Blanche suggested. "Not many people go in there this early in the semester. Yolanda and I have been going there to have talks when the girl who shares a bathroom with us is around, and we want to talk about everything."

"That girl is Maggie, and since she knows about you, that means you don't have to hide from her," I said, a little bristled for my friend who had been given the cold shoulder by Blanche and her roommate thus far.

"I'll apologize to her and talk to Yolanda," Blanche assured me. "So, the library now?"

"Yeah," Sunflower agreed.

We entered the library and looked around. There was a desk with the librarian to our left. To our right was a set of glass doors that went into a room full of computers and what looked like files or something. In front of us was a stairway leading down to a basement and one going up. There were also several display cases with various pieces of art within.

"Upstairs is mainly fiction and books for liberal arts subjects," Blanche said. "I have seen exactly one staff member and three students other than Yolanda or me up there since arriving at the school, and we have spent several hours total up there."

"I wonder why they don't come up there," Sunflower said as she looked at the ceiling. "Maybe they don't know it's there?"

"Probably because most people just read those things online nowadays," I said with a shrug.

Sunflower's eyes went wide with horror. "People don't get books? But… I want to be a book illustrator!"

I touched a wing to the back of her neck to calm her. "You can still be! People still buy books. They just buy books that they plan on keeping. I'm sure the library will get busier, too, as the semester goes on. Ponies like books, it's just that many old books don't have any ponies in them, so some ponies get bored reading them. I've got a little unicorn friend who will read anything, even books about rabbit genocide."

Blanche snorted while trying to hold back a laugh. "Your unicorn friend sounds very… special."

I nodded. "She also reads my friend's smutty Star Trek fan fiction too, but you know how unicorns are. They're all horny."

Both Blanche and Sunflower groaned in unison at my bad joke.

"Don't tell that joke to Ashley. She'll probably smack you," Sunflower said with a sad shake of her head.

Blanche shook her head too. "Probably not. That joke is probably older than ponies being on Earth. Your friend has probably heard it a billion times."

"Probably," Sunflower agreed.

I spread my wings slightly in defeat but grinned. "Guess that fell flat. Normally the only times things fall flat for me is when I fall on them."

They groaned again, and we walked upstairs.

We found a secluded spot deep in the back of the liberal arts area, right behind a stack of books dealing economics that we were pretty confident no student at the school would come read unless they had a class that required it. The area had a few low-sitting couches and small tables, and it made a nice place to relax. I had a feeling that most students who came up here were coming up here to find a quiet place to study and might take an interest in books they see while here. It wasn't the worst strategy by the librarian staff to get people interested in the old musty-smelling liberal arts books.

"We have privacy but should keep our voices down," Blanche said as she looked around.

Sunflower tucked her legs under herself as she settled on a couch. "Okay, am I the only one that was thinking that Moses is tied to Sha'am Maut?"

I shook my head. "No, and I heard Phobia Remedy mutter that she was wondering if he was Sha'am Maut reincarnated. She asked if the Story had let her go and be reborn."

Sunflower blinked. "Really? But… he seemed too nice to be her. Is it all an act?"

"If he is a reincarnation, he may have no memory of being her. It is a new life," Blanche said. "There are better questions. One, how is the doll moving from place to place? His powers are strong, but they have nothing to do with that. And are we to believe that as a baby, he was able to animate a corpse to life to defend himself? That seems unlikely. There has to be more at work that we are not seeing."

"Baby foals do surge. So animating the dead could come from something like that," I pointed out.

Blanche nodded. "Yes, but surges are largely uncontrolled, necromancy does not seem to be his power, and surges are brief. From what I understood of the story, that man had been up and moving around for months. Foals surging happen so sporadically over a few weeks, not ongoing for months. Another question, why would he ask for the doll to be given to him if he had the power just to make it come to him?"

"It's only gone from Phobia Remedy's house for a few minutes at a time. Maybe it has to return to where it was originally after a few minutes. It is like it is still where it came from and didn't really leave or something," Sunflower suggested.

"I wonder what would happen if we blocked it from returning to where it belonged if that was the case," I said as I thought. "What happens if we just shoved something else in the case while it was missing? It wouldn't be able to come back. Would it stay away?"

Blanche frowned. "I don't think the Dreamwarden would approve us doing experiments, and I'm not sure they are advisable. I was surprised that I didn't get accused of involvement."

Sunflower and I looked at her in confusion. I managed to ask the question first. "Why would anyone accuse you?"

Blanche smirked. "I told you my powers. I make solid illusions that last just a few minutes at most." She held out her hand, hand facing upward, and the doll appeared. "I can make an illusion of the doll, and it will be solid…as long as it stays close to me."

She tossed the doll over to me, and I caught it with my forehooves. I turned it over in my hooves and looked at the back, it didn't have anything written there, and other things about the doll didn't look right. However, it did feel solid. It suddenly just glowed briefly and blinked out of existence.

"I only saw the doll once, and I was trying to recreate it from that brief memory," Blanche explained. "Also, the less practice making a specific illusion I have, the less time I can keep it going."

"What do you have the most practice at?" Sunflower asked.

"My tools," Blanche answered. "I am a sculptor. I work with stone, metal, and wood. I need specific tools for each of those tasks, and I have learned how to make illusionary tools to do the work. They are very solid and work well. It saves me a lot of money on supplies. I can maintain each of my tools between fifteen and twenty minutes without much effort. Some other simple things I can maintain for a few minutes as well—eating utensils, cups, the simple tools are always better. Anything complex or with moving parts typically won't work."

I gave an overly dejected sigh. "Humans get all the super-cool magic."

"She's like a Green Lantern," Sunflower said in amazement.

Blanche gave her a confused look. "I do not understand the meaning of that."

Sunflower blushed. "It's an old superhero. The library back home used to have tons of graphic novels full of superheroes, and I did a lot of copying from those since they were full of art. That superhero has similar powers to yours."

I giggled. "Well, anyway, we have no reason to suspect you, Blanche. You never visited Moses before now, and you didn't know about Sunflower and me, so there is no reason for you to make illusion dolls. Your illusion is a little off anyway."

Blanche nodded. "There is something that bothers me about Moses if he is Sha'am. Why would the Story reincarnate him in a way that sets him up to fail? It seems cruel."

"What do you mean?" Sunflower asked.

Blanche started listing things off on her fingers. "Powers that make him an outcast. Being born in the worst warzone on the planet. These are not situations that will make him thrive. These are situations that would make it so he would be forced to struggle. It is almost like it is forcing him to go down a dark path."

"Maybe the Story is trying to see if she… um, he…." Sunflower blinked. "—I'm confused now. Do we talk about him as Moses, or do we talk about him as her—Sha'am Maut?"

"We should talk about him as Moses," I asserted. "This is why the Dreamwarden didn't want us discussing this with anyone. People will start treating him like he's her, and that isn't fair. Even if he is her he doesn't remember being her and shouldn't get mistreated because he might possibly have been her instead of him."

"The fact remains, it is practically set up for him to resent and hate the world," Blanche explained. "I don't claim to understand how the Story works, but that doesn't feel at all like it is giving him a real chance."

"Yeah… that does seem kinda unfair," I said with a mopey frown.

"That's probably what Phobia Remedy needed to check," Sunflower said slowly. "She told me that I'm a storyteller, and I've got a link to the Story. The Story wasn't nice to me when I drew Moses and Ayedonno. It had me bite myself till I bled. Maybe the Story isn't always going to do good things."

"Like it is deliberately making it hard," I said as I considered.

"What is a Story without conflict?" Blanche asked.

We all sat in silence for a few minutes after that. It was an uncomfortable thought that some force was out there nudging things to be more challenging than they needed to be. I wasn't sure I liked the Story.

Chapter 72: Basement Meeting

We were getting ready to leave the library when Sunflower let out a long sigh. "I know Ashley, Nightscape, and maybe Yolanda might disagree, but I really think we should tell Meadow and Julie about us."

Blanche blinked. "Who are Meadow and Julie?"

"The other ponies we share rooms with," I answered. I then looked at Sunflower. "Are you sure that's a good idea? We keep adding more and more to who know about us."

She nodded. "It's going to cause problems if we don't. Think about it. We will constantly have to do things without them, and at some point, they're going to ask why we keep excluding them. If it doesn't have them get nosey, it's going to cause friction. I don't want to have any falling out with them, I don't want to keep trying to come up with new excuses, and I don't like lying to my friends. It also makes our rooms safe places for us to talk without worrying about ponies that shouldn't hear anything. We need places we can be sure are always going to be safe instead of going somewhere like the library and hoping that it will be private enough."

I bit my lip and looked at Blanche. "What do you think? This is something all three of us have to agree to if we do it. It isn't our bodyguards' call; it's ours."

Blanche considered. "She does make sense. Trying to avoid your roommates instead of being honest may end up making them more suspicious in the long run. I already had to deal with your friend Maggie gossiping about me. Telling them is a potential security risk, but not telling them is a definite security risk. I'll choose potential over definite."

"We'll have to get with the Dreamwardens tonight and tell them we made a choice, and we don't want them interfering again," I suggested.

Blanche raised an eyebrow. "Again?"

"Yeah… Phobia Remedy had some guys grab Maggie off the street against her will and brought to her."

She blinked. "We don't want that."

"I'd feel terrible if that happened to Meadow and Julie," Sunflower said with a shiver.

"And we'll make sure it doesn't," I said firmly. I then lifted my leg to dial my phone. "Let me call Julie and see where they are right now."

The phone rang a few times before being picked up. "Hey, Rebec! What's up?" Julie asked cheerfully over the line.

"Sunflower and I have been hanging out with a new friend. We were wondering if you happen to know where everyone is right now?" I asked.

"Oh, sure I do!" Julie laughed. "Nightscape took off to hang with her future hubby and do the things couples do before falling asleep. Ashley and Meadow are with me. We're on our way back to the rooms now. Some earth ponies were giving Ashley a hard time, and we all kinda lost our appetites."

I blinked. "Giving her a hard time? Why?"

"Ah… stupid stuff," Julie replied. "They're still mad she got her roommates from last semester expelled on drug and alcohol possession in their room. Those old roommates still have friends on campus, and those friends blame her rather than, you know, the ponies that broke the rules and got themselves expelled. I don't judge them for using that crud. Every great artist inevitably gets drunk or high at least once. I had gotten drunk once after a big victory last season—no drugs, that could get me kicked off the flight team faster than I can sprint, but they knew they couldn't keep that stuff in their room or use it on campus. Ash could have gotten in trouble and expelled too if she hadn't done the right thing and ratted them out before an RA inevitably found it. She gave them the chance to get rid of it, but they didn't listen."

"Yeah, she couldn't put herself in jeopardy if they weren't going to listen," I agreed. "Sunflower and I are heading back to the rooms too, and we are bringing some friends, two… maybe three humans. We had something we wanted to talk to you about. It's kinda important."

"Two or three humans?" Julie exclaimed. "That's going to be cramped. Sure you don't want us to meet you somewhere instead?"

"Do you have any suggestions for somewhere private that there is no chance someone can overhear us?" I asked.

"Um...basement of the library," Julie suggested. "They have some extra classrooms down there that no one ever locks. Nobody goes down there on weekends this early in the year. They sometimes do club meetings and stuff down there, but those wouldn't be starting yet."

I grinned. "That's great! Me, Sunflower, and Blanche are already here. I just need to call Maggie and Yolanda. We'll meet you by the stairs in the library."

"Rebecca, why is Ashley giving me a dirty look?" Julie asked in a more serious tone. "She looks like she wants to skewer me with her horn and pull out my intestines. What's going on?"

I sighed. "She already knows what we want to talk about, I think. Tell Ashley that Sunflower and I said to chill out. We made an executive decision, and she'll have to live with it. Hopefully, Yolanda, Maggie, and Nightscape won't be as bad. Everybody knows about this stuff but you and Meadow, and we're changing that."

"Ooooo! Deep dark secrets!" Julie giggled. She abruptly stopped. "You two aren't dating or anything, are you? That never works out with people sharing a room or bathroom, and then there is so much drama until the semester is over… and it isn't some drug-pushing thing, is it? I'll report you myself it is."

"It's neither of those things and nothing illegal or breaking school rules or even dealing with school," I assured her. "You probably won't believe us right away, maybe even think it is a prank, but Ashley will back us, and Nightscape will too when she gets back. This is really important, Julie. Sunflower and I are trusting you and Meadow big-time with this. Blanche is trusting you too and only has our word that you two can be trusted."

"Okay then… I'll take it seriously," Julie replied. "Just as long as it isn't something that will get Meadow or me in trouble. We're friendly, but we don't have any desire to get kicked out of school or tossed in jail."

"You won't get in trouble," I promised. "I'll see you soon. I have to make another call."

"Be there in a minute or two," Julie replied, and the call dropped.

I looked at Blanche. "Guess we are doing this here in the basement. You call Yolanda, and I'll call Maggie. Maybe they'll both be in their rooms and can head over here together."

She nodded and let out a long breath. "Gives me a chance to tell Yolanda I blew it this morning, and Maggie is onto us. She's going to scold me for that."

"What's done is done. Let's just start calling," I said with a shrug.

Thankfully, both Maggie and Yolanda didn't take long conversations to get moving. I didn't even get to finish my call with Maggie before it was interrupted by Yolanda barging in on her and telling her that they needed to hurry and we could chit chat later. Maggie was more than a little taken aback—primarily with Yolanda charging into her room, but went along with it.

Ashley, Julie, and Meadow were the first to arrive. Ashley immediately started giving me and Sunflower dirty looks, but she didn't say anything. Meadow seemed apprehensive about what was going on and started fretting over Sunflower's hoof. Julie hugged Blanche after being introduced, which Blanche didn't seem to know how to respond to, but accepted.

Yolanda and Maggie arrived about four minutes after the other three. Yolanda was a big athletic black girl with shoulder-length hair who seemed just as angry and annoyed as Ashley. She didn't respond to introductions and didn't say anything at all. She just glared at everybody—not super friendly. She reminded me a little of Phobia Remedy's bodyguard, Tempest. I wondered if they were related.

With everyone present, we all filed down the stairs and found a classroom on the far end of the downstairs hall away from the staircase. Yolanda and Ashley each positioned themselves by the door when we went in. They immediately started giving each other appraising looks like they were sizing each other up for a fight, but kept silent.

I wasn't sure how to kick things off, and we were all quiet for a minute before Blanche decided to take charge of the meeting. "Everyone is here. We can begin," she said. "Sunflower Smiles, Rebecca Riddle, and I share a secret. We are part of a very exclusive group of people in the running for a very important job. It is so exclusive that we get bodyguards assigned to us. Yolanda, over there, is mine."

"Ashley is mine," Sunflower said as she pointed over to Ashley.

"And Nightscape, not present currently, is mine," I finished.

"And your bodyguards think this is a horrible idea," Ashley half-snarled.

"That we agree on, unicorn," Yolanda said with a nod. "I am sure that the other would be in agreement with us too if she were here."

"We've already decided to do this, and we overrule you," Blanche said firmly.

Ashley snorted. "Making our jobs harder."

"Definitely harder," Yolanda muttered. "But not our call. They are right about that."

"Not really harder," Sunflower objected. "Do you want to spend the next several months worrying about keeping what is going on from them? It seems like it is easier just to tell them and trust them to keep our secret."

Yolanda scowled at us. "I do not know these ponies or this other girl. I do not know how trustworthy they are."

"And while I like Meadow and Julie, I have only known them for about a week or so. I can't tell if I can trust them with this after just a week," Ashley added in.

"I thought ponies were trusting by nature," Maggie remarked as she crossed her arms.

Ashley pointed to her face. "You see these scars? These scars taught me to be less trusting. It's part of why I was given this job. I'm more suspicious of others than the average pony."

"So… what kind of job is this?" Meadow asked nervously.

Blanche, Sunflower, and I all looked at one another, waiting for one of the others to say it.

"For heaven's sake!" Ashley blurted out. "They're all Dreamwarden candidates. Not like so many hundred or thousand down the line, like in the top few in the running, in the top five. There's well over a sixty percent chance one of them will end up as Psychic Calm's heir. They want to have us tell them all, and they can't even get it out of their mouths!"

"Higher chance than sixty percent," I said absently.

"I don't know where I rank, only that it is not number one, and it is within the top five," Blanche said.

"Same," Sunflower said.

I gave a big toothy grin, and the other two stared at me.

"You aren't serious?" Blanche said in disbelief.

I held up my wings. "I didn't say anything! Rankings change all the time! We still have lots of time for things to change. I'm not even sure I want the job!"

Julie burst out laughing. "You all had me going for a minute until you said Rebecca is number one in the rankings!"

Maggie raised an eyebrow at her. "You can believe she is in the top five but not number one? If you got that far, why not go all the way?"

"And I'm having a hard time believing it too, especially about Sunflower. She's too sweet and innocent to be a Dreamwarden. Rebecca at least has weird powers," Meadow said hesitantly. "Is this some weird prank?"

Ashley shivered. "Sunflower has powers too, and hers are freakier than Rebecca's. We lied about how she hurt her hoof. She was in a trance, drawing on the Warden of Fear's wall in her own blood."

Yolanda looked ill. "Ew. That's a way to make an impression. Our visit to the Dreamwarden was a fairly calm one."

Meadow looked at Sunflower in horror. "Is that true?!"

Sunflower gave a sad nod. "I don't remember it, but I do that sometimes; just start drawing in a trance. This time around, I had nothing to draw with, so I guess I came up with the closest thing available by taking a bite out of my hoof. I tried to tell you I was a Dreamwarden candidate this morning, but you thought I had a bad dream."

"We all had a test in our dreams last night," I explained. "It was a bunch of questions with a bunch of people watching, and I don't think any of us were ready for it. The Dreamwardens just sprung it on us with no warning and without ever discussing any of those subjects with us before. I think we all woke up feeling like we didn't give any satisfactory answers. Sunflower took it kinda rough. I heard Blanche did as well."

"And you didn't?" Blanche asked.

I shrugged. "I took it as they were trying to rattle me. I know the delegates were watching, so I did try to give my best answers I could and worried over my answers as I gave them, but when it was over, it was over. No point worrying about it anymore."

Blanche gave me a thoughtful look. "Maybe being less shakeable is why you rank higher. I will keep that in mind."

"Should you be giving your competition tips on how to beat you, Bec?" Maggie asked with concern.

I shrugged again. "Shouldn’t we want the best candidate to be Dreamwarden? We should all help each other be better. I don't even know if my not worrying about the test afterward looked good for me or worse, to be honest. I think it looks good, but I'm not the one choosing between who will be the next Dreamwarden, and they can all have different feelings about whether it is good or bad. They are separate people, after all. I try to make as many people as I can happy, but I know that I won't always succeed. I'll worry about whether someone I care about does not want to be my friend because that's more important than whether I'm making people think I'm the best of the best."

"You aren't afraid Sunflower and Blanche will try to undermine you and watch what you are doing to get ahead of you?" Maggie asked again.

I shook my head. "If they get ahead of me on ranking, then good for them, they'll deserve it. I know that the Dreamwardens are always judging us about everything, and if either of them does something to cheat or whatever, the Dreamwardens will be watching that too. It's in our best interest to build each other up because that's what Dreamwardens need to do—help build people up."

"We're all artistic-creative types," Sunflower pointed out. "We're here to help inspire others. That has to be what the Dreamwardens want. We might inspire in different ways, but that is our goal, our type. I might not be the best artist at this school, or even in this room, but I have big dreams about inspiring ponies… people… to go out and see and experience the world."

"For me, it is telling the person who feels weird and friendless that they have always got a friend," I said.

"I wish to inspire others never to give up on a task just because it seems too far out of reach," Blanche said with a smile. "Never quit trying to achieve your dreams."

"Regular Care Bears in here," Yolanda muttered, but she smiled as she did it.

Julie looked around the room. "You all seem so serious about this."

"We are serious," Sunflower said. "All three of us are going to Equestria at the end of next month to see what it's like. Dreamwardens are supposed to retire there when it's time to move on. We're going there to see if we want to have a forced retirement there. Phobia Remedy said it could be a dealbreaker for some. We can refuse to become Dreamwarden even if we're chosen, and we can refuse for lots of reasons. We might not want the job if we don't like the idea of living out our old age in Equestria."

"Well, technically, there is another route than retiring to Equestria," Blanche pointed out.

I shivered. "I know I don't want that one, especially after today. If I don't like Equestria, then I'm out of the running. I'm not doing the undead to eternal dream route."

Yolanda narrowed her eyes. "And what were you three up to today? I was worried since I was not allowed to come. It is hard to bodyguard when I can't even be with the person I'm guarding."

Blanche stamped her foot in frustration. "We are sworn to secrecy by the Warden of Fear about our outing today. You need to stop being so overprotective of me. I can't spend my entire time caged away from life! Even Rebecca is dating!"

"WHAT?!" Maggie shouted out as she looked at me wide-eyed, getting everyone to stare at her like she lost her mind. "You are going on dates?! Since when?!"

Ashley gave an evil smile. "His name is Russell. She's supposed to be having her second date with him later."

"They went to Dave and Buster's the night before last," Julie added in. "Meadow, what did Rebecca say about the date?"

Meadow giggled. "She said she wore herself out dancing on the dance games. She could barely stand when she hobbled into the room."

"Russell is a human," Sunflower contributed. "We'd all been teasing her about him since it seemed obvious he was interested. She kept saying she wasn't going to go out with him. Meadow even tried to see if she could get him interested in her instead, but Russell only had eyes for Rebecca. Then she turned around and asked him out of nowhere."

I gave Maggie a nervous smile. "I would have told you all about it, but you and I weren't talking right then."

She walked over to me, gripped my head in her hands, and stared me in the eyes. "You need to tell me everything about this!"

"Hey! I know that the fact Rebecca is the only one here dating is Earth-shattering news that makes us all question our lives, but let's get back on subject," Ashley shouted.

I rubbed my belly and grinned. "You're just jealous that you don't have curves like these."

"You need to lose those curves. You're supposed to be on a diet," Maggie scolded me.

Ashley snorted. "Did you see what she had packed in her cart at Walgreens? She's not keeping to that."

Maggie shook her head. "No, I was too distracted by us running into Sunset Blessing."

"You—ran—into—Sunset—Blessing?" Meadow said in disbelief. "The Sunset Blessing?!" She proceeded to do the highest-pitched fangirl squeal I had ever heard.

Ashley lit her horn and used her magic to clamp Meadow's mouth shut. Meadow was still squealing and bouncing around in excitement.

"Well, she said she was, but she was human," Maggie continued.

Julie gave her a questioning look. "And what was Sunset Blessing doing at Walgreens?"

Maggie shrugged. "Said she was getting her kid some cord or something because he lost his. She seemed to know all about Rebecca, Sunflower, and Blanche. She's the one that outed Blanche as a candidate."

Sunflower cleared her throat then looked embarrassed when everyone looked at her. "We aren't supposed to talk about her. Phobia Remedy said so."

"Okay, I'll hush up. I don't want anyone here getting hauled off by Phobia Remedy's goons like I was," Maggie said, sounding bitter.

Ashley released Meadow's mouth, and the green pegasus hopped up and down. "Do I get to meet her if I get hauled off?!"

"Phobia Remedy? Sure," Maggie answered.

Meadow shook her head. "No, no, no! Sunset Blessing!"

"I doubt it," Ashley replied. Meadow visibly pouted.

"And we aren't going to say anything else about her," I asserted. "Phobia Remedy seemed annoyed that her mom was getting involved. She told us not to talk about her anymore and that she would deal with her."

"The old fart can't help but meddle, and her meddling never leads to anything good," Julie said with a frown. She looked at Meadow and held up a wing to cut off a protest. "I'm not getting into it with you about your misplaced idol worship of her. They said we shouldn't talk about her, so I'm not saying anything else."

Meadow sat down and pouted. "I should have gone to Walgreens this morning too."

Blanche held up her hands to get everyone's attention. "So, everyone here knows about us being Dreamwarden candidates. Don't reveal this information to anyone, and don't talk about it where you can be overheard. We are telling you so we don't have to sneak around you. It is hard, always trying to find private places to talk."

"I like you," Ashley said as she fixed her eyes on Julie and Meadow. "I like you even more after you two stood up for me today, but you know by what they were harassing me about that I won't hesitate to go running to Phobia Remedy if either of you does something stupid to endanger Sunflower or the other two. I have a job to do, and I'm going to do it. Keep your mouths shut. I don't want you getting in trouble, but this is for Sunflower's and the other's protection. People can't find out about them, or they could be endangered." She then gave Meadow, in particular, a frown. "And that goes for the old preacher too. I don't think the old coot wants people to know she isn't stuck in bed. Otherwise, she'd have announced it. You love your hero? Don't make her life harder by blabbing about her or even hinting you know she is well."

"Not sure she was ever well," Julie muttered.

"Julie, be nice," I scolded. "I understand how you feel, but it isn't helping to be mean."

Julie sighed. "You're right. Sorry, Meadow."

"It's okay," Meadow said. She still seemed disappointed the subject was closed.

"I'm in the mood for lunch now. I missed breakfast," I announced.

"Didn't you say you needed to get ready for a date?" Blanche asked.

I waved a wing dismissively. "I don't know what I was thinking. I'm not supposed to meet Russell till six. I think I had it in my head that it would be after foalsitting, and I would be foalsitting till later, but the Dreamwarden's bodyguard took my shift for today. I have plenty of time."

"Then you have time to sit down with me and tell me all about him," Maggie said with a smile.

Blanche coughed into her fist to get everyone's attention again. "Before we start parting, we need to be sure everyone is agreed not to discuss any of this with anyone not in this room right now."

"Well, besides Nightscape. She's going to be annoyed as me and Yolanda are about this," Ashley said.

"Alright, everyone in this room plus Rebecca's bodyguard," Blanche confirmed.

"I won't violate anyone's trust," Yolanda said quickly and looked at Julie and Meadow.

Julie looked around. "This still seems like it could be a prank, but you all seem so deadly serious about it. Rebecca and Sunflower are still my friends, and I'm not going to do anything that could get them hurt. On the small chance this is true, I owe it to them to keep my mouth shut."

Meadow was even now still pouting about Sunset Blessing but nodded. "I'll keep quiet. I don't want anyone to get hurt. I believe you. I don't think you would take a joke this far."

I hopped for joy. "Lunchtime for me then!"

No more lies were hanging over my head with my friends. Russell was still an issue, but I couldn't say anything to him yet. For now, I would see how that relationship developed, and if we started getting to the meet the parents stage then that might be the time to say something. Right now, I just wanted to enjoy spending time with him without complications.

Chapter 73: Surprise Guests

Life had been calm the past few weeks. I was doing well enough in my classes. I never missed a homework assignment for calculus. Astronomy lab trips had been fun. Art history put me to sleep in my chair every time I was in there, but I had aced every test for it. English literature had one book to read that bored me to death so much I had to turn to Jordan to explain the book to me so I wouldn't have to read it—Old Man and the Sea. The rest of English literature hadn't been difficult, though. My architecture class was challenging, but I had made a mid-B on the first test and low-A on the second, so I wasn't struggling by any means.

Outside of class, things were going well. Not much was happening on the Dreamwarden front. There hadn't been any new flash quiz in our dreams and no new summons to Phobia Remedy's house. There had also been no further sightings of the doll or word about Moses. It was too quiet, and I half-expected they were lulling us into a false sense of security.

Maggie and I had gotten back into the swing of being best friends and tended to do something with one another at least a few times a week. Sunflower was opening up a little and had joined a club—she wasn't doing great in most of her classes, but she was maintaining C's, which was passing. She had a different English lit class than me, and that was her lone A so far. The three of us who knew we were candidates got together for a few minutes each week to tell each other that we hadn't heard anything either. We all talked to Dreamwardens in our dreams, but the Dreamwardens mainly just asked us about how our days went and how different events during the day made us feel. It wasn't anything mind-blowing.

Foalsitting was going well enough. Drizzle wasn't that bad a filly to deal with, and she was starting to get her dog somewhat trained. There had been some messes here and there, and one temper tantrum on her part over not being let outside to play in the rain until she finished her homework, but overall not much of an issue. Her mother still didn't like me, but she tolerated me and complimented me on being the most reliable foalsitter she had found to date. There hadn't been any crying or rage outbursts from her again either, so I took that as small progress.

That left one last aspect of life, and it was going great too, which was a problem.

Things with Russell were going amazing. We had had many dates over the course of the month. We had done a great deal of cuddling on couches and benches, and after an awkward first time where we had both been timid, we were now comfortable sharing a kiss—no tongue or anything, much to my friends' disappointment, but some of them lasted a long time.

I wasn't sure how the subject had come up on our previous date, and we didn't explore it much. It was like the subject was sending its first scouting party to find out if it was worth exploring further. The thing touched upon was feelings about getting more intimate than just cuddling and kissing and how the other felt about that. After all, we were two different species, and some people could have strong moral feelings about how physical a relationship between two species should be allowed to progress. We didn't discuss it at length, but the subject had been touched upon, and neither of us seemed to have any objection to such a thing happening.

That was terrible because that meant it was now time to introduce Russell to my parents.

I was at my parents' house, pacing back and forth in the living room. My stepdad was in the kitchen, putting the finishing touches on dinner. My mom was sitting on the couch, sipping some tea and watching me pace. Russell was on his way and would arrive at any minute.

"You're going to pace a groove in my rug," Mom said as she watched me. "Everything will be fine. You look beautiful, by the way. I have never seen you wear makeup before."

Until recently, I had never worn makeup in my life, but I had taken to wearing a tiny bit of eyeliner and mascara on my dates with Russell—not a lot. It had taken me some practice to get used to applying and even more practice not to wipe my eyes, but Russell seemed to notice how much more it brought out my eyes, so I taught myself to apply it without poking myself in the eye. Poking yourself in the eye with an eyeliner pencil or mascara brush really hurt. It was like stepping on a lego block; only the lego block went into your eye. I also had my mane and tail braided for the first time in forever—I owed Maggie a big favor for helping with that.

"I'm worried you are going to make things weird for him," I said, deciding to be honest.

"Why do you think I will make it weird?" Mom asked; she didn't seem offended.

I stopped in my tracks and looked at her. "That you'll be overprotective and scare him off."

She frowned slightly. "I might be a bit protective, but I made a solid effort to give you freedom. I do my best to stay out of your affairs and let you do your own thing, and ensure you learn how to be independent. I sometimes think I do that too much. Speaking of which…." She sat her glass of tea down. "I was wondering… insisting you find an apartment for the summer may have been pushing you a little too far to be independent. I know I was concerned about making sure I could afford a roof over my head at your age. I wanted you to know, I decided not to convert your room to a guest room just yet, and it is still available for you to use during and between school years."

"Your mother is dealing with empty nest syndrome," Stepdad called out from the kitchen. "It took her all of three days after you moved into college before she was fretting about how much she missed seeing you every day."

"You miss her being here too," Mom called back to him.

"I do," Stepdad agreed. "But you are right. She needs to be independent, and I mean no offense to you, dear, but you try to control every situation around you and get very assertive about it. You provide a lot of stability, but Becky does not need you butting into her… professional… life right now. You know that, and we talked about what is best for her. You wouldn't be able to help yourself; it goes against your core personality, but it would only cause her unneeded stress at a very crucial time."

Mom didn't seem happy, but she nodded. "You're right. I know how I get, and I am very grateful you put up with me being the way I am. I lucked out marrying you. Being commanding and demanding works in the corporate world, but it doesn't always work away from it. Rebecca needs to show her higher-ups she can be independent and assertive, and I only get in the way of that. The offer still stands if things don't work out." She gave me a small smile. "And I wouldn't mind you visiting a little more often. I know I said you were guesting here from now on, but I didn't expect you would stay away from the house altogether. This is the first time I have seen you in weeks."

I blushed. "Sorry. I have just been busy with schoolwork, friends, foalsitting, and Russell. I'm kinda glad my interview thing has been mostly quiet the last few weeks. It gives me some breathing room."

She narrowed her brow. "Nothing has been happening with the interview process?"

I shrugged. "I wouldn't say nothing, just nothing big. I get questioned regularly, and the first week of school, they hit me with a bunch of things close together, but it has been quieter since then—for all the candidates and me. We're wondering if they are waiting to hit us with something during this trip. They won't be in Equestria, but Luna is there."

"Other candidates?" Mom asked, both eyebrows arching. "You're in contact with other candidates?"

I firmed up my expression. "Mom, that's not your business. I'm not going to give you that many details. I shouldn't have mentioned that much. I've got this; don't worry. I'm pretty sure the next thing will be coming from Luna. In Equestria, she is Dreamwarden, and meeting her there is a whole lot different than meeting her here."

"Let Becky deal with her own stuff, dear," Stepdad called out.

My ears perked as I heard a car pulling into the driveway, and I turned to see headlights in the window. "Russell!"

I went bounding to the door and opened it, stopped myself, took a deep breath, and calmly went out to meet him with a smile. My smile got bigger when I saw him getting out of the car, but it fell a second later when I saw an earth pony and another man step out of the vehicle as well. He brought his parents!

"Be careful with that food! I didn't sweat over a hot pot making that for it to get served to the grass!" the earth pony mare bellowed. She was just as round as me, only taller and with a much larger frame, which made her all the more impressive. Her fur was the color of grape jelly, and her mane was strawberry red. The mark on her flank was a pot of stew with a huge spoon sticking out it.

The other man was dark skin, balding at the top of his head with grey hair along the sides. He had a short mustache and beard and looked pretty big himself, but not in a fat way. He was wearing a formal jacket that looked a little worn but nice, and he was carrying a big steaming pot with both hands.

Russell walked up to me, bent down, and gave me a quick kiss before giving me an embarrassed look. "Ma insisted on coming. I'd have called to warn you, but she accidentally stepped on my phone, and I didn't have your number memorized. When Ma wants to do something, it is hard to stop her. She's kinda strong-willed and near impossible to argue with."

"This your filly-friend, boy?" the mare said as she stomped over to me. I couldn't tell if it was stomping or not. She was so big that every hoofstep seemed like a stomp. She looked me over and smiled. "This one's got some meat on her bones! Somepony that knows how to appreciate a good meal! Rebecca, isn't it? I'm Jasmine Rice, but you can call me Mama Jas!"

She held a hoof out to me to bump, and I did so. "Um… nice to meet you, at last, Mama Jas. We weren't expecting you. My parents will be so surprised. I know I am. Let me tell them real quick that you're coming in."

I tried not to hurry to the door, even though I wanted to. I stuck my head into the house and gave a sheepish grin. "So… Russell's parents decided to surprise us by coming along with him. I think they brought food, so nothing extra needs to be made, but you might want to set two extra spots—one pony and one human."

Mom frowned. She didn't like guests dropping in without at least a few minutes' notice. Maggie doing it was generally okay, but not strangers, and definitely not for a meal without notice. This was not a great first impression with her, and now I had to worry about impressing Russell's parents while he was concerned about mine. Stepdad didn't frown or anything like that. He just started fetching additional plates.

I turned to see Russell came up behind me with his parents following. He mouthed me a voiceless I'm sorry and looked utterly abashed. I couldn't get mad at him. At the moment, I couldn't even get mad. I was too busy worrying about dealing with his parents, not to mention dealing with mine.

I stepped inside and to the side. Russell came in, followed closely by his parents, and stepped between them all and my parents.

"Hey, Mom and Dad, meet Russell and his parents. I'm just meeting his parents too," I said, grinning like a madpony.

Russell stepped forward and extended his hand towards my stepdad. "Pleased to meet you, sir and ma'am."

Stepdad didn't show any sign of hesitation or being perturbed. He just gripped Rissell's hand and shook it. "Good to meet the guy who has gotten Becky's attention. I wasn't sure if she would ever get in a relationship. She has always been so adamant about not wanting to get involved in one. That's a strong grip you have there."

"I wrestled in college," Russell replied. "I'm not as fit as I was then, but Ma keeps me doing heavy lifting whenever I'm at home."

His mom took that as a chance to introduce herself. "I'm Jasmine Rice, but you can just call me Jas. This here is my husband, Terrell." Terrell smiled and gave a quick nod while lifting the pot slightly in greeting but didn't say anything before his wife continued. "Forgive us for taggin' along, but my boy ain't never dated nobody and nopony. I was startin' to wonder if he was gay an' too embarrassed to admit it for some dog-gone reason. We ain't gonna be freeloadin' in your meal; we brought a big pot of my slow-cooked black-eyed peas and greens. Never show up unannounced unless you bring food. That's what my mama always told me."

"Where do you want this at?" Terrell asked, lifting the pot of food they brought.

"Oh! In the kitchen," Stepdad said as he hurried towards the kitchen. "Let me clear a spot on the stove where we can keep it at a low simmer. If you don't mind, can you help me fix everyone's plates? I normally serve everyone by myself."

"Sure thing," Terrell said as he followed Stepdad to the kitchen. "I normally do that at home anyway. Jasmine cooks the food, and I serve the food and clean up after. Team effort."

Mom stood up and walked towards the table. She had been quiet through all the earlier introductions. I knew she felt disrespected by them arriving for dinner with no notice they were coming, but I didn't expect her to say anything about it. "Let's take our seats. We can get to know each other a little while they are getting the plates prepared."

Please, please, please, let the rest of this visit go smoother!

Author's Note

A little bit of a time jump as we enter the second half of the story.

Chapter 74: Gas

We all sat at the table as my stepdad and Russel's dad served us food. It was rude to start eating before everyone was served and they had joined us, so there were a few moments of awkward silence.

Mom unfolded her napkin and put it on her lap. "So, Russell, my daughter hasn't said too much about you. She goes on a great deal about your wonderful dates and your charming personality, but she hasn't said much about what kinds of plans you have for the future—professional, I mean, your career goals."

"My boy—" Mama Jas began, but Russell put a hand on her leg, which paused her.

"Let me talk for myself, Ma," Russell said with a smile. "I know I haven't talked much about that stuff with Becca. I'm looking at going into graphic marketing. Print media like magazines are having a renaissance right now, and many positions are opening for work in advertising. I haven't started looking at any particular workplaces yet, since I want to have a strong academic record for at least two full years along with a larger portfolio before I do to help show my capabilities, but I plan on beginning my early job searches early next year."

Mom blinked. "I'll admit, that was a much better-reasoned answer than I was expecting—no offense intended. I didn't expect that good an answer out of any second-year student. I would be interested in seeing your portfolio when you feel confident in it. Perhaps I can have a word with some people or put a recommendation in for you. I'm not sure Rebecca mentioned it, but I am one of the assistant vice presidents at PonyCo, although marketing isn't my department."

"My boy has a good head on his shoulders. Good and sensible," Mama Jas beamed with pride. Her smile slipped. "Boy can't cook to save his life, though. Sad thing."

Stepdad stared intently at the food at the end of his fork. "Is that… shrimp?"

Mama Jas lifted a similar-looking morsel of food into her mouth and began chewing for a few seconds before swallowing. "Yep! Shrimp it is! Took me years to figure out how to prepare it right, so it didn't have me pukin' my guts out all over the place. Still haven' figured out how to do the same with chicken or beef or anythin' else, but I keep tryin'. I'll get it yet."

"And keep throwin' up all over the place in the meantime," Terrell commented dryly before taking another bite.

"I keep a bucket!" Mama Jas protested. "Craft takes work. Nopony ever accomplished nothin' of note if they ain't willin' to get sick for it."

My parents just stared at her, dumbstruck, as they watched her take another bite of shrimp. I looked at my food and felt a little queasy. Shrimp was meat. Ponies couldn't digest meat. Had she just been trying at it for so long that she had built up some tolerance for it? I hadn't tried any of her food, and now I was scared to. I didn't want to get sick the day before my parents were going to take me to the airport for my trip to Equestria. I also didn't want to insult her by not eating her food. My stomach started to feel bad even thinking about it.

Terrell smiled at my parents. "You may think my wife is makin' things up or deluded. I don't blame you. I thought the same thing when she said she managed it. I was waiting for her to get sick, but she didn't. Then I was waiting for her to have the worst case of the shits ever, but everything came out perfectly fine—I even insisted on checkin' because I couldn't believe it. She served some to a neighbor, and they didn't get sick either. It took her nearly twelve years of trial and error to figure out, but she did it. When Jasmine puts her mind to figuring out food, she won't stop, and her persistence paid off."

That didn't help. The stress from having to deal with both sets of parents at once and the thought of eating shrimp was making me feel woozy. Should I excuse myself? No, I couldn't do that. I would insult Mama Jas.

"Ma and Pa aren't lying," Russell said. "I wouldn't let them serve Becca any food that I thought might make her sick."

Russell believed the food was okay. I gave the shrimp in the dish an edgy look. Should I try it? I wanted to show Russell I trusted him, and I wanted to make a good impression with his parents. Still… it was meat, and everything I had ever known said don't eat meat. My gut felt really bad. I might get sick now, even if it were okay. I just felt so much pressure that I felt like I was going to—

THPPTPHTPHPHHPH

I froze in horror. I couldn't believe that I just did that! I didn't just fart; I let out one of the loudest, nastiest sounding farts I had ever passed. It had even blown my tail back. The smell was filling the room, and I could see everyone wrinkling their noses. However, my brain started kicking in, and I tried to start thinking of a joke to make this work. This wasn't something that had happened before, so I didn't have anything ready, and that started me stressing more.

Russell sprang up and opened the front door to air the room. "I am so sorry!" he called out. "I shouldn't have eaten all those beans for lunch today!"

Wait… what?

Terrell waved a hand in front of his face. "Dammit, boy! How many beans did you eat? Why'd you even do that when you were goin' to have dinner with your filly friend? Were you trying to embarrass her?"

"Boy! I raised you better!" Mama Jas said as she waved a hoof in front of her face.

"Sorry, Pa. Sorry, Becca. Sorry, Becca's parents," Russell said as he fanned the fart fumes outside.

Seriously. What? They had to know it was me. My tail had shot outward like a wind vane, flagging me as the culprit. Mama Jas was a pony; she should be able to smell where it was coming from instantly. There was no mistaking me for Russell. I don't know how anyone could mistake my toot for someone else's.

Stepdad waved a hand in front of his face. "Don't worry about it. Bodily functions happen."

"But that was m—" I began.

Mom cut me off. "Mighty powerful! Rebecca, why don't you walk outside with Russell for a few minutes while he airs out? The parents would like to discuss some things, and I know this date is supposed to be for the two of you. Take some time to talk together without us interfering. This is your last chance to see each other for over a week."

People didn't need to personally air out after a fart. The room might, but the person didn't. Still, I wasn't going to object to time alone with Russell. I left my chair and hurried outside with him.

We partially closed the door and walked out to the far edge of the driveway before we started talking. "I'm so sorry they are blaming you for—" I began, but stopped when Russell started laughing. "What's funny?"

Russell grinned at me. "Becca, everybody knows that you did it, but a gentleman protects his special someone's dignity however he can. They know, and they know too that I was taking the blame for it on purpose. If you ever blow off like that, it is my duty to help you blow it off. I know you're very adept at self-deprecating jokes when you do something that makes you feel embarrassed, but I'm not going to leave you hanging."

I felt warm and tingly inside. I leaped into the air and flew just high enough to kiss him. Not being the best flyer, I missed his lips and got his chin, but he reached out and grabbed me, pulling me close to him, like I didn't weigh much at all, and gave me a proper kiss. I turned into a regular melted marshmallow in his arms.

"Thank you," I said quietly as I laid my head against him. "That has never happened to me before. I think it was a stress reaction, and because part of my stress involved food, my digestive tract was all wound up. I had been half-expecting to throw up. I didn't expect my other end would be the side I needed to worry about. That wasn't normal for me, and I didn't know how to respond."

"I kinda figured that," he replied. "Normally, you're practically instant with something to brighten the mood after a mishap happens, it's part of what I love about you, but I saw you freeze up and couldn't leave you feeling mortified. Believe me; my parents don't care about it. You have no idea how bad my Ma's farts are after she has been experimenting with food. My first thought was that she had let one off."

I hugged closer to him. "I'm sorry. I didn't know what to do. I didn't feel safe eating your mom's food, and I didn't want to insult her, and I wanted you to believe I trusted what you said, but my stomach said no and— I'm sorry."

"It's alright," he replied. "Ma had no business including her specially prepared shrimp in her food tonight. She was trying to show off, and it was not the time or place to do it. I didn't even realize she had done it until I looked at my plate, and by then, I was stuck having to make sure everyone knew it was safe. It is safe. I wasn't fibbing to cover for her. My mom really figured out a way of preparing shrimp that doesn't make ponies sick. Now, if she tries to serve you any other type of meat, run and run fast."

My stomach gurgled, and it wasn't a feed me gurgle. "Maybe I'll try it some other time, but hard as it might be to believe, I have lost my appetite tonight. Also, I apologize ahead of time if I throw up all over you."

He chuckled. "Apology accepted ahead of time."

I snuggled tighter against his chest and closed my eyes. He was strong. I was not a light pony, but he didn't seem to get tired at all from holding me. I was sure he was getting tired and would need to let me down soon, but right now, I was enjoying being close to him like this.

"I'm going to miss you over the next week. I won't even be able to call you," I said.

"I'll miss you too, but I hope you and your friends have fun doing whatever it is you are doing," he replied. I caught something in his tone.

I opened my eyes. "You know this isn't just a trip we won, don't you?"

He nodded. I didn't see it, but I felt his body move. "Yeah, I do. It's hard to believe that three close friends all won the same exclusive nationwide contest. I suppose it's possible, but it seems like it's a stretch."

How did I talk about this? "I can't give full details … not yet, anyway, but it is a part of a job interview. Only one person is getting hired, so there's a chance I won't get this job. It's a pretty big deal if I get it. It could impact our relationship."

"Will you have to travel a lot if you do?" he asked.

Phobia Remedy had mentioned me traveling way back, so I could put my talents to use. "There's a good chance that I would," I answered with my ears sagging.

"How would that impact your schoolwork, or is this going to just be your career, and you don't need to finish college?" he asked.

That was something I hadn't considered much, but really should have. "I don't know."

He paused for a second. "And...how does that impact us?"

I looked up at his face and met his brown eyes. "Are you a test?" I asked him. "Everything seems like it is a test with this interview process. I don't want you to be a test. I want you to be real."

He looked me back in the eyes with concern. "I'm no test. I wish I knew what kind of job would even make you think they would put someone up to something like that. That would be cruel. I'm not sure I would be happy hearing you working for someone you thought would do something like that to you."

I closed my eyes and leaned back into him, and took a deep breath. It was time to do something stupid again. "I wasn't going to say anything unless I knew I had gotten the job, but you suspect something is up, and this could change everything with us. It's for the soon-to-be-open Dreamwarden position," I whispered. "And this isn't a joke."

He didn't release me or say anything for a moment. I held my breath.

"When do they tell you if you've gotten it or not?" he asked at last.

"I'm not sure…. Wait… you believe me? You aren't going to even question it?" I asked in disbelief, not sure what answer I was hoping for.

"It's not what I expected, and it's certainly weird, but I believe you," he answered, and he took another deep breath. "I have gotten pretty good at telling when you're serious and when you aren't. It's a lot to take in, but I'm not going to freak out about it."

I wrapped a wing around him. "You can't tell anyone. I trust you, but people can't know any of us are candidates. Some people will try to influence us, or hurt us, or try to influence the decision process… or even try to hurt people close to us—like you. I have been worrying about what to do if I get into a relationship for years, just because I thought I might be a candidate when the time came. I had been a candidate back when Miss— when Yinyu was going to try to run away to Equestria to retire, even if that didn't work out. Ever since then, I have been worried about getting into a relationship and messing up someone's life just by being close to them."

"Rebecca, I-"

I started to cry right over what he was saying. "It's okay if you don't want to be with me, knowing that being with me could mean people trying to hurt us, and that isn't even counting the fact that if I were to get the job, things might get weird with me. I understand."

He started to bend down, and I got ready for him to set me down on the ground, but he kept a hold of me instead while he sat down on the ground and made a lap for me to sit on.

"I'm not cutting out on you," he gently said, rubbing my ears. "What drew me to you was how unique you were and how big a personality you have, and I'm sure that's why they would want you for that job. You bring something different to the table, where over half their number are so dull and stoic, and half of them are literally dead; you are full of life and know how to lighten things up. Being around you won't ruin my life. You make my life more interesting—I think this counts as interesting."

I leaned into him again. "Are you sure you aren't someone the Dreamwardens are using to test me?"

He chuckled. "I'm pretty sure I would know if I was. I'm not a test, and I won't tell anyone about you or your friends."

I started to grin, but it turned into a frown as I pulled back from him and looked him in the face again. "You need to know that if I become Dreamwarden, it could impact my personality a little. Dreamwardens inherit things that enhance their traits from previous Dreamwardens. I'm not sure what I would inherit or how it would change how I act."

"We'll cross that bridge when we come to it," he said, hand still rubbing my ears. "If I can't deal with it, then I can't deal with it, and then we part ways with me still keeping your secrets. However, I can't imagine it changing you so much I won't like you. You just said it; it enhances what's already there, and I love what's already there."

I smiled and settled back against him. "I love you."

My eyes popped wide-open as I realized I had just said the L-word. Was that too soon? Was I a silly filly who jumped into things too fast? It had only been a month.

"I love you too," he replied and then lifted my chin gently with a finger and kissed me. I melted again.

"Hey! Are you two going to spend the whole night out in the driveway? Come back in! The smell is gone," my stepdad called out from the doorway.

I reluctantly got off Russell's lap, and he got back to his feet. Time to go back in and face the parents again. I wasn't nervous anymore, though.

Chapter 75: Last Day on Earth

"So, this will be your last questioning session before going to Equestria since we weren't planning on doing one tomorrow night," Phobia Remedy said. Right now, we were sitting in nothingness, and Phobia Remedy was a pegasus… and looked strangely younger, somehow, like she could be my roommate. "I want to do something a little different. I want to talk about family—very casually."

I perked my ears. With all the stuff going in with Russell and his parents, the idea of family had been in my mind too. "Okay, I feel great talking about the subject."

She smiled at me. "Good. Let me start by saying that, as you may have noticed, all Dreamwardens consider one another siblings. There is some disagreement over Luna's status among us since my younger siblings, Arbiter and Avtandil, feel like she is an outsider, and I wouldn't be surprised if you or whoever is chosen feels the same, but the rest of us feel like she is our mother."

"And whoever is chosen will be your younger siblings too," I said, confirming I had it right. "You and Miss Seapony and all the rest would be my big sisters and big brothers."

"That is correct," she said with a nod. "However, that status can get complicated."

I blinked. "Um, it seems straightforward enough."

"Arbiter happens to have been several months older than me when she was alive," Phobia Remedy replied.

I frowned. "Okay...but she is younger than you in terms of being a Dreamwarden, so she's your little sister because of that. I got it. Not complicated."

"She had also been married to my mother, which technically made her my stepmother," Phobia said, not looking an eye.

I frowned. "Alright… that sounds like something you need to take to a reality tv show or talk show. You could make a lot of money."

Phobia smirked. "And since all Dreamwardens consider themselves siblings, I would consider Yinyu's foals to be my nephews and niece. The colts have all been adopted by my mother."

"Who is also your sister-in-law…." I said slowly.

"Well, not legally, but unofficial, yes," Phobia replied.

"So your adopted brothers are also your nephews," I said, following the logic. Then I blinked. "Does that mean that if I become Dreamwarden, that Lántiān would be considered my niece?"

"Unofficially, yes," Phobia said with a nod.

I tried to see how tangled this web got. "And if Arbiter is your sister and is married to your mother, does that make you your own niece?"

Phobia chewed on her lip. "I suppose so."

I sat down. "My head hurts."

Phobia Remedy smirked. "And I would be both your sister and niece."

I gave her a flat look. "You're doing this on purpose!"

She chuckled. "People think I have no sense of humor, but it is merely an odd sense of humor. I enjoy watching people squirm when there is no fear involved. Something is amusing about that kind of discomfort."

"Everybody has to find a way to laugh, I guess," I replied, bemused. "Is that all the family stuff you wanted to talk about?"

She shook her head. "No, that was me taking an opportunity to get a laugh at your expense, which worked out rather well. I wanted to talk about seeing family for who they are and how important they are to us."

I pursed my lips. "I know about how you guard them so they can't be used against you, but what do you mean by who they are?"

Phobia raised a wing, and a picture of Sunset Blessing appeared. "Let me start by discussing my own, beginning with my most infamous family member, my mother."

The Dreamwarden got up and walked across the nothingness to inspect the image more closely. "My mother is a good mare, but that has not always been the case, and even now, she has some major failings—primarily her inability to keep her nose out of things. At no point did I stop loving and valuing my mother, even when she could not be rightfully called a good person, but I have never let my love for her cloud my ability to see who she was—even if some people believe that I did. I love my mother. I want to keep my mother safe. I want my kids and future grandkids to know her and love her as I do. Yet I am not so foolish as to fully trust my mother."

"Why would you not trust her if she is good?" I asked in confusion.

"Because she can't let go of being involved in things. It goes too much against her self-importance," Phobia said as she shook her head in exasperation. "She says she is retired and uninvolved. She is retired from leading, yes, uninvolved, no. She is always gathering information about everything she thinks is of any note, and she is pretty damn good at uncovering secrets. Even though she doesn't do much casting of spells, she still sits around designing spells. She sees a new spell, and it is like a shiny new toy for her, and she is eager to see what she can do with it when combining it with others. She hears things about people in elected office, about what different organizations are doing, and she also treats those things like new things to play with. She will nudge things, just a little bit, sometimes without even knowing what her end goal is, just because she wants to make an impact. She can't just sit on the sidelines and do nothing, and she is good enough at digging things up, monitoring, and reading situations that she becomes an unintentional threat to anything that is a sensitive operation. Although she keeps most things to herself, she does filter some information to her employer and others that I would rather they not know. Most concerning is that at other times she will inexplicably tell things to people to nudge a situation and stir up a hornets' nest."

"So when she talked to us in Walgreens, she was nudging us?" I asked, trying to follow.

Phobia nodded. "Yes, and I don't think it even had an intended goal, other than she impacted the process for selecting a Dreamwarden. I don't think she arranged for all of you to meet there like that. That was a random chance, but she still capitalized on it. She is also very good at capitalizing on whatever opportunity might drop in her lap. It is her nature; she gets a puzzle piece, and she has to do something with it. She can't leave it alone."

Phobia paced slightly. "Don't get me wrong. I want my mother to be somewhat involved with the world. She is extremely talented, and it would be a travesty to have that talent sitting around doing nothing, but I prefer that talent to be called upon and directed in need, not one that I have to be constantly on guard about what it is doing."

"I guess you can't have it both ways," I replied. "She'll either sit and do nothing or do what she's doing. You have to pick which is worse."

"I don't have a choice in the matter," Phobia huffed. "However, you are right. I know if she is going to be out helping, she's going to be pulling this stuff, and not having her available for use would be the less desirable outcome. She still frustrates me, and I still don't trust her with any information I don't have to—and even sometimes when I do have to. I feel empathy for Celestia dealing with Discord. My mother may not be an agent of chaos, but the balance between needing to be able to utilize her and dealing with what she may do in the meantime is just as present."

"So… is this just your chance to vent about your mom?" I asked, unsure why we were talking about Sunset Blessing, although it was interesting seeing the Warden of Fear this animated.

Phobia chuckled. "I have other reasons, but it is good to get a chance. Let's discuss someone else now." She waved a grey feathery wing, and an image of my mother replaced the image of her mother. "I briefly touched upon the nature of my mother. It's time to discuss yours."

"My mom is great, even if she isn't a famous super-mage like yours," I said with confidence.

"Super-mage?" Phobia asked with a raised eyebrow. "Not a term I have heard applied to her before. No, your mother is no great mage, nor is she responsible for shaping recent history as much as my mother, but it is still worth examining her nature and seeing her strengths, her weaknesses, and where she can be troublesome."

"Troublesome? My mom?" I asked. "My mom might be a big executive, but in the big scheme of things that isn't that big a deal, and she's a good person."

"Good people can be troublesome," Phobia replied. "More troublesome than bad people, to tell the truth. A theoretical true villain you can punish and lock away without feeling bad about it. A good person will often have you stuck with a situation like I have with my mother. It is also best to avoid applying a straight good or evil paradigm to people. Everyone is shades of grey, and it is only a matter of how dark or light that grey is. My mother is a lighter grey than she once was, so I call her good, but she is still grey."

I couldn't help noting to myself that Phobia Remedy was literally a grey pony because of her fur. I wondered if our fur colors that we ended up with after ETS said something about us just as much as our cutie marks. Not so much those born after ETS, but for those who transformed.

She looked at me, maybe reading my thoughts. "Fear is grey by nature. You should fear for your family's safety so you can keep them safe, but you should also fear your family because they are beings of grey like the rest of us, and you can become blind to what they do if you don't fear their darker natures. It is also something you must always balance—never to allow yourself to descend into paranoia but also never to allow complacency. Most of all, you should always fear your own grey nature, so you don't find yourself the villain of your story."

I don't have much to say about my trip to Atlanta, plane trip to New York, or my overnight stay in the hotel there. I don't have much to say about getting up in the morning or the doctor's visit to ensure I didn't have any scary viruses to keep out of Equestria.

I do have a lot to say about the portal agents.

"But I need that for my laptop!" I shouted as the human agent set my battery pack aside. I had been standing in line forever in order to get to where he would check it.

"Sorry, it is on the list of contraband objects we can't allow through," he said, not sounding very sorry at all. He proceeded to put my laptop on the scale. He had already weighed my alarm clock and my leg phone. "You are over your weight limit on electronics without that. You will have to choose something else to leave behind. The phone is fine, but one of either the clock or the computer needs to stay. Don't worry; you'll get your possessions back. We will store them away until you return."

I stared. "If I can't take my battery, you might as well take both of them, unless Equestria has power outlets. Somebody told me there weren't any."

He shrugged. "Not exactly true. Electrical outlets are rare in Equestria, and you need converters to use most chargers and plugs from Earth when you find one. I'm told there is a shop in the Crystal Empire that sells nothing but converters. It's a pretty lucrative business—especially since you still aren't promised to find an outlet. It's almost like a scam."

It would be hard to work on my schoolwork over the trip without my laptop. It was fully charged right now and had a pretty good battery. If I used it for just an hour a night, I could get about three days of use out of it—maybe four, before it ran out of power. That was only half the trip, and that would leave me with a lot of work to get done in a hurry when I got back.

"Where would I find an outlet in Equestria?" I asked.

He kept inspecting my luggage. "Some fancier hotels have them, but I'm told you are going to be spending most of your time on an airship. Most businesses and houses have at least one, but more often than not, they're already being used for something. Fans are most common, but sometimes electric stoves, other small appliances, or phonographs—that's those old record players. Most households have a phonograph. Ponies like their music, and they don't have radio towers anywhere but the largest cities."

"Fans? Really?" I asked.

He struggled again. "Central AC doesn't exist in most places in Equestria."

"Don't they regulate their weather?" I asked. "I was always told they regulate their weather completely there."

He looked at me like I was stupid. "They don't micromanage the entire country. Sure, if the place you go has lots of pegasi, they probably have a weather team that does that with the local weather, but most places are tribal towns, and they're mostly earth pony towns with some unicorn towns here and there. Cloudsdale makes sure they keep the overall weather systems under control and makes sure no major weather disasters or droughts hit anywhere. Still, they don't sit there and personally supervise every town's weather to say what days will be hot, windy, or rainy. They don't have enough pegasi to keep up with all that. We don't even have enough to do that here, and we have nearly three times as many pegasi as Equestria living in the US with a similarly sized country."

Well, that was disappointing to learn for some reason. "No internet either, huh?"

He shook his head. "No internet. Those few radio towers are for just that, radio. Equestria does not have Wi-Fi. However, that might change in a few years. Companies from Earth have been competing with each other for years to get contracts to build them, but the Equestrian nobility has been fighting back and is only open to Equestrian-run businesses building any. Of which there hasn't been a business yet with the resources to do that. Some places in Equestria do have computers now, like rich families, some journalists, executives in businesses, and libraries—but those do not connect to the internet. I don't think they even have the hardware for it."

He found my bag of snacks and set it aside in the contraband section. My ears wilted. I wasn't going to make a fuss about my snacks. I could buy more in Equestria. They had to have plenty of places that sold food since that was the most essential thing anyone could sell. I guess it was silly of me to think I would be able to work on my schoolwork while away. I still had the book I was supposed to read for English literature in my bag, so that would have to do.

"I'll leave them both behind, I guess. I don't think I'll get much use out of them anyway," I replied with resignation. At least it freed up more space in my luggage for stuff I might buy during the trip. "Thank you; you've been very informative."

"It's part of my job to brief people on Equestria," he replied. "People going over for the first time usually have no idea what they are walking into." He paused and put a pamphlet in my bags. "That will give you a guide on what you are and are not allowed to bring back with you. That way, you don't spend money on something that will have to be left behind at the portal when you return—with no compensation. No one wants to feel like they wasted their money. It also gives a general guide for customs when dealing with ponies over there, so you don't make any social faux pas. For instance, if the price of an item isn't posted, expect to haggle, and expect some vendors to be ruthless in how they haggle. That's not the most important thing to remember, though."

"What's the most important thing?" I asked.

He got close to me and whispered. "Equestrians can be very easily spooked and prone to mass panic and know very little about Earth. Be careful how you phrase things because they can and will take things out of context and in the worst possible way. I have heard of Earthlings causing mass panic by innocently describing what they had for breakfast without thinking about how an Equestrian would take it out of context. Isn't the only reason tourism is limited, but it is one of the reasons."

I blinked, and watched him close up my remaining luggage. "Um… I don't want to do that. I can't think of anything I could say that would cause massive panic, but I'll be careful. Am I good to go into Equestria now?"

He shook his head and pointed to another line. "No, now you get to stand in that line to get the spell cast on you to be able to understand and speak Equestrian Ponish."

My ears sagged again.

Author's Note

Extra content was reincorporated into the chapter at popular request. I basically took part of the unused chapter and part of the following chapter and fused them. Next up, Equestrian vacation begins.

Chapter 76: Arrival in the Crystal Empire

Well, I wasn't expecting to start my visit in Equestria with being in a parade.

It wasn't technically a parade, I guess. It was a procession. Wild Growth marched at the head of it with her husband (I didn't know she was married until this). Immediately behind her were most of the rest of her family, which included Phobia Remedy's wife, Phobia Remedy's foals, Wild Growth's human brothers, the wife of one of those brothers, and that brother's three young kids—two of which were in a double stroller and the third was holding her dad's hand as they walked. Phobia Remedy's bodyguard, Crystal, followed immediately after the family. Phobia Remedy was the only close family member of Wild Growth's not here since Dreamwardens from Earth have an unofficial rule against leaving Earth until they retire. All the rest of the contest winners followed behind them with a noticeable distance gap between the family and us.

The reason for the procession was that Wild Growth visiting Equestria for the first time was a big enough deal that she had to be formally received by the royalty because officially she had government business to do—examining the conditions that former US citizens were living under. Wild Growth was also a highly influential US Senator despite being the current youngest serving senator, and she was the hero of the Cataclysm. That made her one of our national heroes and also an important government figure. I had it explained to me that the Equestrians not doing some formal reception of her, at least for her first visit, would be considered a slap in our government's face. I also had it explained to me that Wild Growth and all these Equestrian royals really would have preferred to skip all this, but formalities had to be observed.

This did give me a chance to look at the town and all the stunning architecture! It was made entirely out of crystal, and I mean everything! The streets were crystal; the buildings were crystal; that tall ominous spire in the center of town was crystal. There were at least six primary colors of crystal in use, and nothing seemed to have been built with any curves or right angles. Actually, there were trees and grass… growing on the crystal. How did that work? I didn't see any cracks where they were breaking through. How did the roots work? How did it not mess with the foundation of the buildings? I needed to know how they did that!

The ponies of the Crystal Empire had come out to watch us from the sides on the sides of the street, with a few watching us from their upstairs windows. There wasn't any cheering or anything, but I did see plenty of bright smiles. It was a little weird seeing this many crystal ponies in one place, but then again, these crystal ponies weren't like Earth's crystal ponies. These were just shiny versions of earth ponies without the powers our crystal ponies had. I did spot a few humans in the crowd as well. I guess they were here on business or something.

We walked down a vast crystal causeway towards the spire in the center of town, and as we got near the spire, I saw that the alicorn princesses were all standing at the base of the building waiting for us. When we had almost reached them, a smaller alicorn, maybe a teen, unfurled a trio of banners from a high balcony on the spire—the Equestrian flag, the American flag, and what I supposed was the Crystal Empire flag. The younger alicorn seemed to lose her balance while doing it and tumbled over the edge of the balcony but quickly caught herself in the air with her wings before sheepishly smiling and waving at us. It made me chuckle. Princesses can be clumsy too.

Our procession was brought to a halt by Crystal's signal, and the four princesses on the ground walked forward, and Wild Growth stepped forward to meet them. Wild Growth then gave a slight bow towards the princesses, and they bowed the same depth back to her.

The white alicorn, who I assumed was Celestia, spread her wings wide. "Senator Wild Growth of the United States of America! We welcome you and your entourage to Equestria and the Crystal Empire and hope that we may continue to work together to ensure mutual trade of goods and exchange of ideas between our nations' betterment!"

Well, technically, she said something slightly different, but it didn't translate perfectly between Equestrian and English in my head; that was the gist of it.

Wild Growth raised her head high and smiled. "I thank you, on behalf of myself, my guests, and the United States for your warm welcome," she said in Equestrian. "I am confident that my visit will be a pleasant and productive one thanks to the kind and generous goodwill and hospitality of the citizens of the Crystal Empire and Equestria. I endeavor to maintain the friendship between our nations. Thank you, once again."

The crowds that had been watching finally started cheering. They cheered for about a minute and then began to disperse, seeing the ceremony as over. Wild Growth and the princesses took their leave of us, and a big white unicorn stallion wearing armor stepped forward with several crystal ponies wearing similar armor.

"Greetings!" he called out to us. "I am Prince Shining Armor, and I'm in charge of seeing you get settled in. You will be spending the night at one of our hotels and will be picked up by your airships tomorrow at the crystal stadium. Before you check into your hotels, I will be dividing you into groups and having my guards escort you on a tour of the city. Don't worry; I am having other guards take your luggage directly to the hotel, and you need only ask for it at the reception desk when checking in. That way, you don't have to walk around the town hauling your luggage. This is only a tour; you can shop if you wish after you are done and checked in. The hotel will be providing you with today's allowance of bits after check-in, as your senator provided for you."

Six guards, one of whom was a pegasus, stepped forward and spread out. Shining Armor watched them and then turned back to us with a smile as he pulled out a list. "I have already gone through the trouble of assigning groups. I was unsure exactly who was relative to who, so I apologize if your family is split up for this. The hotel has not assigned specific rooms yet, and when you get there, you can ensure you are grouped with family. I have only assigned the adults to groups; your young can be included with whatever parent you so choose for the tour. I shall slowly call out groups one at a time and ask you to join the corresponding guard. Does anyone have any questions before we begin?"

A middle-aged human woman with a similar accent to Blanche's raised a hand. A relative, maybe? "What if we want to skip the tour and head straight to the hotel for now? I'm running on fumes and not up to doing a lot more walking right now. I also have some medicine I need to take."

Shining Armor nodded in understanding, then gestured to several other guards who were pulling forward some carts. "If you wish to head straight to the hotel, when the others leave for the tour, these guards will make sure to get you to the hotel safely. Any other questions?"

Another human, an older man, raised his hand. "Will there be places to take restroom breaks?"

Shining Armor nodded. "Most businesses do have restrooms, and your guides will make sure you get time to use those if you need them. Any other questions?"

A pegasus mare raised a hoof. "Does the hotel have free room service?"

Shining Armor sighed briefly. "It has room service, and Wild Growth is covering that. The hotel will give you instructions regarding that when you arrive. Would you please save hotel-related questions for the hotel staff, who can more effectively answer them. Any other questions?"

Another man raised a hand. "Why is it called an empire if it only has one city?"

Shining Armor frowned. "The Crystal Empire still owns and controls a large swath of territory. That territory is currently buried under a great deal of snow, but we still claim it. In ancient times this area was much warmer, and there were other towns and cities. The Crystal Empire hopes to push back the snow eventually and resettle the region."

A unicorn stallion raised a hoof. "If you're a prince, why aren't you an alicorn too?"

Shining Armor blinked. "I… uh…"

"I think we should save tourist questions for the guards on the tour," someone said from behind the guards. We all turned and looked as the teenaged alicorn approached with a big smile. She approached, looking very regal in a crystal blue dress, and sat down next to Shining Armor. "Don't you think so, Daddy?"

He took a deep breath. "That is correct. Thank you, Flurry."

Flurry Heart grinned bigger. "How about if I visit their hotel tonight and do a question and answer session? I think they should like that, wouldn't they?"

Shining Armor frowned. "That's not something we discussed."

Flurry pouted. "But, Daddy, I want to do something useful for this big visit. I'm too young to be part of the talks with the big important earth pony, and unfurling flags and smiling and waving isn't helping. Don't you want me to better understand the ponies and humans that come from one of our biggest trade partners? Isn't that helping with my education?"

The prince seemed to be torn between saying no and trying to resist his daughter's pouting look. He eventually shut his eyes and took a deep breath. "Very well. You can do that. I will arrange for some guards to attend you. Just a one-hour question and answer session, nothing else."

"Two hours," Flurry countered.

"An hour and a half," Shining Armor said in quick response.

"Way to put your hoof down with the young princess, sire," the pegasus guard said with a smirk.

Shining Armor rolled his eyes. "Head back to the palace, Flurry. Your mother and aunts might decide they want to introduce you to the senator, and they shouldn't have to send the guards looking all over town for you. I also assume you might want to study up a little before your talk."

Flurry Heart nodded and stood up. "As you wish, Daddy." She then began to stride away and managed to go about five steps before stepping on her dress and tripping. "Aww! Stupid legs! Stupid dress!" She then lit her horn and vanished as the guards all snickered—which didn't last very long before they caught Shining Armor glaring at them and quickly came back to attention.

He took several more seconds staring before returning to his list. "My captain, Flash Sentry, will escort this first group. That's the pegasus here who regularly asks me to fire or demote him."

"I don't ask that," the pegasus guard protested.

"Really?" Shining Armor asked with a raised eyebrow. "I seem to remember you just making a snide remark about me dealing with my daughter that I was sure translated to I want to be a potato peeler for the rest of my life. I must have misheard."

Flash Sentry gave a sheepish smile but didn't say anything.

"Alright, when I call your name, please come stand behind still-Captain Sentry," Shining Armor said. He looked at his list. "Sunflower Smiles, Jonathan Dexter, Roger Wilco, Rebecca Riddle, Howard Mercer, and Blanche Laurent, all of you are the first group."

I blinked. What were the chances that all three of us would be put in the same group?

I didn't hesitate too long in going to stand behind the pegasus guard. I looked at Blanche and Sunflower after we got behind him, and they gave me confused looks of their own. If we were together, were the other two candidates with us too?

I examined the other three people who were with us. I hadn't gotten to see who had come at what name being called out. One of them was the older man who had asked about the restroom, and I dismissed him as a candidate. The Dreamwardens wanted someone young, and he was grey-haired and wrinkly—old enough to be retired, not starting a new career. The other two were about the same age as the rest of us. One of them was a human guy who looked about as stereotypical nerd as could be, wearing extra thick glasses, a high collar button-up shirt complete with pocket protector and pen. He seemed to be taking a great deal of interest in examining the crystal spire. The other was a dark blue earth pony stallion with a brown mane and a screwdriver and lightbulb for a cutie mark. Were these two the other candidates to round out the top five? They didn't look like artists, but maybe being an artist wasn't one of the prerequisites. Perhaps it was some trait they shared with artists.

We waited patiently for several minutes while each group to finish being assigned. Then Shining Armor addressed us again.

"Each of your escorts has been designated a different tour path through the city. All of you will get to see the same things, but it might be in different orders, and all of you will finish at your hotel. If you have any further questions, please direct them to the guard who is guiding you. Once again, I hope you enjoy your visit to our world."

Flash Sentry turned and smiled at us. "Congratulations, your group gets to be the first to tour the palace. If you follow me, we'll be on our way."

Deep breath and smile. It might have just been a coincidence we were grouped together. Maybe Shining Armor had grouped people from the same region together. That would get us all together. I wasn't going to worry about it too much right now. We were on another planet, and I was about to go see a building like the ones I dreamed of making. This was going to be great!

Chapter 77: Four Princesses and a Naughty Filly

"And this is our library, second only to the Canterlot library in size and scope," Flash Sentry said as he pointed to the open room that anyone looking in could instantly tell was a library.

"Are we allowed to go in and read the books?" the nerdy-looking human asked.

The guard captain looked flustered. "Um—no. It is off-limits for anyone from off-world. The public library in the city is available for use, but the items in the palace library are more restricted. Sorry about that. If you continue to follow me, I'll show you the gallery where the young princess does her painting."

That got Sunflower's attention. "Flurry Heart paints?"

Flash Sentry nodded as he started guiding us through the halls. "Princess Cadence and Prince Shining Armor insist that Flurry Heart get a well-rounded education in all the creative arts, in addition to more serious studies. If she is to rule someday, she should have as much appreciation for culture and things of beauty as she does for magic, trade, and diplomacy. Now, over here we have AAAAHHH!"

A very old night pony stallion who looked like he was at least seventy years old and a night pony filly who looked around ten suddenly stepped out in front of the captain.

Flash Sentry huffed as he calmed down. "Do you have to sneak around like that?? You're going to give ponies heart attacks!"

The old stallion made a bunch of vague gestures as the filly carefully observed him. The filly then turned towards us. "Master Krik says that he cannot help being silent. He also asks if we would be permitted to accompany you. He says he gets so easily lost in all these halls. He is trying to find his way to the throne room. Will you be passing by it?"

Wait… Krik? As in Tikhiy Krik, the Warden of Silence? The only Dreamwarden thus far who had successfully retired to Equestria?

Flash Sentry gave them a suspicious look. "He said all that with those little gestures?" Krik nodded, and Flash frowned. "How do you tell what he is saying?"

"I have spent a lot of time with Master Krik. He is my guardian. You learn to understand him after a while. Princess Luna understands him well," the filly replied. "Are you going by the throne room? We are lost."

Flash sighed and looked at us. "This is Princess Luna's senchal and advisor Tikhiy Krik, who everypony calls Master Krik. Accompanying him is his ward, Jimsonweed. They will be walking with us for a few minutes. I am told they both originally hail from Earth. Master Krik's not much one for conversation, though."

Krik made a soft repeated rasping sound that took me a moment to realize was him laughing.

We started walking again, and my curiosity got the better of me. "Mister Krik-"

"Master Krik," Jimsonweed corrected without turning to look at me.

"Master Krik, sorry," I said in an abashed tone. "Do you like it here in Equestria? What are you doing in the Crystal Empire?"

Krik made some gestures with his head and wings while continuing to walk.

"He says he enjoys it here," Jimsonweed answered. "He says it is very relaxing. He is in the Crystal Empire because we live here. Master Krik gives Princess Flurry Heart painting lessons."

"But he still gets lost in the halls?" Blanche asked in confusion.

"He has a poor sense of direction," Jimsonweed replied, even though Krik made no gestures in response.

"How does he act as Luna's senchal and advisor if he is here instead of Canterlot?" the earth pony stallion of our group asked.

"He does his work for the princess in the dream realm. He doesn't need to be personally by her side for that," Jimpsonweed said in a tone that sounded slightly irritated.

"If the filly says something that comes off as rude, it is because she is," Flash informed us. "Don't take it personally. She's like that with everypony."

"It is the burden of having more than two brain cells to rub together, Captain. I wouldn't expect you to understand," Jimsonweed said in a snide voice.

Krik started doing his raspy laugh again.

"I'm smart enough to know you two are lying through your teeth about being lost," Flash replied smugly. "What are you two up to? Spying for Luna?"

"We are walking to the throne room, in case you forgot. I forgive you. I know remembering things for that long can be a struggle for you," Jimsonweed replied.

Flash set his jaw. "You need some friendship lessons, filly. I don't know why the princesses tolerate you."

Jimsonweed sniffed loudly. "And I don't know why the princesses keep guards who don't pose any threat to intruders, but somehow you all keep your jobs. Seriously, even I work better as a speed bump. I guess their reasoning confuses us all."

The nerdy-looking human pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose. "Considering the Crystal Empire periodically lights up in bright magical light, isn't it an odd place for night ponies to live?"

Jimsonweed turned her head. "I would think someone with glasses as large as yours would have heard of a little thing called sunglasses. You should look into getting some. They could change your life by hiding the vacant look in your eyes."

Flash hurried forward towards some big doors that had two crystal pony guards standing at attention. "Here we are, the throne room! This is where Princess Cadence receives parishioners and delegates. More important than that, it is where terror-tongue here leaves our company."

"But where's the restroom?!" the old man complained. "I have needed to go forever. I might end up peeing on the floor right here."

Flash looked around, looking flustered. "It's not close to where we are at."

"Your prince promised you could get us to a restroom!" the old man fussed. He hopped around from one leg to another. "I need to pee so bad!"

"Just like the dear captain, can't follow basic instructions. It is a wonder he keeps his job," Jimsonweed said in a mournful tone. She looked at Krik as he made several gestures. "Master Krik says we will stand here and watch the other guests as you take the old man to the restroom. He says they seemed interested in asking him questions anyway. He would take the man to the restroom, but we get lost so easily."

Flash looked back and forth between the two night ponies and the older man. "I don't know. I'm not sure I can trust you."

Jimsonweed gasped with a mixture of shock and outrage. "I can understand you not trusting me, but are you really going to not trust Master Krik, senchal to the night princess, former Warden of Silence, and art teacher and friend to your future ruler?"

"Warden of what?" Flash asked in confusion. "Is that a military rank?"

The filly slapped her face with her wing. "It is worse than I thought. I think I am getting dumber just sharing the same space with you. Hurry up, captain, before the elderly coot makes a yellow puddle that you'll need to explain to the prince. Or worse yet, what if the princesses or the foreign delegate walked out here and stepped in it? Who would they blame?"

Flash growled. "I detest you. You better keep an eye on them. I'll be right back. Come on, sir. I'll get you to the restroom."

We watched Flash leave with the old man, going off down the hall.

"You really could be nicer to him," one of the guards standing watch at the door said.

"Where's the fun in that? Anyway, I needed to get him agitated in order for him to leave," Jimsonweed replied. "Hurry up. Let us in. The princesses have been waiting long enough. The old man can only keep him busy for so long."

"Princess Cadence already has it covered," the other guard said. "We'll tell him Spear took up the tour so they wouldn't have to wait, at Shining Armors orders, and that he is to escort the old man back to his hotel."

Yep, I knew something was coming. They didn't waste any time. The princesses wanted to meet the candidates, and they found a way to get us isolated from everyone and to them without raising any suspicion.

The guards opened the doors, and the two night ponies instantly stepped through. Krik looked back at us and gestured with a wing to follow.

Blanche took a deep breath. "Well, I figured they would find a way to speak to us. Let's not keep them waiting." She then followed the night ponies in. The rest of us hurried after her.

The throne room was very spacious and had a throne sitting on a raised dais at the far end of the room—as I imagined every proper throne room would. However, the princess of the Crystal Empire was not sitting on the throne, but was instead huddled around a table with the other alicorns and Wild Growth. They were all examining mounds of papers—treaties maybe? The earth pony looked like a foal sitting next to the much bigger alicorn, and her youthful features didn't help that. All the same, she still seemed at ease. I had noticed Celestia was taller than the average piny before, but I had been further away from her. Now it was impossible to miss that she was not very pony-sized, but instead horse-sized. Luna and Cadence were also pretty tall, and Twilight Sparkle was taller than most mares, but none of them compared to Celestia in stature.

Luna was the one that got up to come greet us. "My senchal and his ward return with the candidates. I trust the captain was not too difficult to deal with?"

Krik shook his head and made some more gestures.

Luna nodded. "Yes, it is a shame that the captain couldn't be trusted to know about them. Cadence has far too many guards who are loose of tongue. That there are only two who can be trusted to keep things confidential is disheartening."

"She should fire them all," Jimsonweed said.

Cadence looked at the filly. "I will do no such thing. The guards are largely ceremonial when it comes to the castle, but they are good ponies who help keep the ponies in the city safe. I don't need that many who can keep secrets."

"And we prefer the ones who can keep secrets to stand watch over our meetings," Celestia said as she rose from her seat. She walked past Krik and looked at the five of us. "Out of all the princesses, I get the least contact with the Dreamwardens. To date, I have only met them as either candidates for the job or when they retire—and I have only met one retired and one candidate so far. We won't keep you long, but this may be my only chance to meet the newest Dreamwarden, even if I don't know which one of you it will be."

Luna stepped beside her sister and pointed to each of us in turn. "Sister, meet Sunflower Smiles, Rebecca Riddle, Jonathan Dexter, Roger Wilco, and Blanche Laurent. This group is far more gifted in magic than the group that passed through here a few years ago. While none is exceedingly powerful, each has unique abilities that are rare among the population. Dear Phobia has informed me that she is hoping to retain those that do not end up being chosen in some capacity with the OMMR."

Celestia nodded and scrutinized each of us. "That makes sense. The Dreamwardens are preparing for what may be life's final showdown. I'm guessing they would choose a bit more unusual of a candidate going into that. I'm still concerned they might try to wrest authority from Earth's governments at the eve of the conflict."

"They've assured us all that they have no such intention at this time," Twilight Sparkle spoke up. "The Dreamwardens have no desire to rule."

Celestia looked back at the Princess of Friendship. "It is a matter of what they want to do, but what they might feel compelled to do. If things do not go well, they might attempt to seize control." She looked over at Krik. "Can you tell me with certainty that they wouldn't try it if they felt they were out of options?"

Krik's ears sagged, and he slowly shook his head. He then made a series of other rapid gestures.

Luna watched him till he finished then interpreted. "He doesn't deny that all options will be explored because the threat we are facing is that great, but he doesn't see a scenario where taking control would be feasible for them. He is retired and no longer in direct contact with his siblings, so he doesn't know what may have changed. There will certainly be secret fallback options from the main plan, and this new candidate will be part of those, but it is unlikely to be something along those lines. It will be something done outside governments and armies."

Celestia didn't seem that impressed with the answer.

"Another thing that all these candidates have in common is they have higher levels of creativity. That would be an asset when trying to think of new tactics to combat the Devourer threat," Luna said solemnly.

"I can say with certainty that Phobia is doing something already off-the-books," Wild Growth announced. "The government has confirmed that she is constantly hounding Jessica Middleton to help develop mathematical equations for her. As far as we can tell, she is trying to pinpoint locate something very far away in space and track it. This is not likely to be the Devourers if it has a specific location, but we haven't figured out exactly what it is. The current working theory is a planet, but it seems unlikely she could predict if that planet still exists if she is working off ancient Dreamwarden memories. It is still being monitored, and we will report if we discover any concrete details. She is rumored to be in contact with other mages and scientists, but we haven't determined who."

Celestia nodded. "And the fact she is not being open and forthcoming means they are pursuing something dangerous and a plan that no one would approve of."

Luna glared at her sister. "When all life is at stake, all avenues of preserving it must be explored."

I raised a wing. "Um… sorry to interpret, but I don't think any of us know what you are talking about. I don't know about everyone else, but every time I ask about her secret stuff, she blows me off."

"Or scolds us that it is none of our business unless we end up becoming Dreamwarden," the nerdy guy, who I now knew was named Jonathan, said. "This is the first time all the candidates have met, I think."

"We girls know each other," Blanche replied. "I'm guessing you're living in Skytree too. We attend the art college."

"College of Applied Sciences for me, but yeah, I'm in Skytree," Roger said.

"Same, College of Applied Sciences," Jonathan said with a nod. "I've seen you around campus, Roger. Nice to finally meet you."

Celestia smiled. "I am overburdening you with this discussion. I apologize. I should have known the Dreamwardens would not have been forthcoming to you about their plans. I still would like to get a feel for each of you. Roger Wilco, how do you feel you are doing with the Dreamwardens so far?"

Roger looked away bashfully. "I might have blown it. I think I insulted the Warden of Fear."

Luna raised an eyebrow. "Phobia doesn't normally get offended. What makes you think you insulted her?"

Roger stared down at the ground. "I kinda tried to check to see if she had a penis."

It got so quiet that you could hear everyone breathing. We all stared at him in shock.

"Welp, you win the award for the biggest idiot, Idiot," Jimsonweed said in a condescending tone. "I was about to bite my tongue and be nice, but I might have ended up like Master Krik with how much effort it would have taken."

"Why would you even check that?!" Sunflower asked as she gaped at him.

He shuffled his hooves. "Well, she had been a dude when she was human, and I was wondering if… you know."

Celestia licked her lips and seemed to consider what to say. "We all make mistakes. Hopefully, your future meetings with her won't be so unfortunate."

Krik started doing his raspy laugh again. The old night pony had a bizarre sense of humor.

Celestia turned her attention to me. "Rebecca Riddle, correct? How have your meetings with the Dreamwarden of Fear gone?"

I shrugged. "Mostly good, I think. Except for that one time I put my head up her butt."

I now wasn't sure if Krik was howling with laughter or having a heart attack.

"If nothing else, I think this is the most I have seen my senchal laugh since he arrived in Equestria," Luna said in a tired tone.

"That's good to hear!" I said with a big smile. "I like making people happy. The putting my head up Phobia's butt thing had been a huge misunderstanding, and her bodyguard got me right after that and knocked me to the other side of town. I got a huge headache from that and got chewed out."

Celestia plastered a smile on her face. "We all get up to misadventures. I am not sure how your misadventure ended with your head up a Dreamwarden's posterior, but I'm sure that is quite a story. Unfortunately, we don't have time for it." She turned and looked at Sunflower. "You are Sunflower Smiles? Did you have similar misadventures?"

Sunflower chewed on her lip and looked down at Celestia's hooves, unable to look her in the face. "I drew all over the Dreamwarden's living room wall in my blood. Not my best day. I think it was the worst day of my life."

"I'm betting the Warden of Fear is reconsidering her life choices after meeting you all," Jimsonweed said with amusement.

Jonathan raised a hand. "My visit was rather uneventful. We discussed electronics."

"She and I just talked about European politics during my solo visit," Blanche said. "No misadventures here."

Twilight giggled and looked at us. "Don't worry. When the Warden of Order was a candidate and visited the Warden of Fear, one of the night ponies dueling outside got blood on him. The man had a panic attack and started flailing around. He ended up punching Tempest in the face and knocking her senseless. Having a mishap with your meeting isn't the end of the world."

Celestia seemed to have recovered from the stories and nodded. "That is true. I remember the Warden of Order as a candidate visiting here. He refused to come close to me. He thought I had alicorn germs."

"Dreamwardens are all a bunch of weirdoes and misanthropes," Wild Growth said sagely. "It seems like that is a qualification." She looked over at Krik and Luna. "No offense intended."

Krik shrugged.

Luna looked a little uncomfortable. "We are cut from a different cloth than most. I can't find any fault in what you say, other than your wording could have been more diplomatic."

Cadence stood up and approached us. "I don't sense any malice in any of them. They seem good-natured. For right now, I think we should have them return to their tour. Do you think you could guide them, Jimsonweed?"

Jimpsonweed looked offended. "Why me?"

The Princess of Love smiled at her. "Because you are well-educated about the empire and would make an excellent guide. This is your chance to show off. Plus, you could stand to socialize a bit more. I know you aren't as mean and nasty as you pretend to be. Krik has nothing but praise for your capabilities."

"Master Krik," Jimsonweed corrected absently, then huffed. "Fine. I'll do it, but they better not ask me a lot of dumb questions."

"There's no such thing as a dumb question," Twilight Sparkle recited.

Jimsonweed looked at the Friendship Princess and raised an eyebrow. "If I burned all your books to see how fast the weather team in Ponyville could respond, would you mind?"

Twilight spread her wings and grit her teeth. "Of course I would! Why would you ask that?"

"Would you consider that a dumb question?" the filly asked with a smile.

Twilight gave her a flat look. "You really need some friendship lessons."

The fully shrugged. "Maybe. Come on, four people that are going to be losers and a fifth that will probably wish they were a loser too. Let's go see the Crystal Empire."

She headed towards the doors without waiting to see if we would follow, and we were forced to go running after her.

Chapter 78: The Guide

"And that is how the Crystal Empire came to be as it is today and why in all fairness, it should be demanding reparations from Equestria," Jimsonweed announced as we walked down a row of shops. Shopkeepers were giving her dirty looks as we passed. "Not that it will ever happen, but the ponies of Equestria screwed the empire over."

Considering all the grizzly details, I could have done without the history lesson. I was puzzled over something. "Why didn't Luna just stop Sombra if he used mind control?"

"Not a stupid question, good job," Jimsonweed replied. "When Sombra became a shadow pony, he stopped needing to sleep. If he wasn't sleeping, then Princess Luna couldn't confront him in the dream realm. There's always a way for villains to get around things. For the record, Princess Luna does tend to be rather lenient on mind magic users if there isn't any long-lasting damage. Earth's Dreamwardens would never let fly the stuff she does, but it is all in how you interpret the Oaths, I guess. It's been years since she has even given someone a serious talking-to over here when it comes to mind magic."

"What did manage to draw her ire?" Blanche asked.

Jimsonweed seemed to think about it. "I'm told that one of the first things she did upon getting back from the moon was give Princess Cadence an ultimatum about how she used love magic; the night princess was not pleased to learn about the forcible alteration of ponies' emotions. Princess Cadence doesn't use her magic like that without permission anymore, but she had a bad habit of it back when she was a teen. I'm told there was also a non-pony who had mind-controlled Shining Armor for a while that Princess Luna told in no uncertain terms that she would break the mind of if tried again. You can try to conquer Equestria all you want, but don't use mind magic to do it."

"Why didn't Luna crackdown on Cadence when she was Nightmare Moon?" Roger asked. "It doesn't seem like being on the moon would stop her from doing her duties."

The filly sighed. "Fortunately for Princess Cadence, when Luna was Nightmare Moon, nopony felt like telling her about when mind magic abuses were happening—or talking to her at all. I'm told she came down hard on dream magic abuse during that time. Like, Sha'am Maut hard. However, since no one was talking to her, mind magic abuse went largely untouched in that period unless something was so totally wrong and widespread that it caught her attention on its own. She's not like the undead Dreamwardens who monitor every dreamer all the time, whether they are trying or not. She has to choose who to pay attention to and is reliant on ponies reporting things."

"Ghadab and Yinyu do pull most of the policing weight these days," Jonathan observed. "That would explain why, but why not Arbiter?"

The filly shrugged. "Probably figures they've got it covered. It is already redundant with two of them doing it; why does she need to bother?"

I fluffed my wings. "Hey! We're off subject. We are supposed to be learning about the Crystal Empire, and I really want to know how trees are growing on the crystal and how they aren't shattering the crystal or damaging foundations."

Jimsonweed turned and looked at me, then looked at a nearby tree. "Those aren't normal trees and grass. They aren't trees or grass at all—they are effectively something like a cross between a standard plant and a moss. That means they don't have root systems that go into the soil. They latch on top of the crystal. You still need to water them, and they need lots of watering, so they're very high maintenance plants. I think it's a waste of time caring for them, but ponies here do a lot of stupid stuff."

"You are well educated for a filly. How old are you?" Jonathan asked.

"Fourteen," Jimsonweed replied. I was a little surprised by that answer. I had estimated she was around ten. She seemed to be too small for fourteen, and she didn't have her mark yet—which most teenaged ponies had. I suppose she could be lying, but her voice did seem to be too mature for ten, and she didn't seem to think like someone that young either. If she was that age and from Earth, that also meant that she wasn't conceived as a pony, maybe not even born as a pony. That age put her right on the edge of ETS.

She puzzled me. "Why do you and Krik-"

"Master Krik," Jimsonweed corrected again, flattening her ears in annoyance.

I took a deep breath before continuing. "Why do you and Master Krik live in the Crystal Empire instead of Canterlot or wherever the night ponies live? I know you said he gives art lessons to the teenaged princess, but I'm sure they could find someone else to do that."

Jimsonweed chewed on her lip for a moment before answering. "I don't know why Master Krik doesn't want to live in Canterlot or Ponyville or Manehatten. As for why he doesn't want to live in Mountainshade… the night ponies are kind of scared of him."

Blanche looked puzzled. "I haven't heard of a night pony town called Mountainshade. Is that another name for Hollowed Shades? I was told that was the primary night pony settlement."

Jimsonweed shook her head. "Hollow Shades was a major night pony settlement in ancient times. You can usually recognize whether night ponies originally settled a place because it will have shade in the name. Shade and home are interchangeable terms in the old night pony language. Most night ponies consider that Hollow Shades cursed, so it is mainly just old empty buildings. Mountainshade is to the southwest of that, under a mountain, and most night ponies live there. Your information is way out of date, but I guess most Equestrians don't know much about night ponies either."

"And why are they scared of him?" I asked.

"He was a Dreamwarden, stupid!" Jimsonweed snapped. "Most ponies in Equestria don't have a clue what a Dreamwarden is. I promise you, I could go up to any of these dumb crystal schmucks and ask what they thought of Dreamwardens, and they would just give me a baffled look. Night ponies are different. Night ponies are terrified of that word. Luna doesn't even use her title in Equestria because she doesn't want the night ponies to crap themselves when she comes around."

"I don't believe you," Roger said with a hint of smugness. "All these ponies live right next to the portal. They have to have heard of Dreamwardens."

Jimsonweed glared at him. "You really are the dumbest of the batch, aren't you. First checking mares for non-existent dicks and now acting like you know the ponies in this city better than me. Just watch and listen."

The filly marched over to a mare who was selling strange translucent berries out of a cart. The mare had been smiling but started scowling as she noticed Jimsonweed.

"Hey, you! The pony who should be glad there is no such thing as a health inspector in the Crystal Empire. Tell me what do you think about Dreamwardens," Jimsonweed demanded.

The mare gave her a puzzled look. "Is that a spell or an artifact or something?" Her eyes narrowed. "Are you trying to pull another trick on me? Are you setting me up for another insult?"

"No, just proving a point," Jimsonweed replied. "We'll buy some of those crystal berries, with the palace credit. One for me and one for each of these out-of-towners."

The mare narrowed her eyes at the filly. "I'll serve them on the palace credit, but not you. You've insulted me one too many times."

Jimsonweed gasped. "What?! When was the last time, other than today, that I said anything bad to you?"

"Last week, you stood in the middle of the street and said that when we all go translucent, everypony can see we have no brains!" the mare snapped.

"That wasn't directed specifically at you. It was a general observation about crystal ponies," Jimsonweed protested.

"Excuse me, what's going on here?"

We all watched as Princess Flurry Heart stepped up to the cart and looked back and forth between the vendor and the filly.

The vendor eased up her scowl a little, but was still frowning. "Your friend just insulted me again, and I refuse to sell to her anymore."

Flurry Heart sighed and looked at Jimsonweed. "Jimson, you need to stop doing this. You're one of the most intelligent and funny ponies I know, and ponies would like you just as much as I do if you stopped being so mean to them. Mom says you have the capability to be one of the best diplomats in Equestria when you're older, but you need to show everypony that instead of this."

Jimsonweed glared back at the alicorn. "Stop talking about me being capable of being a diplomat. You know I don't like them trying to push me into a role."

Flurry stepped back a step. "I'm sorry, that was wrong of me. I do know that bothers you, and I shouldn't have brought it up. I also know you've got a better chance at finding what you actually want to do with your life if you'd just be nicer, so ponies don't avoid you. You have a unique gift, not to mention intelligence and wit. I want to see you succeed and be happy, not putting yourself in positions where you're struggling and miserable. I want that because I'm your friend, not because I'm going to get something out of it. Can you apologize to the mare, please, for me, your friend?"

Jimsonweed bit her lip and looked at the vendor who stood waiting with an eyebrow raise. "I'm sorry for calling you stupid or unsanitary. I offered these out-of-towners your berries because I know they are delicious, and they would enjoy them. I know you put a lot of hard work into caring for your berries, which shows in how they taste. Do you accept my apology?"

The mare gave her an unreadable look. "I would say you are only apologizing because the princess asked you to, not because you mean it, but she didn't say anything about complimenting my berries or my hard work, so I'll take that part as genuine. With that in mind, I'll overlook your earlier insults, for now."

Flurry Heart lit her horn and floated some coins out of her saddlebag and into a coin box the vendor had on the side of the cart. "You don't have to worry about palace credit today. I know it is an extra chore for you to have to go pick that up. Here is your payment in full."

That made the mare smile. "Thank you, Princess. Your friend could learn a thing or two by trying to be like you."

Flurry shook her head. "I don't want her to try to be me. I just want her to show ponies who she really is. She can be great when she isn't trying to convince people she doesn't deserve love." She lit her horn again and lifted several berries from the cart, and levitated a berry over to each of us. The vendor nodded her thanks and pushed her cart away.

I ate my berry as slow as I could, resisting the urge to gulp it down. If I gulped it down in one bite, I couldn't learn what they tasted like. I needed to savor it. It tasted a bit like huckleberry, only with a very different texture.

"Thank you. That was good," I said as I finished swallowing. "So why do you try to scare ponies away?"

Jimsonweed shook her head. "None of your business. If you become the next Dreamwarden, you can psychoanalyze anyone on Earth you want, but I'll always be none of your business."

Flurry looked up with wide eyes. "Wait, she's a candidate to be Dreamwarden? I was right! Mom wouldn't say so, but I knew they had to be sneaking in the candidates soon, and this was an ideal opportunity."

"All five of these losers are," Jimsonweed said. "It's stupid that your family didn't let you know."

Flurry tilted one of her ears as she looked at the night pony. "Are you supposed to be letting me know?"

Jimsonweed shook her head. "No, but I just told you I think it is stupid they didn't tell you."

Flurry sighed. "Jimson, I agree with you, but can you please stop calling my mother and aunts stupid?"

The filly chuckled. "If you want to call the color yellow something like lemon instead of yellow, that's fine, but it's still yellow."

"Calling it lemon sounds nicer," Flurry said as she fluffed her wings. She then looked at us. "I was on my way to your hotel to make arrangements for my talk later since I'm kinda springing this on them. Mind if I escort you there along with Jimson? I want to get a chance to question the candidates to be the next Dreamwarden. I didn't get to meet the last group of candidates a few years ago, and talking to Master Krik; it is hard to get any details about Dreamwardens In Earth."

"I tell you lots of things for him," Jimsonweed protested.

"Which I never know if you're censoring or not giving perfect descriptions of," Flurry reminded her. "I'm not you or Princess Luna; I can't ever be sure what your guardian is saying. Unless he writes things down, I have no clue how much you are paraphrasing, and Master Krik rarely writes things down."

"You never know who will read things," the filly said absently. "I have no objections. I think you should get your chance to talk to them too, but it's up to them."

We all looked at each other, sharing shrugs and looks of disbelief. It was Blanche who took the lead and answered—I noticed she did that a lot. I needed to step up my game. "We have no objections," Blanche replied.

Chapter 79: Hotel Check In

We arrived at the hotel and must have either been close to the first to arrive or the last because I didn't see many other guests.

The hotel lobby looked very hotel lobbyish—with a bunch of couches to sit on, a few bellhops with carts waiting, a reception desk with a giant wall of keys behind it. The most significant difference from any hotel I had ever been to was that the entire place was made of a coral pink crystal with white crystal mixed in. The white crystal seemed like it was primarily used for support beams. Was the white crystal more sturdy and robust than the coral-colored crystal? I had noticed white being used for supports in the palace-spire thing too. I wasn't a lapidary, so I didn't have a lot of experience dealing with crystals and rare stones, but it made me curious all the same. The fact that everything was made out of crystal made mundane buildings like hotels and shops have an otherworldly look. It made sense because we were on another world, but it was something that could be used for ideas for building on Earth. There were still no right angles either; how was everything so stable with no right angles?

I could tell it was a newer building. Not by the lack of wear and tear, but by the height of the ceilings and doors. This place was built to accommodate humans. The entries in most of the shops and homes we had passed by, and even many of the doors in the palace were all too low to be comfortable for humans. Jonathan had to duck through the majority of the doors in the castle, and even Blanche, who was an entire foot shorter than him, had to duck in places. This place was built with doors that someone even taller than Jonathan could easily walk through without a need to crouch. I wasn't sure about ceilings in those other buildings, but I had a feeling many of them were lower as well, based on the placement of windows for the second floors.

Well, we needed to check-in, and since I wasn't the only one who was taking in the decor, I decided to be first up.

I walked over to the reception desk. "Hi, there! I'm one of the contest winners from Earth. I was told I have to check-in, and you already had my luggage waiting to take to my room."

The crystal pony stallion at the desk smiled and nodded as he pulled out a list. "Of course! Name please?"

"Rebecca Riddle."

The stallion started examining the list. "Oh, thank you for having an easier name. Some of you Earthlings have such difficult names to try to understand. Yes! I have exactly one Riddle on my list, Rebecca Riddle, pegasus. I will have one of the bellhops fetch your luggage and help you find your room. Do you have any preferences about location?"

I thought about it. "I would like to be put in a room near my friends from school, Sunflower Smiles and Blanche… I forgot her last name. They are right behind me." I turned to look at them. "If that is okay with you two?"

Sunflower looked around. "I don't mind, but my family is here, and I want to be close to them too."

"My family is here as well. I would like to be close to them in addition to my friends, but I'm not sure how possible it would be to arrange both," Blanche replied.

"That's no problem, ma'ams!" the stallion said happily. "You are the first five to arrive, so you have the most flexibility with rooms. Do you two gentlestallions wish to be near your lady friends? You all seem to be a group, but I could be wrong."

The two guys looked at each other then back at the pony at the desk.

"I have family as well who I want to be close to, but if you could arrange that and being close to the girls, I would appreciate it," Jonathan replied.

"Same for me," Roger said.

"Great! We can arrange for one wing of one floor to be used for all of you. We only have contest winners staying with us for tonight," the clerk replied. He then frowned and looked at Jimsonweed. "Which makes me wonder, what are you doing here?"

Jimsonweed puffed herself up. "I was only making sure that they found their way here! I haven't said anything about you or your hotel." She paused and looked around. "It's very… um… clean! See, I complimented you!"

Flurry sighed and patted Jimsonweed on the back. "That was a good attempt. We'll work on it." She looked at the clerk. "When you are done checking them in, I need to discuss having a meet and greet presentation here, in your lobby, later tonight."

He bowed his head. "Of course, princess! Our guests would be thrilled to have you here. Just… have your friend stay at home."

Jimsonweed turned her head and muttered. "Didn't want to be at your cruddy hotel anyway."

I was about to say something, but Sunflower beat me to it. "Hey! What's your deal? Why are you the way you are? I don't get it."

The filly flattened her ears and glared at Sunflower. "What did I tell your fat friend? You aren't allowed into my head. Save it for the Earthlings."

I was surprised as Sunflower didn't back down. "You're an Earthling too. You aren't so young you didn't spend at least half your life on Earth. Krik-"

"Master Krik!" Jimsonweed snapped.

"Master Krik…" Sunflower corrected herself but not losing resolve. "He retired—what? Five years ago? If you came over with him, you were nine at the time. How can you find yourself in such a fantastic place and be so miserable? How did you even end up in his care? I spent the last few weeks reading about the Dreamwardens and asking them questions, trying to study up to not feel like a fool. Master Krik's family is all dead, and there is no mention anywhere of him having adopted anypony. What's your story, and more importantly, if this is your ending, why are you unhappy?"

Jimsonweed looked away. "Word of advice, dumbbell, don't talk about Master Krik's family, especially to him. As for not being impressed—it's just another place, like any other place."

Sunflower fluffed her wings. "Yes, it's another place, and every place is special! I want to see all the places and see all the things they have that make them unique. Even my home, some ponies thought it was not very interesting, that it was nowhere, but if you looked deeper, you could have this fantastic experience being there. The only reason I left is I wanted to have even more new experiences. You know so much about the Crystal Empire and other places in Equestria, but you don't get any joy from being here or surrounded by amazing things and amazing ponies. You're friends with a princess and are the adopted daughter of a former Dreamwarden. That's amazing! But you don't seem to care. I want to know why."

I could hear the filly grinding her teeth from across the room as she gave Sunflower a hateful stare. Flurry Heart gently laid a wing over Jimsonweed's back.

"Jimson, try to be understanding," Flurry said in a calming tone. "She doesn't know you. She doesn't understand how her words can hurt. If she—"

Jimsonweed shoved her friend's wing off with her own. "If she had half a brain, she would have listened when I said she has no business trying to get into my head!" She stomped over to Sunflower. "You think every place is special? That every place is full of hidden joy and happiness? You don't have a clue! Tell me, Smiley, what do you tell a filly who spent from when she was five until she was nine living on the streets of New York, living off spoiled food from dumpsters that made her sick, but she had to eat, or she would starve?! What do you tell the five-year-old who had her mother abandon her soon after her birth because she didn't want to be a pony, and she didn't want some filly around making her regret her decision?! What do you tell that same filly when her dad goes to work one day and never comes back, and she only finds out a week later that he had been hit by a car?! Or how about the fact that same dad, who was supposed to love and protect her was a token poster pony for Humanity First and only ever told her they were defective for being ponies to the point she believed it?! What a wonderful world, isn't it?"

Jimsonweed sat down and hung her head, sobbing like a much younger foal. "Where is the joy in living in a place like that? I wanted to get away too. That's why I tried to sneak through the portal to Equestria, to go somewhere away from the hurt and the pain. They caught me, of course. What stupid little filly thinks she can sneak past all that security?"

We all stared at her as she sobbed, even the hotel staff and a few of the other contest winners who had just walked in through the door to be exposed to her outburst. I thought my early foalhood was rough just being homeless, but this was something else.

She seemed unable to continue, and the princess rubbed her back and continued for her.

"Jimson was caught by portal security on the same day Master Krik was supposed to come over to Equestria," Flurry Heart explained. "He took an instant interest in her and stayed on Earth for several extra weeks while they nursed her many physical health issues. She didn't trust ponies, and her only previous encounter with a Dreamwarden had ended with her telling the Dreamwardens to go away and never bother her again—which I understand is fairly binding in the dream realm unless some crime has been committed. Ponies had tried to engage her before, but Master Krik somehow managed to be the first to get through to her, and he did it without words and without her knowing how to read. Ironically, you can learn how to communicate better when you lose your power of speech—you have to."

Jimsonweed sniffled. "I didn't trust him, not back then, but he was my only ticket through the portal. I thought I would just run away once I got through, but the old coot was ready for it and every attempt after. He was KGB when he was younger; you know that, right? That's the old Soviet Union secret agents, and he was part of Russia's secret agents after that. He isn't as easy to fool as any other dope. I tried biting him, hitting him, yelling at him, and he never got angry, no matter what. He was never mean to me and always treated me nice and took care of me. I eventually started to trust him. He taught me to read and encouraged me to read about everything. It turns out I'm pretty smart for a half-feral filly."

Flurry smiled. "You have to understand; Jimson used to be a lot worse. You don't want to know what our first two years of classes together were like—I felt like screaming at her every day. I more than once asked my mother to throw her out of the Crystal Empire—which my mother never did, but was sorely tempted to do. I know that doesn't excuse her behavior now that she should know better, but it's a process. Don't judge a pony until you have had to walk the trail they've been on. I'm sorry she can be so mean and nasty, but we're working on it. She is making progress, and that counts for something. I ask you all, as your future ruler and your friend, to be patient with her for now. If she weren't making progress, I would say she didn't deserve our patience, but she is."

I still didn't want to believe what she had been through—having both parents treating her like she was garbage for being a pony, which included her pony parent, and being taught from a young age not to trust anyone or feel loved. I understood why Krik had chosen to live in the Crystal Empire when he came to Equestria. It was for her. He wanted her to learn to accept and give love, and what better place to do that than the place that ran on love and positive feelings?

"Well…" the hotel clerk said, as if not sure what to say. "I suppose she can be here for your talk, Princess. If she wants to come, and as long as she doesn't make our guests feel unwelcome. I have to assure our guests are happy, you understand."

Flurry Heart nodded. "I understand. We will be here two hours after sunset and will stay an hour if that is alright."

"Of course, Princess," the clerk replied. "Let me get back to checking these guests in. A line is forming, and I don't like to delay our guests."

The alicorn giggled. "Yes, sir! I'll let you run your business. Thank you for being such an excellent hotel manager."

The stallion beamed under the praise and kept smiling as she and Jimsonweed departed. He then turned to me and passed me a key on a chain that would hang around my neck. "Here is your key for room two-hundred-one. Our bellhops have your luggage and will escort you to your room." He paused and then reached behind his desk to grab a pouch on a second chain which he passed to me. "That is your spending bits for today, as provided by Wild Growth. Please, return the unused bits and pouch to the lobby upon checkout tomorrow. She will provide you new bits in new pouches each day. This is her money she is letting you spend, be respectful of it and her."

"Will do!" I answered as I slipped the two chains around my neck. The pouch with the money was a little heavy, but not too bad.

A mare bellhop came forward, pushing a cart with my luggage, and the clerk gave her an odd look. "Who are you? Did you just start?"

The mare nodded. "Yes! I just started today. My name is Burssss—Crystal Burst! That's me! Sorry, in such a hurry all the time that I forget my own name!"

The clerk raised an eyebrow at her. "Are you one of Thorax's group blending in, Crystal Burst?"

The bellhop looked relieved for some reason. "Thorax, yes, definitely. How could you tell?"

The clerk rolled his eyes. "Call it a guess. I thought I knew who all of you on staff were, but you certainly seem new. Anyway, Burst, please escort Miss Riddle to her room and help her get her luggage there. Two-hundred-one is the room number. Be quick; we're going to have more guests waiting."

Burst saluted. "Yes, sir." She then looked at me. "Follow me, pony from Earth. I'll get you where you want to go."

I nodded and followed along. What a strange pony, but the hotel clerk didn't seem to be upset about her oddities. I was in a foreign land, and they probably had a bunch of weird stuff I wasn't used to.

Chapter 80: Finding a Friend to Go Shopping With

"Oops! Not that way!" Burst said as she hurried back with the cart from the hall she had been going down. She immediately started down the opposite corridor. "This one… I think."

I started following again after she passed me. "You said today was your first day?"

"First day, definitely," Burst confirmed. Her eyes lit up. "Ah! Here we are! Your room. You'll need to unlock it. I don't have a key."

I walked over to the door and unlocked it. It opened easily after being unlocked, and I stepped through into my room for the night.

The room was done in the same crystal as the rest of the hotel, and all the furniture was done in a blue-white crystal—furniture consisting of a bed, vanity, nightstand, two chairs, small lamp (which I saw no plug or outlet for so I wasn't sure how it worked), and a small table. The chairs didn't look that comfortable since they had no cushions. However, the bed appeared extremely comfortable and had a lovely quilt with a picture of the Crystal Heart in it. There were two small windows with white curtains pulled back, and they let through a pleasant amount of sunlight.

"A small tip; don't turn your back on somepony when you're alone with them. You never know who you can trust," I heard Burst say in an ominous tone.

That was worrisome. I spun around and took several steps back. However, Burst just pushed the cart with my luggage into the room and began unloading it. Seeing that didn't turn out to be a threat—or at least, I didn't think it was, I relaxed and waited for her to finish. This seemed to be a weird pony. I hadn't met many Equestrians, so I couldn't say how weird.

"Here we are. All unloaded," Burst announced as she set my last piece of luggage next to the bed. "Do you have family staying here?"

I shook my head. "No, I don't." The odd pony got a gleam and her eye and slowly advanced towards me. "But I have several friends from school here with me."

Burst halted in her tracks and took a step back. "Good friends, who know you well?"

I smiled and nodded. "Yep! At least Sunflower and Blanche know me well. I have just met two other people from my town that are here, and I know Wild Growth and some of her family—the Warden of Fear's foals and their bodyguard."

Burst took several steps back now and looked ashamed for some reason. "You're friends with Wild Growth? That's great. I hear she is quite the pony. I need to get going and help other guests. Are all the guests friends with Wild Growth?"

"I don't think so, just contest winners," I answered. "I know Wild Growth from somewhere else."

And just like that, Burst's mood seemed to improve again. "Good to know! I hope you enjoy your stay in Equestria, and may it be a brief one!"

She turned to go, but I called out to her. "Wait! I need to give you your tip!"

"Tip?" she gasped. She then rushed towards me, startling me and forcing me to back up. "Did Chrysalis change her mind? Did she send you to help me? Thank you, thank you! I need help so much!"

I blinked and took a few steps back before gesturing to the pouch hanging from my neck. "I don't know anyone named Chrysalis. I meant a tip like a gratuity for helping with my luggage."

Burst practically deflated. "Oh."

"Who is Chrysalis?" I asked, taking a step back towards her. "Is that a friend of yours? What do you need help with? Maybe I can help you."

She shook her head, looking miserable. "Not a friend. Just someone I know. She likes to laugh and make fun of me and told me I was a buffoon. She likes using that word for me, buffoon." She suddenly grit her teeth and scowled. "I can't help not being smart! It isn't my fault I got messed up in the head, but I'm going to fix it! Even if she doesn't want to help me." Those last few sentences were in perfect English, not Equestrian.

"You seem to know English well. That should help out a lot today with dealing with guests," I said in English, guessing this had something to do with her new job and trying to encourage her.

Her eyes shrank to pin-sized. "Forget I used that!" she said in Equestrian. "Also, don't worry about the tip. I consider the learning experience tip enough. Enjoy your stay!" And with that, she rushed out of the room.

"Equestrians seem to be weird so far, but I'm okay with being weird," I said to myself. Oh well, time to go out and do some shopping!

I went to my luggage and put on my regular saddlebag for going out. I also fished around and found the pamphlet that said what was okay to bring back and what wasn't and began looking it over. My ears sagged as one of the first things listed that couldn't be brought back home was anything made out of crystal or gems. Glass and metal were okay—depending on the metal, as were most cloth items. Anything made with paper, I had to verify that the paper was not enchanted. Food, plants, wildlife rounded out the list of unacceptable items. It also informed me that each item would be inspected before my return for any potential contraband and that I wouldn't be punished for any honest mistakes, but could receive fines or worse if they felt I was deliberately trying to smuggle something through.

That was fine. I was sure I could find some small souvenirs that fit the acceptable category and the food I didn't need to bring back anywhere but my tummy.

Before leaving, I decided to do a quick check of how the bed felt and check out the bathroom, just to see if I needed any towels or anything like that.

A quick jump on the bed left me feeling unbalanced as it wobbled and swayed. I immediately panicked for a moment where I thought I might have one of those cloud beds I heard some pegasi in Equestria had. My ability to cloud-walk was suspect at best, more like cloud-slowly-sink-like-quicksand, definitely not walk. I was the worst cloud-walking pegasus I had ever heard of, and a cloud bed would not work. However, I quickly realized it wasn't a cloud bed; it was a water bed! I hadn't ever slept on a waterbed before. There was a slight urge to jump on an unfamiliar bed, but I didn't because I was afraid I would pop it or something. Instead, I pushed my weight down a few times and felt the bed do a wave inside it. That elicited a giggle from me. I'm a simple pony who can enjoy the small things in life.

I left the bed with some reluctance and went to check the bathroom. It was done up in light blue and white crystal; it had a shower but no tub, but that didn't bother me at all. There seemed to be plenty of fluffy white towels and two toilets, one sized for ponies and one for humans—which was nice. There was no air dryer, which meant I would be forced to dry myself with towels, and that was inconvenient, and there was no feather bin. I guess I could just toss my feathers in the trash can, but it seemed so wasteful. Feathers gathered in feather bins typically got repurposed into other products. I would think Equestrians would be eager to save them, especially since quills were known to be a preferred writing method for unicorns.

There was no point in unpacking the rest of my stuff if I would just need to pack it up again tomorrow morning. I'd read a little of my assigned English lit book tonight—A Clockwork Orange. I wasn't familiar with the book, but the title seemed promising for something weird and off the wall. Hopefully, it would be something funny to make me giggle before bed.

With no more reason to hang around my room, I went out into the hall and saw that several different people, including my fellow candidates, were just getting to their rooms. It seemed that the check-in process was going fast after a minute or two delay. Sunflower was the only one I didn't see, but I wouldn't be surprised if she was already in her room—especially since I saw a different bellhop leaving the room next to mine and she had been next in line behind me.

Blanche was standing around fussing at some other humans, who were, in turn, fussing with a bellhop who looked very flustered and anxious.

"You need to speak in Equestrian to them," Blanche said in Equestrian to the other humans. "They don't know any Earth languages, certainly not ours."

An older woman put one hand on her hip and started talking quickly in a language I did not recognize at all while making rapid gestures with her other hand at the bellhop.

Blanche rubbed her head as if soothing a headache. "Mom, please, using Equestrian isn't just a courtesy here; it is what we need to do to communicate. You can't expect these ponies to know Flemish. Why are you being so difficult?"

Her mom chattered off something else in what I assumed was Flemish.

Blanche went red-faced and stomped a foot, making the bellhop squeak and cower. "That is a blatant lie! You did have the spell cast on you; otherwise, you wouldn't understand what I'm saying right now!"

Her mom put a hand up to her ear and shook her head while saying more of the gibberish I assumed was Flemish.

"Mom! Don't try to play ignorant about being able to understand me now!" Blanche yelled, red-faced. "We're in Equestria, and we're going to speak Equestrian while we are here."

"Everything okay, Blanche?" I called out in Equestrian. I was going to stick to Equestrian while here; it sounded pretty, almost like singing.

She looked at me and gave a resigned shake of her head. "Just dealing with difficult relatives."

I nodded. "I see that. Hey, did you want to be with me and explore around town? It is impossible to get lost here. It is just like Skytree; you always have the big landmark in the center of town you can determine your position by."

She shook her head. "Sorry, Rebecca, but I haven't gotten to see my family in over a month and a half. I promised I would spend as much of the first day with them as possible. I think Sunflower promised her family the same. Maybe you can try one of the guys and be the first of us to get to know them."

I perked my ears. "That's a good idea! Thanks, Blanche, and good luck with the whole language thing."

"I need it," Blanche muttered, and she went back to trying to deal with her parents.

I walked past them and quickly found Jonathan talking with some other humans in the hallway, who I assumed were his family.

"Hi, Jonathan! It's me, Rebecca, although you can see that. Want to go exploring the town with me?"

He looked at me and adjusted his glasses. "While I wouldn't mind doing so later, I want to spend some time with my family for right now. If you still wish to do so tonight, I will happily join you. I would enjoy learning about each of you who are also from Skytree."

I noticed a pattern here. I felt left out, being the only one who didn't have my family here with me, and I suddenly wished my parents had managed to clear their schedules to come with me. I knew they were busy and had already used up their vacation for the year except for what they intended to use if I got elected Dreamwarden. They had lives of their own.

I smiled. "Sure! Have fun with your family." I then spotted Roger and a night pony mare getting escorted to a room by another bellhop. "Hey, Roger! Want to come with me and go exploring?"

Roger jumped and looked around before spotting me. He then settled. "I don't know. I like to keep to myself a lot of-"

"Roger will happily come," the night pony mare said over him. "He doesn't get out enough."

He quickly turned to face her. "Mom! I was going to spend time with you and—"

The mare held up a hoof. "I'm going to be sleeping, so I won't be much company. It would be best if you socialized more. It isn't every day a nice young mare asks you for company. I know crowds make you nervous, but it won't get better if you don't put yourself out there more. You know I worry about you."

He hung his head. "I know you worry. I don't think she is interested in my company for the reasons you think. Rebecca and I are in competition for the same job."

The mare turned and narrowed her eyes at me. "Really? Well, all the more reason for you to spend time with her. Go on; you need to step up if you want to get this job, and the biggest thing holding you back is your shyness. Be bold!"

"Yes, Mom," he replied in a dejected tone.

I hurried over to him and draped a wing over his back. "Don't worry, I might be heavy, but I've never eaten a pony. I'm not interested in undermining you for the job either. I want the best of is to win, even if it doesn't turn out to be me."

The night pony mare looked at her son. "Do you believe her?"

He nodded, seeming to relax a little. "She believes what she says. Okay, let's do this."

"Great!" I shouted. "Let's go shopping, and we can learn about each other. You can meet the rest of us tonight."

Chapter 81:Roger Wilco

It seemed like Roger and I were going to be the first of the guests to go back out after checking-in. We passed by the reception area and saw that the hotel staff had this down to a science and were moving through the line of guests quickly, with a bellhop returning just in time to get the next guest in line's stuff as they were assigned a room. I saw Crystal Burst and at least six other bellhops as we were making our way through.

We looked around the street as we stepped outside. "Where should we go?" Roger asked.

"Food," I said as I put a hoof to my tummy. "One little berry will not feed this pegasus, and I want to get some snacks for later too. After that, we can walk around and maybe find a souvenir from here that is not contraband."

"Works for me," he replied and started walking in the general direction of the giant crystal spire. "Come on. We passed several different vendors with food carts on our way here. We can try finding them again. I'd like to see the library too if we can find it."

I did a quick trot to catch up to him and get beside him. "No problem, we have plenty of time. So, I know you are at the applied sciences college in Skytree, that is on the opposite side of the Monument from the art school, right?"

"If you treat the circle around the Monument as a big clock, the applied science college is at about four-o-clock while your school is around nine. The hospital is at the two, for further reference," he explained. "It is right next to the PonyCo corporate headquarters."

"Oh, I know right where that is. My mom is an exec at PonyCo. She works in their building and real estate department. She helps manage all the factory leases, decide who needs remodeling, buys and sells company property, and helps decide where to open new factories and stuff like that. She's an assistant VP in that department, and she is trying to work her way up to be the head honcho of that department," I explained.

He nodded. "My mom works for PonyCo too, just not as glamorous a job or in Skytree. She works overnight security at the Tulsa office."

"Is that where you are from, Tulsa?" I asked as we stopped to look at a stand selling crystal lamps—nothing we could buy, but they were pretty.

He nodded again. "Yeah, me and my mom. My parents are divorced, and my dad farms up in Kansas—he's an earth pony too. I get to catch up with him when dreamwalking. Otherwise, I would never get to talk to him. It was a nasty split, and my mom and dad can't stand to be in a room together. He complains she is too violent and forceful, and she is too tied to human things. She complains he doesn't accept her, and she doesn't want her or me stuck on a farm."

"Too violent?" I asked, turning to look at him.

He shrugged. "When I was a foal, a feral dog tried to attack me. My mom attacked it and beat the thing into a bloody mess. She saved me, but my dad was horrified by what he saw. He said it was excessive and that ponies shouldn't be so violent, and she argued she was defending me, and there was no such thing as excessive in those circumstances. I'll admit, she scared me too when she was doing that, but I was more afraid of getting mauled by the dog. That wasn't the only thing they argued over; it was just one of many things."

My ears sagged. "I'm sorry to hear that. I'm guessing your dad didn't come on this trip then?"

He shook his head. "No, he didn't."

We walked away from the stand and headed towards a cart selling… crystal carrots with mustard on a bun. Okay? Little odd, but it was food.

"I'll have one of those, please," I told the vendor and then fished around in my pouch—which seemed to be bigger on the inside somehow— for currency, a coin labeled one bit, and I passed it to the vendor. The vendor passed me the mustard-covered carrot, which I carefully cupped in a wing.

I turned to him and held out the carrot. "Are you going to get one?"

"No, not good at walking on three legs, and I don't have wings to hold it," he replied.

I sat down. "Well, we can sit and eat. Get some food. There's no rush."

Roger looked around nervously. "I really want to get somewhere more secluded. I'm not a big fan of crowds."

"Really?" I asked, confused, then perked up. "Oh! You want to be able to talk freely about our interview stuff. I get it."

"That's… part of it," he replied. "But truthfully, I don't like crowds."

"Huh?" I said, tilting my head. "We can go find the library if you like. I never really met an introverted pony. We're extroverts by nature. I heard it was part of Sunset Shimmer's evil plan or whatever to bake being social into our DNA. Sure, Sunflower was a little iffy around crowds to start with, but she just wasn't used to them. Now that she has gotten more used to them, she is perfectly happy in a crowd."

"It's learned introversion," he replied. "It has to do with my powers. We can talk more when we get somewhere private."

"Ooo! Talking about powers," I said as I stood back up. "Lead the way. I can tell you all about mine too when we get there. I won't say anything about Blanche's or Sunflower's. It feels like a betrayal of trust to say anything about them without them here, even if I'm sure they're fine with you knowing."

"I'll talk to them later. Follow me. I think I remember where the library is from that rude filly's tour," Roger said as he started leading the way. "So… you knew Sunflower and Blanche already?"

I kept pace with him and nodded. "Yep! Sunflower and I share a bathroom, and we found out about each other when her bodyguard thought I might be another bodyguard and let it slip. We found out about Blanche for sure when someone nosey and snoopy told us about her."

He raised an eyebrow at me. "The Dreamwarden's mother?"

I blinked. "Yeah. How'd you guess?"

He turned back to paying attention to where we were going. "PR told me that SB had been nosey and interfering with some other candidates and if she approached me that I was to tell her I was told not to talk to her. I had thought that she was in self-isolation at her house in Denver. People would be talking if they saw her."

"She goes out in disguise," I explained, then I giggled. "And believe me, you would never think it was her in a million years. I ran into her twice. The first time she read me as a candidate right away, and the second time me and my friends ran into her at Walgreens."

"I see," Roger said with a nod. "I actually admire her a little. Not for all the philosophical stuff, but as one tinker to another. I tinker with science, and she thinkers with magic, but we both try to find new applications for using things. I can admire that."

"I know a scientist! Her name is Doctor Jessica Middleton. I hear she is pretty famous," I said. "So you're like her?"

He shook his head. "No. I met her too because she sat in on my meeting with PR as a science expert, and she and I aren't much alike at all. Doctor Middleton deals with math, physics, and the theoretical. What I do is take what scientists like her do and find practical applications for it. Doctor Middleton doesn't do much in terms of coming up with direct applications to things… or at least, that isn't primarily her thing. Me, I'm all about application. I'm an engineer."

I giggled again. "It's funny you keep calling her PR. I think public relations every time you say that."

"Well, she is, if you think about it," he replied. "With PC retiring, she will be the only living one that everyone knows the identity of. She was already kind of the face of the group, and she will, even more, be after this is all done. That makes her sort of the PR department."

"I guess s—what the heck is that!" I shouted as I gazed upon a horror.

He turned and looked, then laughed. "Weren't you paying attention during the tour? That's the statue of Spike the Brave and Glorious. Did you zone out or something?"

I blushed. "I might have been trying to ignore her after a while since she kept insulting everyone and everything, heh. I might also have noticed that pretty crystal shop right over there and been paying more attention to that." I looked at the statue. "Um… so is he supposed to be a monster it something that attacked the empire? The statue isn't very flattering."

He gave me a flat look. "He's Princess Twilight's adopted brother or son or assistant… it's never apparent what that relation is. He's a dragon. He helped save the Crystal Empire twice."

I tilted my head as I looked at the statue. "That's supposed to be a dragon? It's like an ugly little goblin." I folded my ears and lifted my head. "Sorry, maybe I spent too much time listening to Jimsonweed today, and now I'm being rude too! I feel sorry for that filly, but dealing with her is tough."

"She certainly has a mouth on her," Roger agreed. "I wonder why the princesses want to use her as a diplomat. She isn't anyone I would recommend for a position like that, at least from what I have seen. She's smart, so she could be useful in a variety of jobs, but not that one." He examined the statue for a moment. "I think it's the eyes. They seem so lifeless and off."

"I think it is all the jagged, not-right, angles," I contended. "The complete lack of right angles in any of their construction is driving me nuts! Sorry, I'm an architecture student. I can get weird about building stuff."

"Equestria is less concerned about practical than it is about expression," Roger observed. "Construction here is all about aesthetics, and the Crystal Empire is concerned about maintaining one that reflects the natural state of jagged crystals they use for construction of everything. Have you ever seen a picture of Canterlot? There is nothing practical about that design. The place looks like it is ready to fall off the mountain at any moment and probably would if anyone took any sort of siege weapon to it. Princess Twilight's castle is a big crystal tree. Tell me, how that is supposed to be practical? The Crystal Spire is the most practical of the big constructions, and that is only because it is basically a huge antenna to broadcast the Crystal Heart's power—like the Eiffel Tower is just a big antenna. They even have similar designs."

I looked at the spire. "Huh… you're right. I should have noticed that."

He tapped his hoof on the ground. "And this street isn't just the street; it is a conduit. This entire city is one big mechanism for channeling energy to the Crystal Heart, with the spire there to radiate it out. The Crystal Heart is a powerful artifact on its own, but it is only at its full potential when it's here. The houses and everything else are unimportant. What's important is beneath our hooves. The entire layout of streets here is one big set of spell runes."

"Well, the ponies are important. They're the power source," I pointed out. "I know that much. How did you learn so much about this place? That wasn't on the tour."

He shrugged. "I read up about it before we arrived. I like to know how things work. Magic isn't my thing, but this is magic with a physical element, so it holds my interest. I don't claim to understand the magic involved, but the mechanism...that I can get. I sometimes wonder if we could do something similar with Skytree. There is a lot of powerful magic built up in the trees of the Monument—even more than the Crystal Heart, and it all sits doing nothing right now. If we could harness that magic with a similar mechanism, imagine what we could do."

"Is that your dream?" I asked.

"No, I want to work with electronics," Roger answered. His ears then folded. "PR asked me so many questions about electronics and my understanding of them. She is interested in how I can help Plan B. She did say my ideas about the monument might be useful for Plan C if we need it, although she prays we don't."

"Plans for what?" I asked in confusion. "And what about Plan A?"

He gave me a raised eyebrow. "She hasn't talked to you about the plans? You know, to keep the world from ending because of the Devourers?"

I shook my head. "It hasn't come up. What's Plan B and C, and what happened to Plan A?"

"I don't know what happened to Plan A, only that it didn't work out and needed to be abandoned," he answered. "Plan B is using magic to detect the Devourers and launching missiles at them. Integrating those tracking systems with something the missiles can use would be of great importance. As for Plan C… she wouldn't tell me. She said we hope we don't have to use Plan C. I get the impression it is something foolproof, but it will come at a high price if we have to go with it, at least by the way she reacted to questions about it. I don't want to know what she considers a high price, not after her casually discussing how to execute a Dreamwarden and being okay with murdering several others to do it."

I shivered. "Yeah, she had that talk with me too. I couldn't believe she was so alright with the idea of killing off all the undead Dreamwardens for the sake of getting rid of a bad egg. It's like a genocide almost, even if there are only six Dreamwardens. It was monstrous."

"Being a Dreamwarden means having to make hard decisions sometimes, for the sake of the world. I think she was trying to stress that. Offing yourself and your fellow Dreamwardens isn't something done lightly, but sometimes you have to be open to any possibility to deal with a threat, especially if it comes from within," Roger said in a low voice. He looked left and right, then got close to me and lowered his voice further. "I think that she is worried that Arbiter might become dangerous."

I blinked. "Arbiter? But she seems nice. She isn't evil."

"I didn't say evil; I said dangerous," he stressed. "Arbiter pushes to exert more influence over things compared to others—influence from the background and sidelines, but still heavy influence. I think Phobia might be worried about how far that could go. Arbiter is well-intentioned, but so was Sha'am Maut. She might not use violence and torture to get what she wants, but that doesn't mean she doesn't manipulate and maybe manipulate things too far. We're not meant to be rulers in the waking world."

I gave him a firm look. "That isn't a reason to kill her or any of the others. That's what the voting system is for. Dreamwardens can rein each other in when one strays too far from the intent of the majority."

"It's all in how you interpret the Oaths, and even the most carefully laid rules can produce loopholes," he said as if quoting something off. I wouldn't be surprised if he were quoting Phobia.

"I don't think I want to talk about this part anymore right now," I said. "It's depressing, and we're supposed to be on vacation. Let's go find your library."

Chapter 82: The Crystal Empire Library

The big library in New York was famous for having two giant lion statues right outside it. My visit to New York had been brief—going from the airport to the hotel and then from the hotel to the portal, so I never got to see the library. I wasn't much of a library pony. Books are great, but I preferred reading them in a digital format, most of the time. Aside from my school books, I owned about seven books of my own; five of those books were books about architecture, and the last two were my copies of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and the sequel Through the Looking-Glass. So I basically just owned a few books related to my field of study and my favorite stories from growing up. I wasn't exactly what anyone would call a book nerd. Libraries were interesting for how they were built, not for all the books inside.

The main building of the New York Public Library was done in a Beaux-Arts style. That was a popular style developed in France in the nineteenth century and was brought over to the United States. It combined many parts from neoclassical and renaissance structures with more modern building elements like glass and iron to create something that looked both old and new. Some of the things that tip you off to the style are they tend to have the first floor not sit right on the foundation, but instead is raised off the ground, the roof is flat, there is a lot of ornamentation on the building, everything is always built a little 'too big', tends to have grand impractical entrances that move into more practical spaces, lots of symmetry, and arched doors and windows. Oh, and they tend to have columns near the entrance as well. This all adds up to make an imposing-looking building that radiates the message of being important with a strong hint of permanency. It's the type of building someone like me would drool over the prospect of designing.

The lion statues? They were a nice touch that added to that whole 'grand entrance I mentioned. They were as much part of the design of the building as the rest, even if they were statues outside. I could go on about them too, but they were more Blanche's thing. Where they would be placed outside is more of mine—if that makes sense.

Why blather on about the library in New York? The reason was that as Roger and I stood outside the imposing Crystal Library, I couldn't help but notice many similar elements—the imposing size, the elevated first floor, the flat roof, and the two giant griffin statues guarding the entrance.

Now, that wasn't to say that it was Beaux-Arts style, not by any means. It still sported what I had labeled in my head, lacking the proper term, as Contemporary Crystal Empire style. That involved the complete lack of right angles even on the stairs leading up to the entrance, the use of bright crystal as a building material, the diamond-shaped windows, and the jagged edges on their statues with the dead-eyed stares. Seriously, would it kill them to make the eyes more expressive?

Okay, I'm a nerd, just not a book nerd.

"This building is bigger than most of the rest," Roger observed dryly. I could forgive him for not commenting on the full range of style because he wasn't an architecture student. Heck, Roger wasn't even an art student. He was all about silly things, like practicality.

I giggled to myself, and he arched an eyebrow at me as if asking what I was laughing at. I shook my head. "You wouldn't get it. Let's head inside and see what it looks like in there. I think you wanted to see the books, not the merger of Contemporary Crystal Empire with Beaux-Arts."

"Merger of Contemporary Crystal Empire with what?" he asked in confusion.

I flew up the short flight of stairs and therefore bypassing my need to walk up the stairs that lacked all right angles or symmetry, which I was sure I would trip on and embarrass myself.

"Architecture stuff," I answered as I came in for a landing in front of the door. It was a perfect landing, no splats, leaving me very pleased with myself.

We walked in and immediately gaped. The entire building was one huge room, split into multiple levels with glass rimmed staircases and surprisingly ordinary-looking ladders. The layout of the bookshelves was set up in a way that when you entered the building, you were immediately blown away by the sheer volume of...well… volumes that the library had.

"Wow," Roger said as we turned our heads this way and that to take it all in. I nodded my silent agreement.

"Can I help you?"

We turned to see an elderly crystal pony mare with a scroll for a cutie mark looking us over.

I waited for Roger to say something since he was the one who wanted to come to the library, but after a few seconds of silence, I remembered that he was shy. "We are from Earth," I stated with a smile. "We aren't looking for anything in particular…." I turned and looked at Roger for confirmation, and he shrugged, so I looked at the old mare again. "We're just browsing. Do you have a computer or card catalog we can use to browse titles?"

The mare blinked and then pointed to what I assumed was a computer. "We have one of those computer doohickies. I don't know how it works. It just sits there, gathering dust. I'm not sure if that is what it is supposed to do or how that helps. We have a mechanical catalog if that's what you mean by card catalog."

We both looked at the odd-looking computer. The screen was tiny, and the keyboard was giant—and used Equestrian script. The translation spell did carry over to writing, but I had a feeling we would be hunting for keys, especially since they had many letters and signs that our alphabet had, and they also lacked comparable letters and symbols in many cases. Add to that, I had no idea how those would be laid out on a keyboard, and I doubted that we would be making much use of it. Actually, I could see from where I was standing that it wasn't even plugged in, and I didn't even see a place to plug it in.

The mare turned to walk away. "Well, if you need anything, just find me."

As she walked away, I heard her mutter, "Tourists."

I was pretty used to the college library at this point and knew what the primary purpose of a library was other than checking out books. "So, do you want to find a nice secluded corner to go talk in?" I asked.

Roger nodded but didn't say anything. He also didn't move, which meant it was up to me to lead the way. That puzzled me. I might not be the most take-charge leader-type person—Blanche seemed to be the one of us who excelled at that most, but I still could step up and take charge of a situation if I needed to. It seemed like a skill a Dreamwarden would need. Even Sunflower would do so on occasion. Roger didn't seem interested in talking to people or taking the initiative about saying what to do. He said he was an introvert, and the idea of an introverted pony was still a new one to me, but Dreamwardens were supposed to be guides and leaders. Maybe not leaders in any political sense, but still people that others looked to for direction. Roger's mom.was right; that did seem to be his biggest weakness.

Since it seemed like it fell to me, I picked a direction that didn't seem to have many ponies browsing around and started leading him.

The stacks extended much further to the sides than I had initially thought or seen. Every shelf went all the way up to near the ceiling, with only a tiny foot or two of space between them and the ceiling. Spaces to walk between stacks were placed irregularly, and the sum effect was a labyrinthine maze where you quickly could lose track of how far you were from the entrance or any of the building walls. I didn't have a great sense of direction, and there weren't any shelf labels to indicate what the books on the shelves were or where you were. It didn't take long at all for us to reach a point where I wasn't sure where we were anymore, and I hoped that Roger had been paying better attention, so we didn't take forever to find our way back out.

Reading titles as I walked by, I realized there was a method to the madness. The books were in what I assumed were alphabetical order. I say I assumed because I didn't know what order the letters in the Equestrian alphabet went, but books always seemed to be sectioned together with other titles that also began with the same letter, rather than by subject matter. I saw books involving magic smashed up next to books involving history as well as what were clearly novels. If you were looking for a book on a particular subject, then you had better know what book specifically that you were looking for; otherwise, you might be here for weeks looking for something relevant. There were a few oddities—I didn't see any books for foals or any really old books. Maybe those things had their own special section? Old books were probably valuable and needed to be treated with extra care, and the books for kids they might want all together, so they didn't have kids wandering everywhere in the library.

We'd reached a point in the stacks where I hadn't seen any ponies around for a good minute and decided we had gone far enough. I brought us to a halt.

Still keeping my voice low—we were in a library; after all, I whispered to Roger in English, "Okay, I think we're good. We can talk more freely. Jimsonweed said most ponies wouldn't know what we were talking about anyway, but it feels safe here."

Roger nodded but didn't say anything, leaving me to take the initiative again.

I absently fluffed my wings a little. "So… you said you learned to be an introvert because of your powers? What are your powers? I can tell you about mine. I sort of astral project. I can send my consciousness out to go places in kinda a half-in-dream half-in-waking-world state. I can make that projection visible or invisible or change its shape. I'm not always sure what's going on with my body when that is happening. I can also be spied out by crystal ponies...um, our crystal ponies on Earth and sometimes some night ponies. I can also talk to the Dreamwardens when in that state, and they can see and hear what I can see and hear. I can't touch anything in projected form; I pass right through."

He blinked and then put on a thoughtful expression. "I can see where that could be useful to the Dreamwardens." He pursed his lips briefly before continuing. "You said you could make yourself visible. Can you be heard as well?"

I nodded. "Yep! I can talk to people."

He gave me an odd look. "But you said you couldn't touch anything."

"I can't."

He shook his head. "That doesn't line up. Sound is made through vibrations in the air. If you can be heard, that would indicate you are vibrating the air—which is a physical interaction. Even being visible indicates you are blocking and absorbing light—again, another physical interaction."

I blinked. "I never thought of that."

He sat in thought. "Two questions. First, are you picked up on audio and visual recordings when this is happening, and, second, are you licensed by the OMMR?"

"No, and yes, in that order," I answered quickly.

He nodded. "That explains it. You aren't actually visible or making a sound. You're sending the image of yourself and the phantom sound directly into the observer's brain with mind magic. It's passive and nonharmful, so the OMMR doesn't punish you for it. They should have explained this to you when you were getting licensed, though. It's in the name—Office of Mind Magic Regulation."

I gave a sheepish grin. "I might have dozed off when they were reading all the paperwork and disclosures to me. I was only a foal at the time. I haven't sat down and read my paperwork and terms. I just recently learned I was allowed to tell people about my powers now that I'm no longer a minor and was told that is in my paperwork. I should probably read that when I get time, huh?"

His expression showed disbelief that I was that negligent in keeping up with that. "That would be a good idea, yes."

I was a little flustered that I was making myself look like an idiot and that looking like an idiot had nothing to do with being clumsy. That was the worst kind of looking foolish. It was time to change the subject. "You haven't told me about your powers. Tell me, tell me! Pretty please?"

He sighed. "The OMMR also licenses me. I have an ability I can't turn off. I can tell if someone believes what is being said or not."

"Like a lie detector?" I asked.

"In part…" he replied warily. "If they don't believe what they are saying, they could be lying. However, they could just be repeating something someone else said and still not believe it themselves. It isn't just the person speaking my power involves. It also involves those listening. I can tell if someone believes what they are being told too."

"Why does that make you get introverted?" I asked, still confused about the connection.

"Because people are fake!" a new voice rang out in outrage.

Roger and I looked up and found a tiny pony perched up on top of one of the bookshelves. There wasn't a lot of space up between that and the ceiling, but our observer wasn't that big.

"Jimsonweed?" I asked in confusion.

The filly unfurled her wings and launched herself off the bookshelf, and did a few quick flaps before landing gently beside us.

Jimsonweed gave us both dirty looks. "So, that's why the Dreamwardens think you're special, despite one of you having fat suffocating her brain and the other looking for nonexistent dicks on mares."

Roger flattened his ears. "I apologized right away about that!"

Jimsonweed gave him an ugly grin. "Right away, or was it after she started screaming in outrage? Hmmm?"

Roger blushed and took a few steps back. Jimsonweed gave him a smug look. "Thought so," she said.

"How much did you hear?" I apprehensively asked her.

"Everything," she answered quickly. "Don't worry. I wasn't following you. I happened to be on my way somewhere in the library, but I happened upon you two along the way."

"She's telling the truth," Roger confirmed.

"Of course I am," Jimsonweed said with a half-snarl before giving him a considering look. "Although, I suppose I should watch what I'm saying around you since you have the same powers as me."

I blinked and looked at Roger. "Is she telling the truth about that?"

Roger returned her considering look with a thoughtful one. "She believes it."

Jimsonweed stomped a hoof. "Why would I lie if I was going to be caught in one immediately? Yes, I have the same powers. If you weren't such an idiot, I would feel some kinship with you."

Roger frowned. "You don't believe everything you said there, but not sure which parts."

She stuck her tongue out at him. "There's always a way to circumvent things, and mixing things you believe with what you don't is one of them for circumventing our powers. At least, until further questioning is done to clarify it."

That would explain why the princesses wanted her as a diplomat. Powers like those would be invaluable during negotiations between countries. The thing was, Jimsonweed didn't want to be forced into a role just because of her powers. Her acting out could be partly a reaction to constantly hearing lies in everyone around her, but also somewhat to express how much she hated people forcing her to do things.

"I don't think you believe all those insults you fling around," I said and looked to Roger for confirmation. He nodded his head to me in agreement. He would know.

Her face contorted into another nasty sneer. "Urgh! So aggravating! Not fun being on the other end of the stick—not that either end is a fun place to be in this case."

"What were you doing in this part of the library?" Roger asked. "This is fairly deep in the stacks and doesn't seem that popular an area. Why were you climbing along the tops of bookcases instead of walking through? Were you trying to go unnoticed?"

"Yes, I was trying to go unnoticed, obviously," Jimsonweed snapped. "And it is none of your—" She paused and seemed to reconsider. "Actually… do you want to see something cool?"

"Cool? Not dangerous or cruel, right?" I asked.

She shrugged. "Definitely cool. As for dangerous, that depends on if you're careful or not. You'd have to do something stupid to make it dangerous."

"She's not lying," Roger said.

"Why would I?" Jimsonweed asked defensively. "I promise you'll find it interesting and be glad I showed you."

"It's nothing illegal, right?" I asked, considering her offer.

"Technically, no," Jimsonweed answered. "The princesses might not be happy about it, but if they wanted to forbid it, they should have made a law...or not stuck it in a public library. It's why I'm here."

Roger looked at me. "She's still not lying. What should we do?"

I sat and considered. "Well, we are on another world and want to see amazing and interesting things. If it isn't going to be dangerous if we are careful, I suppose it is okay."

She smiled. "Great, follow me. We're almost there."

Chapter 83: The Restricted Section

Jimsonweed led us deeper into the stacks to what appeared to be a dead end. There were bookshelves to three sides of us and nothing of particular interest. I wondered if she was playing some weird joke on us when she went climbing up the shelves and skittering along them like some bug. We watched her partially pull out three separate books from two different shelves.

There was a clicking sound, and Roger and I gasped as simultaneously a bookshelf slid into place behind us while the bookshelf in front of us silently slid out of the way. A new path revealed a stairway that led down into the dark. Well, if you are looking for an adventure, a secret passageway is a good place to start.

"Tada! Welcome to the restricted section!" Jimsonweed exclaimed. "Every one of the more important libraries in Equestria has one, although some are more impressive than others. Honestly, they are pretty predictable to find—always a secret passageway with book triggers. You just have to find the right book triggers."

"How many of these more important libraries are there?" Roger asked with unmistakable fascination.

Jimsonweed returned to the ground and shrugged. "This one, Canterlot, the Castle of the Two Sisters, I assume there is one at the Hallowed Shades. Canterlot and this one are easier to access. The Castle of the Two Sisters requires you to brave the Everfree Forest, which isn't safe but can be done. The Hallowed Shades one requires you to go down into the Well of Shade, which could very well be a suicide mission. There were others in ancient times, but even the locations of those cities are lost."

"Why is the Hallowed Shades one a suicide mission?" I asked with a peep.

The filly flattened her ears. "Just because the night ponies are superstitious about the place doesn't mean they're wrong to be. All the greatest ancient mind magic users made their last stand down there. I'm not one to believe in ghosts, but I'm not sticking my hoof into a place where there was that much mind magic going on from desperate, vengeful, and probably by that point insane ponies. I don't want to guess what that leaves behind. Magic entities and curses are a thing and a thing you should take seriously."

"Um...what's in the restricted section?" I asked as I warily stared down the staircases.

"Old books, scrolls, stone and crystal tablets, sometimes artifacts, it depends on what library you go to," Jimsonweed answered. "There are ponies with private collections as well, old families, but libraries typically have more in one place. They can be restricted because they are original copies of records or information that the princesses don't want the general public to know about. Celestia is very keen on restricting knowledge. She keeps Equestria in a perpetual dark age and tries to keep knowledge from advancing. She's a tyrant—a nice tyrant, but still a tyrant."

"I don't understand. Why would she do that?" Roger asked. "Why try to halt progress?"

"She thinks it is dangerous, destructive, and can ruin the environment," Jimsonweed replied with a sniff. "Did you know ponies here invented the train long before Earth did? I know, hard to believe, but it is true. All the train lines Equestria has are ancient and only get maintenance; no new lines added. The Crystal Empire had been gone a thousand years, but the train line leading up here remained in place the entire time, inactive. All they had to do to get ponies here right away after it returned was clear some snow from the tracks and make some minor repairs. If tech had been allowed to progress normally, then Equestria could have been far ahead of Earth by this point, but no, Celestia wasn't having that. It must make her temperature rise thinking about how she can't keep ponies in the dark about all this tech anymore after contact with Earth."

"Are you sure?" I asked.

She nodded. "There are books down there that detail the building of the train lines and record Celestia putting strict limits on what could be built. She was willing to build some lines because it made transport and movement over land more manageable, but only to a certain extent. People think the nobles prevent the spread of cell phones and the internet to Equestria, but it is Celestia whispering and nudging them. She doesn't want that here. Take it from the filly who the sun princess can't successfully lie to."

"How could they be so advanced if this world is so much younger than our own?" Roger asked in disbelief.

Jimsonweed chuckled. "You're really dense; you know that? Yes, this is a younger world, but it has nearly two million years of civilization with only occasional interruption. Earth can't compare with that. The current races in Equestria may have far less history than human civilization, but they weren't starting from scratch. There were other species, now long gone, that built and developed empires on this world before ponies and the other current races of this world even became intelligent species. They might not have understood all the stuff they found when they ransacked old ruins, but what they could understand was enough to give them a better starting point for civilization than humans ever got on Earth. It allowed them to effectively skip the Neolithic and go straight to the Bronze or Iron Age. That's a big head start on building a civilization. Imagine if humans could have started building the pyramids at ten thousand BC instead of two thousand BC. How far would they have advanced by now? That's an eight thousand year head start."

Something clicked in my head. "And you've been sneaking into the restricted section for a long time, haven't you? That's how you know so much."

"Not as dumb as you look, but it doesn't take much to do that. I don't expect much intelligence from a walking ball of lard," Jimsonweed said snidely. She then gestured with a wing to follow her. "Come on. I want to show you my current interest. If one of you two dufuses make Dreamwarden, you could turn out being useful down the line in helping me figure it out."

That filly was really hard to like—sad foalhood or not.

We followed her down and entered a big crystal chamber illuminated by a few glowing crystals on the walls. There was a single shelf that was filled to the brim with scrolls, a simple table with four chairs, and the walls were packed with items sealed away in crystal.

"The scrolls are transcriptions, translations, and descriptions of the items that are sealed away," Jimsonweed explained. "It is rare that anypony comes down here and rarer still that any object is removed from the crystal. Some of those objects are extremely delicate or potentially dangerous to handle. Sealing them in crystal keeps them and us safe. The stupid thing to do would be to take them out. Don't try to do the stupid thing."

I wouldn't even know how to take anything out of the crystal. It wasn't like I was going to sit there bucking the crystal to try to break through.

Roger and I went down and started looking at the items sealed in crystal while keeping a safe distance so we didn't touch anything. There were old tattered scrolls, some tablets, books that looked like they were ready to fall apart if you sneezed on them, and small objects, including several figurines of ponies, what looked like a music or jewelry box, a gem with so many facets it looked almost like a perfectly round ball, a mirror that didn't give a reflection, a sewing needle, what I was almost certain was a gun, and a decrepit stuffed pony doll that brought back uncomfortable memories of Sha'am Maut's doll.

"Here we go!" Jimsonweed exclaimed as she unfurled a scroll on the table. "The detailed account of the idiot unicorn mages breaking the Great Sunstone."

"What sunshine?" I asked as I walked over to look at the scroll.

"The Great Sunstone. Pay attention; it is a big deal," Jimsonweed snapped. "Once, far back near the beginning of all those extinct civilizations, only a small strip of this planet was capable of supporting life, and I say that in a very loose sense. The reason why was that the sun never seemed to move, causing never-ending day or night depending on where you were unlucky enough to be."

She held up a wing to cut us off before we could say anything. "Before you ask, stop trying to think of this solar system like the one that we came from. Equestria's sun is exceedingly tiny as far as stars go. I have no idea how it functions, but I know that it isn't much bigger than the moon. Also very different is that this solar system isn't really a solar system, it is just Equus, its moon, and the sun, and Equus is the biggest thing in the system, and everything orbits it. There are regular solar systems out there in space; this one seems to be an extreme anomaly because it has a dwarf star rotating around an orphan planet. I have no idea how that happened or how this planet or the star survives that, but that is the way it is. I suspect it might be because this is where thaumic energy leaks over, but I could be completely wrong. How it works isn't important."

"Okay, we'll accept that," I said, trying to show I was paying attention.

She gave me a stink-eye but continued without insult. "During this time, the first civilization of this universe emerged. That was the civilization led by the third in their line Dreamwarden, Kir'ta, the undying queen of dreams, heir of Tregez. She was possibly distantly related to the species of Homo Erectus, but that is unconfirmed. What is certain is that she and her people created the Great Sunstone, and with it, they were able to move the sun and moon and create a regular day and night cycle, greatly expanding the amount of the planet that was fit for life and improving conditions all-around."

"And the unicorns came along and broke it," I said, remembering the title.

"Yes, the dumbass ponies fiddled with the thing, messing with things they didn't understand, and broke it," Jimsonweed confirmed. "That meant the sun and moon would stay locked in an orbit that would make it so day and night never ended. After that, they had to pool their magic and try to do the job of the artifact they broke. This was a job they struggled with, which caused problems with everything else, which caused a complete breakdown in relations between the three largest pony tribes. There is a whole lot of history there, but the sun and moon issue wasn't given a bandaid fix until Celestia and Luna came along and had the power to move them on their own."

Roger frowned. "You say bandaid fix; why?"

"Are you that stupid? Right when I was trying to give you credit that you could add one plus one too," Jimsonweed said with a snarl. "What happens if we lose them? Take a guess?"

"Oh," Roger said in a small voice.

"That's a big oh," Jimsonweed said with a curl of her lip. "Celestia doesn't try to do anything about it because she seems to foolishly think nothing could ever happen to her, or at least not to her and Luna both. That is reckless and negligent. She is going to get everyone living on this planet killed thinking like that. The Great Sunstone needs to be remade, and that's where we need Dreamwardens to help."

I hated to admit I was confused. "How? Dreamwardens don't have power in the waking world. Is it tied to dreams somehow? And can't Luna and Krik help?"

"Urgh… and they call me young and out of my depth!" Jimsonweed growled. "No, dumb-dumb, they can't make one. What they can do is try to remember how it was made in the first place. Memories from older Dreamwardens are fragmented, and Krik doesn't have enough of Kir'ta's fragmented memories—of which there are two million years worth, to get that information, and you can't expect self-important Luna to help. However, different Dreamwardens have different fragments, and if you have enough Dreamwardens, you can try to put together a better idea of how it was done."

"Like the construction of the Devourers. I understand," Roger muttered.

I shifted uncomfortably. "Is there a real chance of that happening? Them both being taken out of commission?"

The filly laughed. "There is another potential doomsday every year that could take them down, or at least it seems so. Add to that; there are people on Earth that make active plans on how to take an alicorn out. I'm told the notorious Sunset Blessing was set to the task of trying to figure it out years ago, and she gave Twilight Sparkle a report about it so they could defend themselves if anything she had dreamed up was ever used. There are even some people on Earth that would be happy to kill them, so this planet dies."

"Sunset Blessing snitched?" Roger asked, seeming surprised.

"Well, yeah, she is friends with the Princess of Friendship and is also Luna's personal student. Did you think she wasn't going to snitch?" Jimsonweed asked incredulously. "I would hope that all those friendship lessons those two impress upon her would earn them that much. If not, Twilight Sparkle needs to quit her job."

"Committing espionage isn't really what you should be trying to get out of a friendship," Roger replied.

I had to disagree. "I think telling your friends that people are making plans on how to kill them is not exactly espionage." In truth, I was horrified that our government would even consider making plans like that. That was monstrous! We were supposed to be good guys!

"Technically, it is espionage, but you should still do the friendly thing by telling your friends that someone has made plans on how to kill them," Jimsonweed said dryly. "And they say I need friendship lessons."

"My poor dear, Jimsonweed. Thou art in much need of them."

We all turned to see Princess Luna step into the room. The princess was giving Jimsonweed a sad look.

"Were you spying on us!" Jimsonweed said, hoping and flapping her wings.

The princess cocked her head. "Was I listening in on your conversation? Yes. I had my own business in the restricted section today and was very ready for battle when I found that somepony had violated it. I came down the stairs in stealth and discovered that it was you three. Not expecting that any of you had diabolical intent, I decided to instead wait to ascertain your intentions."

"We didn't intend to do anything wrong. Jimsonweed said that it wasn't illegal," I insisted.

"Nor is it, although that is only because making such a law makes a declaration that such places exist," Luna said in a grave tone. "As for your concern about the Great Sunstone, it is misplaced. While I confess that we delayed far longer than we should have in rectifying the situation, my sister and I did indeed make a replacement shortly after regular relations with Earth commenced. We still do our celestial duties, but it is designed to do our job in our absence. You have no reason to fear."

"Why didn't you say anything about it?!" Jimsonweed screamed. "Why do you always keep us all in the dark?"

Luna's eye twitched. "A poor choice of words to use with me, but the answer to your question is twofold. Primarily, telling the public that such an object exists invites them to seek it out, much like declaring this chamber exists. That can only end in a repeat of the original tragedy. Ponies can and will mess with things they do not understand, as you aptly put it."

"And the second part?" Jimsonweed asked in a combative tone.

"You didn't ask," Luna said bluntly, cracking a small smile. The smile slipped a second later. "Which brings me to my concern. You're a pony of much intelligence and drive. We have rarely met one of our subjects who have possessed such drive to learn outside a scattered few, and I doth not recall the last such pony from among your tribe who had such applied scholarly aspiration, and at such a young age! Most such scholars hail from the unicorn tribe; to see a night pony, a tribe who isolate themselves from their sister tribes, strive so, warms my heart. What you lack is trust, and that is what handicaps you and why you are here. You will always struggle, despite your strong capabilities, if you fail to open yourself up to trust."

The princess walked closer to us and gazed down at Jimsonweed. "Dear, Jimsonweed, I understand your hesitation and struggle. You may not want my sympathy, but that does not mean you do not have it, and it is also part of my duty to help you try to overcome your past and your current burdens. I know Cadence, Sunburst, Flurry Heart, and my dear Krik—"

"Master Krik!" Jimsonweed corrected.

"He is my servant, former student, and my friend, also practically my adopted child—if you consider the first six Dreamwardens my spawn, so I am not inclined to call him master," Luna replied. "But all of those I named care about you and want to help you, and all understand where you are coming from." She paused and then smiled. "And do not believe for a moment that your brash tongue will put me off. It was I who chose Ghadab to be one to carry the mantle of Dreamwarden, and he can be caustic as well. If you do not wish to pursue a role of diplomacy, I shall speak to the other princesses concerning it. I think you have demonstrated that you are more inclined towards the exploration of lore."

Jimsonweed sneered. "So you'll try to force me into a different role?"

Luna shook her head. "No, but I would like to help you with what you have legitimately shown interest in, and this is what I have seen. I must ask the candidates to depart this place, but if you wish to stay with me, I will not object to your aid and company in my study. I am not ashamed to admit you may be more familiar with what lies in this chamber than I am. Do you wish to stay?"

The filly hesitated, then silently nodded.

Luna smiled wider. "It is settled then." She then looked at Roger and me. "We shall meet again soon. Until that time, enjoy your stay in the city."

The alicorn gestured with a wing, and I suddenly found myself and Roger standing in a completely different part of the library.

I looked around and then turned to Roger. "Um… do you have any idea how to get back to the entrance from here?"

He shook his head.

I hung my head and sighed, remembering the maze of stacks. "Let's start wandering then; this might take a while."

Chapter 84: Petting Hedgehogs

Sleeping in Equestria was an entirely new experience for me, almost disturbing in a way. The reason? Yinyu wasn't there. Most people wouldn't notice the absence of her or the rest of the Dreamwardens, but they were constants for me. Them not being present made the dream realm feel strangely empty. It was made more empty still because Luna didn't seem to be there either—probably because she was awake and doing something. It all felt very different, like walking into your family's house that always had someone at home but finding no one.

"Rebecca, you here?"

I hadn't formed any coherent dream for myself, so I was just in blackness, but I saw Sunflower enter into my field of view. My mood immediately picked up, and I made myself appear.

"GAHH!" Sunflower yelped as she jumped back. She then took a breath—or at least, went through the motions of taking a breath. This was a dream, and we didn't need to breathe here. "There you are. Why didn't I see you, and where is the rest of your dream?"

I looked around us. "I haven't made one yet. It is a blank slate still."

She blinked. "Hold up… you don't automatically start dreaming before you enter the dream realm? I always start in a dream in progress and have to tune it out."

I shrugged. "Sometimes I do, and sometimes I don't. It comes with having been a dreamwalker most of my life, I think. I'm just more experienced at this than you are, so I'm in full control when I get here, at least part of the time, not all the time."

She gave me a puzzled look. "Can you make some sort of setting? Just sitting here without even stars makes this creepy, and this dream realm is already kinda creepy before that."

Since she was the one who had already gone out dreamwalking, I was interested in hearing about her experiences so far in Equestria's dream realm. First, I needed to put a setting to the dream. I didn't take long to come up with something, and the next thing we knew, we were sitting in a crochet field with rose bushes all around us, flamingos for crochet mallets, and hedgehogs for crochet balls. Several playing cards with spears stood at attention, guarding us.

Sunflower looked around. "Is this from Alice and Wonderland? Why'd you pick this setting?"

"First thing that popped into my mind," I replied.

She gave me a doubting look. "You aren't going to pull out the Queen of Hearts, are you?"

"Only if I get angry," I giggled. "Don't worry about the setting. Tell me about how your day has gone and about what you saw when you were dreamwalking to me. We haven't gotten to see much of each other since the tour. I know I had a little adventure in the library with Roger."

Sunflower gave a hedgehog an unsure look, and the hedgehog fearfully peered back as if expecting to be struck but equally afraid to run. She then settled down to sit, making sure she didn't sit on any small furry animals acting as sports equipment.

"I tried to find Blanche first since I knew she had gone to sleep before me. No such luck," Sunflower explained, picking up the terrified dream hedgehog in her forehooves and gently stroking it to soothe it, even if it was just a figment of my imagination. "Then I tried calling out to Arbiter then Ghadab to help me find her before I had my duh moment. Then I tried Luna, but she wasn't answering. After that, I looked for you, and your dream came up as a door instead of a star...I don't know why."

"Luna might have decided to have all dreams function as doors here. I know earth ponies, humans, and unicorns tend to use the whole door thing back on Earth," I explained. "Aa for Blanche, you probably couldn't find her because she is human. They operate on a different wavelength than ponies, and it can be tough for a pony to locate a human. I know I haven't ever dreamwalked her directly, have you?"

Sunflower shook her head. "No, a Dreamwarden always connected us, usually Arbiter."

"Then I doubt that she can find us; Jonathan wouldn't either," I said with all my veteran dreamwalker experience. "Roger is kinda fifty-fifty. He doesn't know us well, and we don't know him that well. We could go looking for him if you want."

Sunflower thought about it while continuing to pet the hedgehog. The tiny animal was now happily cooing. Did hedgehogs coo? I didn't know. This was Sunflower hijacking one of my dream elements and doing what she wanted with it, and if she believed hedgehogs cooed, then this one did.

"We can hold off; I don't want to put Jonathan at a clear disadvantage to everyone else by being the last to get to know everyone," Sunflower replied at last.

I nodded. "That's fine. Roger and I got to talk a little, and I'll let him tell his own story when we all get together. We did run into Jimsonweed again, got some off-the-books history lessons that I don't think most Equestrians know about, and got a brief rundown on how the sun and moon work here. What did you do all day?"

She smiled and snuggled the hedgehog, which now found was treating her like its best friend. "My parents and big brother hung out with me for most of the time, seeing the sites. My parents remember cities from years ago, but my brother doesn't remember them that well—he is less than two years older than me. They didn't get time at any of the cities along the way here to take things in, so they wanted to do so. It's very different from our farming community…" She paused to giggle. "...and I'm now the big city girl to them because I've been living in a city for a little over a month, and I'm treated like an expert! Haha!"

I blinked. "Well, are you, compared to them, I mean?" I grabbed my own hedgehog because I didn't want to be left out of hedgehog petting and mentally named him Sonic as I made his fur blue.

She shrugged. "I guess. I had to explain to my brother about tipping when appropriate and remind my parents about it since they hadn't had to tip anypony—excuse me, anyone—in years—I'm still trying to break saying anypony, and that made them think of me as a big city pony too when I said anyone. I wasn't as blown away by three or more story buildings as they were because they aren't a big deal to me anymore. They also seemed to want me to take the lead on everything. They were shocked when I said that this place is a bit more rustic than what I had gotten used to in Skytree. I caught them trying to see if my accent had changed too. I haven't been gone that long!"

I chortled. "Face it, you've outgrown your fishbowl, and they know it. You've gotten out to see the world, and there's no going back to being a little farm pony again. They knew you couldn't stay contained, so they have to be happy to see the changes. From what you said before, they wanted the best for you, and you're showing them how much you've grown in a little time. I know I've seen it."

She blushed fiercely and started to lift a wing to cover her face before she caught what she was doing and put it back down. She then gave a small smile. "Thanks. I mean it. I don't want to lose touch with my roots, but you are right. I'm happier now than I was back then. Now I'm getting to see even more amazing places than ever before! I can't wait to see Canterlot, Rainbow Falls, Baltimare, and Mountainshade! This trip is a dream come true."

I was looking forward to them as well. "So, what else did you do? You said you spent most of the time with your family, but you didn't say all."

Her smile sagged a little. "I, uh, met someone. The Dreamwardens asked the princesses to ask h—the person to talk to me. They are another storyteller, like me."

My ears perked. "Really? Was it about how to better control your powers? What were they like?"

She shook her head. "They wanted their identity kept secret, so I'm going to do that. Their powers aren't exactly like mine, but it's still the same… end goal, I guess you would say. They couldn't help me because mine manifests differently. It was more advice about how to react to what I draw and cautioning me to make sure others don't go all crazy trying to change things just because I drew something that scared them. They said they had… a friend… a very special friend a long time ago that took their visions and did terrible things trying to change the future—they became obsessed. They said that what happened to that friend haunts them every day of their life. It's my responsibility as a storyteller to caution others and not let them lose themselves. You can forget the difference between right and wrong when obsessed."

"Did what their friend did end up being that bad?" I asked with concern.

She looked away, and I thought I saw a tear. "Yeah, it was that bad. I promised not to give details, so I can't talk about it. I'm sorry."

I tried to decide what to say. "Your powers aren't evil, and you aren't either. I know you want the best for everyone, and you want to make people happy. I know you will do everything you can to be responsible about things."

She stared down at the hedgehog and hugged it close to her. "They scare me still. You don't understand how much they scare me. The person said they don't think the Story or Narrative can touch me here in Equestria, but there is something else here. I have felt it in the new quiet moments today. It is like it is feeling me out, curious about me."

I tilted my head as I tried to understand. "Like you are being watched?"

She shook her head. "Nothing like that. It is something that is there, on the edge of my magic. I don't know how to explain it. It is like the Story, but it isn't. I never realized that I could always feel the Narrative and Story, like something waiting just beyond my senses. They aren't there now, but something else is there in their place, whatever Equestria's equivalent is, and it is like it is feeling me out since I'm a foreign storyteller it doesn't know."

"Are you afraid it is going to hurt you?" I asked. "Is there something we can do to help?"

She frowned, not an angry frown, more of a thoughtful one. "I don't think it is going to hurt me. It feels, I don't know, more gentle than what I am used to. Our universe's Story can be rough, not mean rough, but like a small kid being too rough with its toys. This one seems different. I'm not scared of it. I guess the main thing is it makes me aware of how the other one is and more aware of things I hadn't been aware I was feeling because they'd always been there."

I looked up at the sky, imagining the dream realm beyond and still feeling the lack of the Dreamwardens. I was the most in tune with the dream realm out of the candidates, and I doubted they would notice it in the same ways I did. "I sorta get what you mean. It is something hard to put into words. You didn't realize something was always there until it wasn't, and now you can't help but be aware."

Sunflower gently set the hedgehog down before standing back up. "Let's get some normal, proper, sleep. This is our vacation, and our vacation from the Dreamwarden stuff is going to come up on and off, like today, but we should still try to take this time to relax."

I nodded. "Big day starting in the morning. We get to ride airships! That should be something. Rainbow Falls is our next destination. I wonder if the cliff is made out of rainbow-colored rocks, and that's where it gets its name. Wouldn't that be cool to see?"

She was the one giggling now. "A little tacky, but still cool! I'll see you in the morning, Becca. Enjoy your weird Wonderland dream."

Chapter 86: A Little Stroll

"Hmmm, well, I think I can cross barrel riding over a waterfall from my list of fun activities. Some things shouldn't be tried once."

I laid on my back and held the brochure up above me as I continued to look over options.

"Paddleboat ride has to be safer, but it is tame—not something that will get my adrenaline pumping. Why does everything have to be such extremes? Isn't there something moderately exciting that isn't something that could also kill me?"

Bingo? Who came to Equestria to play bingo? Why do Equestrians have bingo? Is there some terrible force that spreads the evils of bingo between universes?

It didn't make things better that all my friends here were busy with their families. I didn't blame them. None of them had seen their families in the last month. They needed time to catch up. The date was fast approaching when we would know who would be the next Dreamwarden, and I knew waiting to find out had to be a stress that no one was showing but had to be feeling. The Dreamwardens weren't telling us our rankings either. I had been in first, but I had no idea where I stood now. For all I knew, I was running in fifth place. No one knew what they judged us by.

"Blanche has the take-charge leadership skills. Sunflower has gone from the timidest to the boldest, I think. And Roger…"

I set the brochure down and rolled over on my belly.

"They tell him all about plans they have to help save the world. They never tell me any plans, and I don't know anything about Jonathan yet. We all have abilities that could be useful to the Dreamwardens under different circumstances, so I don't think that will be a determining factor. What do I have going for me?"

Did it matter? They thought I was good enough for the top five, and I knew I had been in the lead for some time. I might still be in the lead for all I knew. I wanted the best candidate to win, and if that didn't turn out to be me, then that was okay. Not winning would make a lot of other stuff simpler—things like love life, school, future career, and constantly needing to be on guard about who finds out what about me.

"Not much longer, and I'll know," I told my pillow.

This trip would be much better if my parents were here, or better yet, Russell. Getting cuddled right now would be fantastic.

I got back to my hooves and gave myself a good shake. "I'm moping, and I need to do something. I don't need to have a plan. I just need to go up on deck and have some fun, and I will almost certainly end up hanging out with someone. Worst case, I can talk to the goats and that minotaur. They never told us a thing about intelligent goats back when they taught us about Equestria in school, and I think all that was said about minotaurs is basically they exist. I'm here to experience and learn about Equestria, so I can know if this is a place I would want to be. How better to do that than talk to the people the social studies books forget about? I'm the champion of the underdog and ready to meet some underdogs!"

I paused. I needed to be careful; otherwise, I could fall into being patronizing. I didn't want to be that pony. I don't know the truth about them yet. Just go up there and ask some questions. Keep an open mind. Maybe they weren't underdogs or outcasts in Equestria. I was the visitor here, not them, and I was the one who didn't have a clue.

I jumped off the bed and headed to the door. After opening it, I realized I had a problem; everyone else was out in the hall, getting their luggage put away. That narrow hall would be a nightmare to get through, especially with my bulk. I'd need to wait.

Or would I?

There was more than one way for me to get around. I wouldn't typically do it, but it wasn't like I would need to use it for long. I only needed it till everyone was dome down here and back on deck. After that, I drop the projection and go upstairs regularly. Was it a frivolous use of my abilities to get an extra few minutes out of the cabin? Yeah, it was. Would I do it? Definitely, it was a vacation, and I needed to live a little. It was my chance to let loose my abilities without a Dreamwarden looking over my shoulder—maybe the first and last chance to do so. It wasn't even like I was using them to hurt anyone, just have some conversations. The Dreamwardens might not have even disapproved of me using them this way, but it would be nice going out and knowing no one else was looking through my eyes for once; it would be only me.

After closing the door and retreating to my bed, I closed my eyes. I didn't want to waste what little power my phone had—nor did I want to go through the effort of dragging my phone out of my luggage. That meant I needed to do this without music; not an impossible task, but a harder one than I was used to.

There was a lot of noise; so many people were moving around, talking, joking; it was hard to find peace and rhythm to zone out to; it was discordant and distracting. Maybe I couldn't do this. Josie wouldn't be able to, and she was much better at this than I was; even she needed peace.

No, I need to just up my game. I'd been coasting for a long time on my candidacy status, and I needed to prove that I could grow. This might not be the personal growth that the others were going through right now, but growth in skills was still growth. Just because I was happy to accept someone else coming out on top didn't mean I didn't have an obligation to try to improve myself as well. I needed to zone out and drift. The typical harmonies of music weren't here, but there were others. These were the sounds of life, and life was a crazy chaotic thing, yet, beneath all that, life was order incarnate. There was a rhythm to it; you just had to listen more closely.

"These halls are really cramped."
"Ouch! You stepped on my tail!"
"Sorry."
"Barrel riding! Over a waterfall! Are they serious?"

Geez, they were noisy.

"Hey, when we get the kids to sleep tonight. How about we have some grown-up fun?"
"Quiet! They will hear you!"
"Mama! Mama! Look what I can do!

If I became a Dreamwarden, I would be opening myself up to all the dreams of everyone. That had to be noisier than this.

"So…are we going to have to sleep in separate rooms?"
"Nah. We can make this work. It will be just more cozy."
"I think you have a different definition of cozy than me."

Miss Seapony told me once that the early Dreamwardens, the primordial ones, didn't like the noise. They were creatures of order. They silenced the noise, either by forcing all to conform to their mind or by wiping out all the minds and themselves in the process.

"Mama! Papa! Am I getting a room to myself?!"
"It looks like it."
"Wow! A big room to myself!"
"I guess size is relative."

But the later Dreamwardens started imposing rules on themselves, the Oaths. The Oaths made it so minds could be free to do what they wanted, and so the perfect order was broken. With each new generation, there was more chaos introduced to the mix.

"Do you think he'll be alright by himself?"
"It's just the next room over. He'll be fine. It's not like these walls are that thick anyway. We'll hear him."

What was life if it didn't have that freedom to act on its own? It was dull, monotonous, not really any different than rocks. Life needed that chaos, as long as it didn't get too out of control. Perfect order wasn't living. Death was perfect order; life was a mix of chaos and order, always making the next moment unpredictable.

"I suppose we can make this work."
"Who knows, someone might get a little brother and sister after this trip is over."
"Hmmm, we'll have to see."

Life, as unpredictable as it was, was beautiful, entirely because it always brought about the unexpected.

I stared at myself. I was projecting and free to go where I wanted.

I quickly made sure I was invisible and silent and moved through my ceiling to the deck above. I rose above the ship, allowing myself to drift along with it instead of letting it leave me behind. Looking around, it seemed like we were still out in the frozen north. That wasn't surprising; we'd only been airborne for a little while. I wondered how long it would be until we were beyond the snow. I could see mountains in the distance in the direction we were going and a treeline, but it was too far for me to make out details.

Below me, on deck, a few people were wandering around or looking over the ship's sides at the scenery. Most of them were down below, putting luggage away as I expected. I spotted Roger's night pony mother, and I spotted Wild Growth surrounded by a sizable crowd which included the three griffins from a few minutes ago. It looked like introductions were going on. I watched as Jean hugged a human man and Roger—griffin Roger—finishing up doing the same with another human man before getting introduced to a woman carrying a baby. This had to be Wild Growth's extended family. The griffin chick and Phobia's three kids were staring at each other like they didn't know what to make of their relatives of another species. I wondered if Phobia's foals had ever met a griffin before today—probably not. There was a night pony mare there who looked like an adult version of Charlotte, except for a longer mane and lots of tattoos on her wings. She was standing off to the side slightly, along with Crystal. Was that Phobia Remedy's wife? I knew they said her name at some point. What was it?

"Watching the happy reunion, Rebecca Riddle?"

I jumped and practically backflipped in the air before seeing Luna watching me. Shoot. It seemed like I wasn't going to escape the notice of Dreamwardens after all.

"I wasn't going to use the information in the waking world. I promise!" I quickly assured her.

Luna laughed. "Fear not, Rebecca Riddle. I understand some of your Dreamwardens take a different stance than I do about using such powers, and my interpretation is absolute here and not subject to a group vote. Our Oaths are all in our interpretation, and even then, I have fewer Oaths than any of them. Actually, the vote on how such powers are viewed is narrowly divided among their number, and if you become Dreamwarden, you may find yourself the tipping vote to change it. It wouldn't just help you—I'm told Josie Woods has run afoul of the Dreamwardens' views in this area before, too, even while trying to aid my student."

"Your student, singular?" I asked in confusion. "I thought you instructed all the original Dreamwardens."

"They were all pupils of mine, yes, but that was a different relationship," Luna clarified with a smile. "I have a personal student who I spend more extended periods instructing. You have met her, Sunset Blessing. I am delighted with her progress. Her personal growth has been gratifying to see, and while she may never match Twilight Sparkle in magic due to shortcomings in her power, she still possesses a mind just as sharp and an equal thirst for knowledge. I have not spoken it to her, as it would be taken poorly, but I see her as the true heir of Sunset Shimmer, one who has set her darkness behind her where her forebear could never let it go. She is what Sunset Shimmer should have been."

"You seem pretty proud of her," I said, stating the obvious. "So, um, I'm not in trouble right now?"

Luna shook her head and looked around. "Not unless you have some malicious intent. I admit, it has been a long time since I have utilized this sort of ability myself, and it has been many years since any of my subjects manifested the ability. It has its charms. I was merely checking in on you after noticing you doing this, but I must get back to other duties now. I would advise not popping in on Wild Growth's family just yet. This is the first full reunion, minus Phobia, they have had in nearly eight years, and much has changed for most of them in that time—marriages, births, changes in careers, fillies and colts growing into young mares and stallions, even changes in species in the case of Jean and Roger Martinez. Let them have their time to relearn about one another."

"Can I ask you, why are they griffins?" I said in reference to Jean and Roger.

Luna nodded. "I can answer in brief. Jean was needed to be permanently transformed, or else her resonance would break down. For reasons I won't get into, she was utterly opposed to taking a permanent pony form since it would likely result in her being transformed into a crystal pony. Twilight, in her mercy and with forethought to our strained relations with the griffins, revised the spell to make her a griffin instead. Roger Martinez was insistent on joining his wife in whatever route that she took. I think they have taken to their new species well and are among the more pleasant griffins I know—although some frustrating griffin habits have leaked through into their thought processes and even more so with their chick. However, those are not anything to be concerned about. You can't ask a griffin not to be a griffin, and although the thought processes might be different, it is only different, not anything fundamentally wrong."

"I was actually going to try to talk to the goats about their culture," I replied and gestured to a goat on deck.

Luna stiffened. "You will not get any reply if you do. Goats rarely, if ever, speak with ponies. Further, you may upset Iron Will if he feels you are harassing his goats. Minotaurs and goats have obligations to one another that go far deeper than any contract. A minotaur will do whatever it takes to protect their goats if they believe they are threatened in any way. If you wish to learn more, I advise that you go straight to the bull himself, so he doesn't interpret anything the wrong way. You do not want to be on the wrong end of a minotaur's temper, and that can be very sensitive in this matter."

I had a nervous shiver. "I'll keep that in mind."

"Good," Luna replied. "Enjoy the rest of your stay in Equestria. I shall see you again at Mountainshade!"

And with that, she vanished.

Author's Note

Hope everyone is having a good day. Today is my birthday—41st one. I'm getting old.

Chapter 87: Peer Pressure

Questioning Iron Will didn't explain everything I was looking to find out, but it was enlightening.

I got that the goats serve minotaurs and that the minotaurs protected their goats. A goat would do anything their minotaur told them to do, and the minotaur would put everything on the line to protect their goats. How this set-up came to be, he wouldn't explain, but it seemed to be a cultural thing. He also yelled at me when I asked about where they came from or anything about their culture past that. What I guessed was that it was from somewhere outside Equestria, somewhere ponies weren't welcome. He did answer me in a way when I asked what he was doing in Equestria rather than his homeland. He said back home, he had no way of carving out a profit because every business angle was cornered, so he and other minotaurs would leave their home searching for opportunity. I suppose I could respect that.

I had gotten lucky breaks in life that most people would never have dreamed of getting. My early life had started with no seeming hope for the future. Most people didn't have a rich pony show up in the dead of night and change the course of their lives. Iron Will was someone who looked around and didn't see any future, and instead of accepting it, he decided to leave home and make a future. There was something to be admired about that. You could cry about it, and you would be justified in doing so. It wasn't fair, and you had done nothing to deserve it. You might never escape the situation you were put in, but all you had for choices were to accept it or, whether you were successful or not, do everything you could to change it. Iron Will took the second option.

That left me to figure out again what to do with myself. Thankfully, the cramped halls of the cabin had cleared out, and that let me return to my body and come out on deck for real.

Once on deck, I decided to take in the scenery. I propped my forelegs up on the side of the ship's railing and looked at Equestria in all its glory. At the moment, Equestria's glory involved many pine trees and cliffs, lots and lots of pine trees. It smelled like a bottle of Pine-Sol. Still, it was pretty. This part of Equestria made me think of Canada.

"Oh, Canada! Our home and native land!" I sang out over the side of the ship, then broke down into giggles.

"Cute. Ya know, if you keep hanging off the edge like that, you're going to fall off."

I turned my head to see Crystal approaching me. I gave her a big smile and spread my wings. "I might not be the most aerodynamic pony, but I can still fly. It would be embarrassing, sure, but not anything dangerous. Actually—" I flexed my wings. "—the air here feels different than back home. Don't ask me how I know, but I think I might be able to fly better in Equestria. I can feel it."

Crystal rubbed a hoof against her leg. "I can take a guess. This whole place feels saturated in magic. It's like background noise that I can't get away from, and it's driving me nuts."

I got down from the railing and gave her a sympathetic smile. "Sorry to hear that. Guess Equestria isn't such a great place for our crystal ponies. It seems like they should have warned you about that."

"Oh, they did, but one of the bodyguards needed to come along, and Tempest is banned from returning until Phobia retires. That meant either me coming or one of those amateurs that we use as meat shields," Crystal replied, still scratching herself.

"Ooohhh, you can get paid to be a meat shield?" I asked excitedly. "Where do I sign up? I have to make the best meat shield ever!"

She narrowed her eyes at me. "Not happening. I was briefed about you and the other four right before this trip. It was need to know information, and since I was the only bodyguard who would be here, other than an old man, it is now needed to know. You don't get to put yourself in danger."

"Just kidding," I said, waving it off with a wing. "I don't do dangerous. Does this look like the body of an adventurer?"

Crystal raised an eyebrow. "I've been called pudgy in my day." She reached into her mane and pulled out a peppermint, and then offered it to me. "Peppermint?"

I didn't waste any time snatching it up and plopping it into my mouth. "Did you smuggle this through customs?"

"Heh, no, they caught the ones I was trying to sneak through. I bought some fresh ones the first opportunity I could in the Crystal Empire," Crystal explained as she pulled another piece out of her mane and plopped it into her mouth.

"And why aren't you with your normal ponies you protect?" I asked as I looked around for Wild Growth and the Dreamwarden's family.

Crystal flopped on her butt. "Apparently, crystal ponies, not these pseudo-crystal ponies they have in Equestria, make Jean jumpy."

"Really?" I asked, confused.

Crystal shrugged. "I mean, I get it, and then I don't. She had a horrible experience when she was a crystal pony. Still, I'm not a psycho-monster like she was back then."

I frowned. "Just a suggestion, but I wouldn't phrase things quite that way around her or her family."

"Yeah, probably a bad idea," Crystal admitted. "I still don't understand why she's that scared of me. Have you seen the talons on her? She could rip my throat out in a second if she wanted to."

"I wouldn't say that around her either," I added in. "That might reinforce the whole monster idea too. Hey, the chick they have is kinda cute."

Crystal scrunched up her face. "That chick conned me out of a bit. I watched the rascal do the same thing to three other passengers."

I decided not to mention he had done the same to me. I wondered how much he had made so far today. "You could tell his parents about it."

She gave me a skeptical look. "Do you know much about griffins? They're capitalists on steroids. It is baked into their blood. It isn't all-consuming greed, but a griffin will never fault someone for trying to make a profit. His parents wouldn't see anything wrong with it unless he directly stole—even a griffin would see that as morally wrong, but a griffin wouldn't complain about a con. They'd probably be proud of him."

"Are you sure that isn't just a cultural thing rather than a species trait?" I asked. "I only met one griffin before today, and even though I don't know her that well, she never did any conning or do anything that seemed that greedy. She is going into graphic design, which isn't exactly a huge money-making career. If she were that greedy, I would assume she would be at a business college, not an art one."

Crystal stood up and gave me a long look. "You're a little young to remember this, but when we all transformed, there was an eagerness to copy what the Equestrians were doing. We wanted guideposts for how to be proper ponies, and we looked to them for examples and accepted ideas that we would never have accepted before being ponies. Do you honestly think Jean and Roger wouldn't do the same with griffins? I think they would. Whether it's something inherent to the species or just the culture, they will look to other griffins as examples of how they should do things and follow along, even if it is something that they would have never done before or even objected to before. You can count on it."

The intercom screeched on, making me flatten my ears.

"Ponies, griffins, and humans! If you would give your activities a pause, please look to the left to observe Neighagra Falls!"

Crystal gave a pained shake of her head. "Do you think Iron Will spent a previous life as a wrestling announcer?"

"I'm sorry, but I don't get the reference," I said sheepishly.

She rolled her eyes. "Kids, making me feel old. Anyway, come on, let's go look at this waterfall."

It was just a matter of moving from the starboard side to the port side. I knew those terms because they were in the brochure along with a bunch of other shipping terms—but no clop, mind you. We wedged ourselves in among other guests, particularly between Phobia's kids and Sunflower and her family, and we got a good view of the falls.

The waterfall was massive, and the fact the name corresponded with a similar waterfall on Earth made perfect sense. Surprisingly, the waters down at the bottom were pretty calm and seemed to be filtered through a series of dams, at least six different dams that I could see creating a series of small lakes in a row before the river continued again.

There were also several buildings along the side of the water. I spotted a good number that were obviously tourist traps, including a set-up for the barrel-riding experience. There were also some that served more essential purposes. These included what looked like a water plant that had aqueducts branching from it out into the distance, and what I was ninety-nine percent sure was one of the very few Equestrian powerplants. It figured that the eco-friendly Equestrians would use hydroelectric power if they were going to use electricity at all. The dam it was attached to was modest in size, at least compared to the ones we used for hydroelectric power, so I wasn't sure how much energy it was providing. I suppose it could be using some of the others, but it didn't look like it. I also didn't see any power lines, so I was unsure how it was getting electricity to communities. Maybe Roger or Jonathan would know.

"I'm going to do the barrel ride," the least likely person I would have expected announced.

I turned and stared at Sunflower in shock. She was looking over the edge of the ship, giving the waterfall a very intense gaze. I wasn't the only one taken aback by this declaration. Her entire family had turned to look at her in disbelief.

"No can do!" Crystal yelled as she advanced on my friend.

Sunflower turned and looked at Crystal with a calm but determined expression. "You don't have a say. You're Phobia Remedy's bodyguard, not mine. You can fuss all you want, but unless you intend to restrain me, you aren't stopping me."

What was up with her? She didn't usually take that tone with anyone. Sunflower Smiles was normally cheerful, or at least she might be withdrawn if something was bothering her. This was neither of those things; she seemed almost cold.

I decided to try. "Sunflower, you don't like tightly enclosed spaces. Don't think I haven't noticed you still fidget when you have to get on the elevator. Forget how dangerous this is on its own; they're going to seal you in a barrel! I don't want you to have a panic attack."

"Your friend is right, dearie. You've never done well with stuff like that," an earth pony mare, who I assumed was her mother, said. "I know you have gotten much bolder and daring in the past month. Getting away from the farm has done wonders for your self-confidence, but you don't need to prove anything by doing this."

Sunflower set her jaw. "I need to prove it to me. I took one look at our cabins and started trembling. I am tired of being scared of something silly like this. I need to beat this fear, once and for all."

"Can't you find a safer way of beating your claustrophobia?!" her mom cried out.

Sunflower pointed a wing down at the falls. "Look down there. There is a steady stream of ponies doing barrel riding. It wouldn't be like that if it weren't safe. I understand it is scary, and I understand it plays to my worst fear, but that is why I am doing it. If I can go through that, I can deal with something like a cramped cabin or an elevator without them even bothering me."

"I say, let the young mare face her fear," a new voice cut in before anyone else could object.

We all turned to see the Dreamwarden's wife had quietly come up to us and had decided to intercede. She gave Sunflower a reassuring smile.

Crystal apparently wasn't getting cowed by her employer's wife and rounded on the night pony. "Rosetta! I don't think—"

Rosetta waved a wing to silence her. "No need for confessions like that. Anyway, as I was saying, as the Warden of Fear's wife, it behooves me to support the young mare if she wishes to face her fear. I'm sure Phobia would be delighted with her decision. But, hey, that is only the opinion of a Dreamwarden. How important is that in the big scheme of things?"

And that silenced all objections from Sunflower's family. They knew Sunflower was a candidate, and they knew how big a deal Phobia Remedy's opinion was in that case. They were still going to worry—there was no helping that, but they weren't going to do anything that could sabotage Sunflower's chances. I wondered if how Phobia would react had played into Sunflower's decision as well. The clock was clicking down to decision time, and it was up to each of us, without putting the others down, to prove we were the best candidate.

"Can we do it too, Mama?" Charlotte asked in a hopeful tone.

Rosette turned and smiled at her daughter. "Of course you can. The pegasus makes a good point about how safe it is, and it seems like it could be fun. I'll not only allow you to; I'll do it myself." She turned her head and looked at Wild Growth, who had been silently listening to the conversation from a distance. "How about you, little sis? Want to join us?"

Wild Growth shook her head. "I have a particular phobia of falling from a high place into water. I may be able to shrug off gunshots, but I'm more vulnerable to drowning than most. I'll stand watch from a safe distance with Mom, Dad, and our brothers. I doubt a human could fit into one of those barrels, Mom and Dad are too old to be doing something like that, and Guillermo is too young."

"I guess I'll try it too," Roger said, stepping forward. He then turned and looked at me.

Aww, horsefeathers!

Chapter 88: Barrel Ride

Here I was, standing in line for the privilege of being tossed in a barrel and sent over a waterfall, and not just any waterfall, but the most massive waterfall in Equestria.

Standing in front of me were Roger and Sunflower. Standing behind me were Jean and the other Roger. The two griffins didn't seem to agree with their daughter's assessment that they were too old—in fact, I think they were doing this to prove the point. I wasn't sure how old they actually were, but they had to be in at least their fifties. They had two adult pony kids, two adult human kids, and four grandkids—three of whom were teenagers. Still, they seemed to be in good shape.

Sunflower was being quiet, for the most part. On and off, she mumbled to herself. My best guess was she was trying to psych herself up for what she had committed to do. I couldn't blame her. This had to be terrifying for her. It was like I would feel if I was put in a room full of cookies and then found out there was only skim milk to drink. I shivered just thinking about it. I was going to support her. It may have been peer pressure that got me included in this, but doing it as well would help Sunflower go through with it. I didn't want her to embarrass herself by chickening out at the last minute.

Roger was being shy again and not talking. The griffins also weren't saying much. That left it to me to be the conversation starter.

"Have you guys met Wild Growth's parents?" I asked. "They've got a little chick who does sleight of talon tricks."

Jean grinned and chuckled as we advanced a place in line. "So, our little nest egg managed to get a bit off you too, eh?"

Roger the griffin held his head high. "I showed him that trick; then he played it on every pony in Ponyville till they got wise to him. He had a field day with the Crystal Empire ponies, and he is right back at it again with the people on the ship. I wish I was small and cute so I could get away with that."

"You're big and cute," Jean said, then gave him a quick beak nibble on his neck feathers. It was weird watching her do it. I didn't have much experience with griffins, so I hadn't seen their methods of affection till now. They were very—birdlike. I mean, pegasi will help preen each other sometimes, but this wasn't any form of grooming. It was an inhuman and inequine behavior, and knowing that Jean had been a human and pony before just made it all the weirder. I wondered if this was the way humans felt when they first observed how ponies behaved?

Actually, a pony or human might do something like that, just not as a public display of affection. They'd do it in private, right before things escalated further. I should know; Miss Seapony had shown me lots of examples.

I decided not to let it bother me. They were griffins; they were going to do griffiny things. "Jean and Roger, meet my friends, Sunflower and...um...Roger. Having two Rogers is going to get real confusing real fast."

Roger the griffin nodded his head. "I don't use it much, but you can use my griffin name if you wish, Gino. That should make things easier."

Roger stuck a hoof out to Gino, and Gino balled up his talon and gave it a bump. "Why the name Gino?" Roger asked.

Gino shrugged. "Griffins like names that begin with G. I just went with Gino because I'm married to Jean. We're a pair. I normally only use the name around other griffins."

"And I can just go with a G spelling of my name if they ask," Jean added in. "They were kinda funky about it because that isn't their proper G sound. It is considered almost scandalous for a griffin not to have a G name, but when I showed them how it is done in English, they were satisfied. Griffins in the Griffin Empire have some odd customs sometimes, but we adapted well enough. We only spent about a year there before moving to Ponyville."

Sunflower's ears perked. "Why'd you move away from the other griffins? Don't you want to be with your own kind?"

"Oh, several reasons," Jean replied. "We wanted to farm, but the land out there was very rocky and not very conducive to farming. We also had longer waits out there getting mail back and forth between Earth and us, which got frustrating. Most of all, most of the other griffins weren't that friendly."

"Really?" Sunflower asked, pouting.

Jean waved a wing as we all advanced another few places in line. "Oh, there were some exceptions who were nice, but most were grouchy, and a lot of them were only friendly because they knew we were related to Wild and that she is rich. We decided to move to Ponyville to have nicer neighbors. Some of the nicer griffins we met pass through town on and off and usually stop in to see us, and they will normally spend a night with us rather than in a hotel—there are about six semi-regulars. Gilda came by just last week, and Gabby visits several times a month. One of our friends actually has a daughter attending school in Skytree. You have probably seen her since I am sure griffins stick out in Skytree."

Sunflower smiled and hopped. "You mean Greta? Yeah, she's mine and Rebecca's RA. She can be a little grumpy, but she's not mean. I think she's fair."

Greta had insulted our roommates and us to our faces on more than one occasion and regularly made disparaging remarks about ponies. She did it in passing and didn't seem that personal about it, but I wouldn't say she was nice by any measure. She was fair; I could agree with that. She never went and started accusing you of breaking rules you didn't break. When you were guilty of a minor infraction, she typically gave you only a warning and an opportunity to fix it before you got in trouble.

"I didn't know there were griffins that we're interested in farming," Roger said.

Gino frowned. "There's a few, but you're right; most aren't. However, plants have always been my passion. Where do you think Wild picked it up? Our son, José, ended up going to my alma mater and works in the forestry service now. He is doing exciting work, trying to measure the impact of magic on Earth's ecosystems. The skytrees themselves are the most obvious examples of plants that have taken on magic properties, but there have been other isolated cases. I'm hoping he and I can sit down and have a long talk about his research, at least as much as he can say that isn't classified."

Jean giggled. "My big bird and his plants. Once he starts going, it is hard to get him to stop. We're a team on the farm. He handles the crops, and I handle the livestock—pigs, and chickens, although we both do some fishing too."

"I understand chickens for eggs, but what do you do with pigs?" I asked in confusion.

Jean and Gino looked at one another as if asking the other to explain; then, Jean turned back towards me. "Well… they will eat up most of our garbage. Pigs will eat anything you give them. They also help us search for truffles, and a few times a year, we...uh… do something that can be a little unsavory for ponies. We use the chickens for that thing too."

I felt a little ill and was sorry I asked, but Sunflower and Roger didn't seem fazed. "Oh, don't worry! Back in my little town, we raise livestock for trade with humans, and we know what happens to it. We raise cattle, pigs, chickens, and we even train horses."

Jean raised an eyebrow at her as we all advanced another spot in line. "Train horses? For riding?"

"Yep!" Sunflower said with a quick nod of her head. "A bunch of the earth ponies ride them regularly and sometimes use them for pulling carts. I tried it once or twice—the riding, but there isn't much reason for me to ride a horse when I have wings."

"Ponies ride horses," Jean repeated as if she was unsure if she heard things right.

"Sure, what else would we do with them?" Sunflower asked, now seeming to catch that something was not coming across clearly.

"Why would a pony ride a horse?" Jean asked, still seeming befuddled.

"Well, they go much faster than earth ponies can go, so if they want to cover a lot of distance fast, a horse is great," Sunflower explained. "Cars might be better, but I don't think anyone in our town owns one."

"Okay...learn something new every day," Jean said slowly, and we advanced another place in line. "I hope it is profitable."

Maybe griffins did think of money more than ponies.

A group of ponies that had been standing in front of Sunflower broke out of line and left.

"Next five in line, please come forward and start getting your safety equipment on. The group ahead of you lost their nerve," a unicorn that was clearly part of the attraction staff announced.

This was it. It was either chicken out or go through with it. My gut was telling me to turn tail and run, but I would follow Sunflower's example. Sunflower had stiffened up in fear and was practically a statue. All signs pointed to me not needing to do this.

"If you aren't up for this, no one will blame you," I reassured her. "Phobia can talk about facing fears all she wants, but remember, she spends most of her time hiding out in her house, and me, of all ponies, gave her a panic attack. Even Dreamwardens get scared."

Although it seemed an impossible feat, Sunflower somehow seemed to stiffen more for a moment.

"I'm going to do this," Sunflower said firmly. "This isn't about Phobia Remedy; this is about me and me not living in fear. If you don't want to do this, I understand. I know you came just because of me. You being here does help, but you don't need to feel obligated for my sake. I'll do this no matter what."

The staff were getting impatient. "All you ponies need to make up your minds quickly. You're holding up the line!"

Do you ever notice that when people say you're not obligated to do something, you feel even more obligated? How does that work?

I spread my wings wide. "You're right. I'm here for you, and if you are doing this, then so am I. I have lots of experience tumbling through the air uncontrollably."

The same thing that bothered Sunflower about this was the same thing that bothered me. I think it was something instinctual in pegasi that when we felt themselves falling, we wanted to flap our wings, and if we were crammed in a barrel, we couldn't do that. It wasn't claustrophobia in my case; it was feeling helpless while falling. I might have been helpless most of the time I fell, but at least I could react to It.

We all stepped forward, and the staff started suiting us up. It seemed pretty standard gear, a life jacket, a helmet, and little floaties on each of our legs—nothing fancy. After getting my gear on, I got a closer look at how the operation worked. A person was put into a barrel and rolled into the river; they went over the falls where a unicorn used magic to force the barrels onto a giant belt that carried them back up top. Judging by the pony who was getting out of a barrel, the barrels were not watertight.

A worker gestured from Sunflower to an open barrel. "Come over here, ma'am, and we will get you in. Trust us; it is perfectly safe."

Sunflower gulped but took one shaking step at a time towards the barrel. It was laid on its side for easy entry.

"You need to enter the barrel tail first," the unicorn on duty informed her. "The lid goes on the side with your head."

She nodded, and turned her body around, and began slowly inching back into the barrel. She only stopped creeping back when her rear touched the bottom of the barrel.

The unicorn levitated the lid into view. "You can close your eyes if it helps you; it is going to be dark anyway. I'm going to seal this lid now. Just to warn you, water will get into the barrel. There is no need to panic about it. We will have you out of the water long before it can get to a dangerous level. Please, when you hit the water at the bottom of the falls, try to keep as still as possible. That will make it easier for our crew to get you out of the water and back up here quickly if the barrel is not shaking. Do you understand?"

"Eeeeeee," Sunflower breathed out.

The unicorn rolled his eyes. "How about you nod to tell me you understand."

Sunflower gave a stiff nod. I felt sorry for her as I thought I saw tears starting to well up in her eyes.

The unicorn gave her a sympathetic smile. "It's going to be okay. Just close your eyes and think of happy things. Take a few deep breaths, and focus on something that makes you laugh. This will be over before you know it, and you can amaze your family and friends by telling them how brave you were today."

He waited till her eyes closed before putting the lid on. There was a tiny squeak from inside as the latches went into place. The stallion didn't give her much time to think before he shoved the barrel down a ramp, where it quickly splashed into the river and drifted towards the falls.

I held my breath as I watched the barrel getting closer and closer to the falls. I couldn't hear over the water to tell if Sunflower was panicking inside it, but I didn't see any sign of it jostling. Its speed rapidly increased as it got nearer and nearer to the waterfall, and the next thing I knew, it went over.

"Next up, get in your barrel! Tail first!" the unicorn announced as he rolled a new barrel into place.

As Roger did as instructed, I looked down at the bottom of the falls. Sunflower's barrel had hit the water hard and temporarily submerged, but it was back to the surface now. It suddenly lit up with a unicorn's magic and was guided to the belt.

"And down you go!" the unicorn shouted as he shoved Roger's barrel down the ramp.

Aww, crap. I was next.

The unicorn eyed me, and I gulped. There was no barrel to get into yet. I must be waiting on Sunflower's to return. Well, at least I would get to see how she held up.

"I need you to get on a scale for a weight check," the unicorn informed me as he pointed to a scale off in the corner of the platform.

Wait, what? There was a weight limit? Was my jiggly figure going to get me out of this?

I walked over to the scale and stood on it. It indicated a figure, but I had no idea what that figure meant. Equestrians didn't use the same measuring scales as us. I could read it, but that told me nothing.

The unicorn observed the weight. "Hmmm, wooden barrel won't work with you. You're heavy enough to bust it if you hit the sides too hard."

I hopped off the scale. "Aww, too bad. I was looking forward to—"

"We'll have to use Ole'Reliable instead."

What?!

He lit his horn, and a new barrel rolled forward, this one made entirely out of metal!

"That's metal!" I blurted out. "That will sink even faster!"

He walked over to the barrel and undid the lid, then banged on the side. "Don't worry; it's enchanted, so there will be no sinking."

It wasn't fair.

The belt with the barrels had just brought up Sunflower's barrel, and a pair of staff were unloading it.

"Wait!" I shouted. "I want to make sure my friend is okay before I go."

They opened up the barrel to reveal the waterlogged form of Sunflower. She was shivering and crouched down as low as she could go with her hooves over her eyes. Her mane was a soaking wet mess that hung over her face.

"Come on out; it's over," one of the staff who had fished her out instructed.

I hurried over to her. "Sunflower, are you oka—"

She bolted out of the barrel and took the sky. "I'm good! Need air! Need air! Need air!"

It didn't take long for her to be out of sight.

That didn't seem okay.

I turned and looked at the unicorn with a barrel. "Hey… sorry, but I think my friend needs me. I'm going to skip out."

With that, I took to the air and chased after Sunflower.

"Hey! What about our gear!"

Chapter 89: Facing your Fear is but One Battle in a War

Sunflower flew much faster than me during regular circumstances and wearing safety equipment was not making it easier to fly. I really should have stripped it off before I took off, but it was too late for that now. I could strip it all off once I found my friend.

Thankfully, she wasn't hard to find.

She had landed on our airship and was taking deep breaths as she stripped off her safety equipment. There weren't many passengers currently aboard that I could spot. I only saw Iron Will, one of his goats (the other two ships, which were also docked, had other goats commanding them), Wild Growth, and, of course, Sunflower. Wild Growth was discussing something or other with Iron Will on one side of the ship while Sunflower sat off on the opposite end.

I came down for a landing beside Sunflower… or at least, that is what I attempted to do. I was just a tiny bit too low and my forehooves caught the edge of the ship's railing.

CRACK!

Thank you, unreturned safety helmet, for cushioning my head as it collided with the deck. The rest of my body hit the deck a second later, putting me on my back, staring up at the sky. The various other pieces of safety equipment helped cushion the impact, making this one of my softer spectacular crashes. Maybe I should wear equipment like this all the time. Then again, the fact I crashed might have been partially the fault of trying to compensate for it.

"Are you okay? That sounded like it hurt, and you shook the deck!"

I lifted a leg up. "I'm good! My head cushioned my fall. Hey… did you always have two heads?"

Sunflower hovered over me with a worried frown. "I'm serious. Are you okay? I'm used to you crashing, but that seemed harder than normal."

It took a second to turn over and stand up. In the meantime, Sunflower landed again and watched as I got to my hooves. I noted that she was already dry, and I was a little jealous. Pegasi weather magic had a side effect of making our fur and feathers dry out faster—a needed ability if we were going to go out and bring the rain. I say we, but it didn't help me because my weather magic was so weak. I would still be soaking wet right now if I had gone over the falls.

"I'm okay," I said as I gave my wings a shake to try to get the feathers settled back in place. "Are you okay? You took off in a hurry."

She turned away and looked down. "I'm fine."

I took a deep breath and laid a wing on her back. "Sunflower, we're friends. You don't need to fib to save face. Everyone watching saw you and heard you after you got out of that barrel."

No response. She kept her head turned away, staring at the deck. She was breathing heavily.

"That was pretty brave of you, riding down the falls," I said. "I'll be honest, I was looking for any excuse to get out of it. I don't have your phobia, but doing that scared me to death."

She gulped and shivered. "No, you saw it; I ended up freaking out. I screamed the entire way down and thrashed against the sides. I felt...I felt…" She suddenly dropped down on her haunches and began crying. "I was so terrified I couldn't even think! I feel so stupid, thinking that facing my fears was going to make anything better—that it would help me get over my claustrophobia. Now I'm going to look like an idiot to everypony when nothing is better."

"Well, you do look like a fool, but not for that reason."

We both turned to see Phobia's wife land on the deck beside us, quickly followed by her three teenaged foals. All of them were somewhat damp. She briefly lifted a wing to block out the sun. "Not any dimmer in Equestria," the night pony mare muttered.

Arachne stepped forward. "Hey! Give us that safety equipment! You can't just take off with it like that. We're going to get a finder's fee for bringing that stuff back."

Moon snorted. "As if we can spend Equestrian cash back home."

Arachne turned and glared—well, turned and looked up at her brother since he was a head taller than her. "We can do a currency exchange. It's legitimate money we don't have to return to Titi."

"We don't need the money. Returning the stuff is just the right thing to do," Charlotte sneered at her twin.

"Money is money. For a pony that wants to get out from Mom's shadow, you need to learn to value it more. Otherwise, you'll need to come crying back to Mom and Mama," Arachne sneered back.

Rosetta covered her face with a wing and shook her head. She then uncovered and looked at us. "If you ever have foals, value the time you have with them when they're young, tiny, and cute. They spend so little of their life small, sweet, and innocent. After that, they hit their teen years, and once that is done, they will spend most of their life as adults. I find myself nostalgic for when my foals weren't such independent thinkers, and I don't doubt I will be wishing for their teen years again after they reach adulthood—hard as that is to believe right now."

"Hear that? You two are giving Mama a headache," Moon said with a sigh.

Charlotte pointed a wing at their sister. "She's the one being greedy!"

Arachne flapped her wings. "And you're the one being a dipshit!"

"Arachne! Language!" Rosetta snapped with a stomp of her hoof. "Don't use curse words towards your siblings!"

"Yeah, Arachne, don't cuss," Moon said smugly.

The cobwebbed cutie-marked teen gave her brother another glare. "Oh, as if you never cuss."

"I don't," Moon fired back.

The twins looked at one another and then turned towards their brother. "Ha!" the two shouted in chorus.

Rosetta groaned. "I'm well aware that you three have mouths your grandmare would be scrubbing out with soap if she had the authority to discipline you—no point in hiding that. I blame all those mares we have hanging about the house. What I said is don't cuss at your siblings. Now, please gather up that equipment and fly it back to the vendor."

Charlotte stepped towards us. "Okay, fuckwads, give us the stuff."

"Charlotte!" Rosetta hissed.

The lookalike daughter gave her mother an exaggerated innocent look. "What? You said don't cuss at each other. You didn't say anything about these two."

Rosetta breathed deep and looked up at the sky. She immediately winced and shielded her eyes again. She muttered something angrily in Spanish I couldn't make out, then she turned and addressed her foals once again. "I hate pulling this card, but I'm going to let you explain your manners to your other mother when we get back home. In the meantime, if you address another person as a cuss word during this trip, I'm going to have Wild not give you any spending money the rest of the time we're here. Do I make myself clear?"

The three bowed their heads. "Yes, Mama," they said in chorus.

I didn't need to be instructed. I started stripping off the helmet and the rest of the gear. The foals gathered it as I took things off and started putting it on themselves—it was the easiest way to travel with it. The twins were the ones who put on the gear while Moon just sat back and did nothing. From what little I knew, based on what I had seen during their duels, the twins were better at flying than him. Moon was a pure brute force fighter who pounded his way through the opposition like an earth pony might, and his sisters were the ones who did most of the fighting in the air. It made sense that the better flyers were the ones to take on extra encumbrances—that and Arachne was the one interested in the return fee.

"Return the items and then return to your quarters. We need to get to bed," Rosetta instructed.

"But, Mama—" Charlotte whined.

"No buts," Rosetta said firmly. "I'm no expert on Equestrian sunlight, but it must be nearly noon or later. Consider it a good thing. You're going to get the rare chance to be included in the ship's adult entertainment tonight, and since Equestria doesn't have a minimum drinking age, this will be your rare chance to get publicly served alcohol anytime before you're twenty-one."

That got their attention right away. Arachne was the one that spoke up. "You're serious? You're going to let us drink?"

Rosetta nodded. "I will, but don't expect to be getting drunk. Equestrian alcohol is not as potent as Earth alcohol. They let foals half your age have some on special occasions. Still, I'll be monitoring how much you consume. I've already been briefed on how much should be a safe amount. Don't expect me to allow you to have comparable amounts back home. Your other mother and I have already mutually decided to start allowing some during Thanksgiving and New Year's, starting this year, but only if you can show some semblance of responsibility with this weaker Equestrian stuff."

That was interesting. I must have overlooked that section of the fliers they had given. I already knew that all of my friends slash other candidates would probably want to go do that tonight. We were younger college students. The promise of alcohol with no consequences was like waving a bone in front of a dog. Then again, Blanche came from Europe, and they had more relaxed views on drinking there, so it probably wasn't a big deal to her. Personally, I had some little bits of it during special dinners at home already, and I never was much of a fan. I never had it at a party with friends before, so it would be worth a new experience for that sake.

Charlotte grinned. "It's still letting us have booze. We can be responsible."

"I can show I'm prim and proper during an adult party," Arachne said in a haughty tone.

Moon rolled his eyes at his sisters' claims, then shielding them with a wing against the sun. "If I'm not needed, I'll go straight to bed now."

"No, you'll stay with your sisters, just in case they run into any trouble," Rosetta instructed. "They are flying with an extra load in an unfamiliar area with air that feels odd. I feel better if there is one of you flying regularly, just to keep an eye out."

"You've got to defend us, big brother, we’re helpless without you," Arachne said with a flutter of her eyelashes.

Moon sneered at her. "Don't you like to remind us all, every chance you can, that you're the eldest? Plus, you two are as helpless as a pack of wolves in a sheep pen."

"Older than you by a month and older than Char by over half a minute, and neither of you should forget it," Arachne confirmed with a smug nod. "But you're physically bigger, little brother. You make a wonderful meat shield."

The colt snorted. "Let's just get this over with so I can go to bed."

The three of them flew off with the equipment, leaving us with their mother—one of their mothers, anyway. I wondered, who was the father? Were they artificially inseminated? Phobia Remedy used to be male. Was Phobia the father? That didn't make complete sense either. I was pretty sure that someone said she gave birth to Nightmare Moon. It would probably be really rude to ask questions about all that. Not as rude as Roger trying to take a peek underneath Phobia Remedy's underside, but still rude.

"I should have never let them hang out with that foul-mouthed filly," Rosetta muttered as she watched her foals fly off.

Rosetta took a moment more giving us an appraising look before she spoke again. "Phobia keeps me in the dark about most matters involving her...career, but I can put two and two together. You two are Dreamwarden candidates. I narrowed down the others as well. I see that they're still sticking to the policy of no night ponies. I understood last time that they were dead set on picking a human, but I'd hoped after two Dreamwardens in a row where night ponies were passed over, they'd at least start considering them again. If this keeps up the tribe may think the Dreamwardens have abandoned them."

"I'm sorry," Sunflower peeped.

"What are you sorry for?" Rosetta asked. "You aren't the ones making those calls...yet."

"Sorry," Sunflower whimpered.

Rosetta shook her head in frustration. "Don't take my vents that seriously. I'm just a passionate advocate for my tribe. It used to be advocating for my tribe and advocating for the Dreamwardens went hoof and hoof, but those days are passing."

I blinked. "Why is that?"

The night pony shook her head. "They give out dreamwalking abilities freely to whoever wants it. In the meantime, much of what made my tribe unique is more and more trivialized. Before long all the world will think of when they think of night ponies as a bunch of nocturnal malcontents rather than a race of proud dreamwalkers. When everyone can do your special ability, it ceases to be very special."

That sounded like she and her wife had a few disagreements. Hopefully, it didn't interfere with their marriage. That wasn't the thing to focus on, though.

"You said Sunflower was being foolish?" I asked. Sunflower hung her head in shame.

Rosetta nodded and focused her eyes on my friend. "Yes, she is. Do you honestly think facing your fears is going to just make them go away? It isn't that easy."

Sunflower fluffed her wings. "But you said I should. You said Phobia would be proud of me."

"That I did," Rosetta confirmed. "However, I didn't say your fears would go away. Facing your fears is about a few things, and forgive me for being long-winded. I'm basically repeating my wife, and she tends to monologue. Yeah, facing your fears repeatedly can lessen their effect on you. Not in one shot, but the more you are exposed to something the less scary it is. Another reason to face your fears is that it helps you understand your fear, which goes with the first point. Fear can be born of ignorance, and facing them head-on can help you learn why you fear something or shouldn't fear something. Finally, facing your fears is a sign that you won't let your fear rule you. Fear is important; it is a survival instinct to keep you safe. However, we can become crippled trying to avoid what we are afraid of, and that is when it has gone too far."

"So, why is she foolish?" I asked.

"I apologize again for mimicking my wife, but I spend a lot of time with her. The reason your friend is foolish is that she did exactly what she needed to with facing her fears, and she feels bad about it for some reason," Rosetta replied and quickly yawned again. "She exposed herself to her fear, which will help her better cope with it in the future. She also showed she was not going to be at the mercy of it, but is crying because she is still afraid. She's still going to be afraid, that can't be helped in one go. The only thing she didn't do is try to understand why she is claustrophobic to begin with."

I turned and looked at Sunflower. "Any ideas why you're claustrophobic? Did you have a traumatic experience in an enclosed space as a foal?"

Sunflower shook her head. "No, I just never had to deal with places like that growing up on a farm. Everything was big and open back at home."

"Well, you may need to just stay on the ship when we get to our stop at Mountainshade then," Rosetta said after yawning.

"What's wrong with Mountainshade?" I asked, looking at the trembling form of my friend. "Is it cramped?"

"The primary part of Mountainshade is built into the caverns of the Foal Mountains, or so I've been told," Rosetta explained. "I'm sure there are bigger caverns that seem more open, but there will be a lot that're tighter. It's the largest night pony settlement in Equestria, and night ponies are more comfortable underground or in caves."

Sunflower whimpered even louder now.

Rosetta gave her a sympathetic look. "There is supposed to be an earth pony part of the city just outside the entrance of the mountains—primarily miners, some merchants, and a few farmers. Maybe you can spend time there instead."

I patted Sunflower's back. "Don't worry. I'm sure it can't be that bad. Imagine it as one big building, like our dorms. You don't have any problem with the dorm hallways and rooms. It has to have at least that much room. Just don't think about the fact you are in a cave system."

The night pony yawned again and stretched her wings. "Blasted sun, sapping all my energy. I'm going to head to bed. Stop feeling bad because you were scared. It's okay to be scared. You faced it, and that's something to be proud of. Anyway, I'm going to beddy-bye, have a good afternoon. If you see my foals trying to stay up, tattle to my sister and let her know I told them to go to bed. She'll take care of it. They won't cross their titi; she has control of the purse strings."

We watched her walk off towards the cabins.

"What does titi mean?" Sunflower asked.

I shook my head. "I think it is a way of saying aunt in Spanish, but I'm not sure. I'm not very good at Spanish."

"Oh."

I walked over and hugged her. "Are you going to be okay for the rest of the day? I know you were pretty shaken up, but it's over now."

She leaned into me. "I suppose so, as long as I don't think about that cave city coming tomorrow night."

I released her and looked her in the eyes. "Hey, don't fret about it. You want to see amazing places, right? It is a cave city! How cool is that?"

"Like a dwarven city in Lord of the Rings," she said in a low voice, looking down.

"Yeah!" I exclaimed. "Won't that be exciting to see?"

"The most famous dwarven city in Lord of the Rings had a Balrog in it, and it and the orcs killed all the dwarves," she said to the deck.

"That's depressing," I said with a frown. "Well, good thing this isn't that story. Come on, it is the only night pony city anywhere! There isn't even a night pony city on Earth, and we might be some of the first ponies from Earth to see it."

She half-perked her ears and looked up at me at last. "Sounds like an adventure. Let's hope it doesn't make us late for dinner."

"Late for dinner?! What?!" I said in shock.

That got her to giggle. "Just keeping with the Tolkien vibe. Don't worry, I'm sure we won't miss dinner."

I smiled. "Good, because that would be a real tragedy."

She then grabbed me into a tight hug. "Don't ever change, Rebecca."

Chapter 90: Cornfields and Corny Songs

By the time evening arrived, I had come to several conclusions and realized many things.

First, paddleboat races were indeed fun. They were also very wet. Also, putting humans on paddleboats built for someone pony-sized was utterly unfair to the human. I realized this last one after watching Blanche, and the other humans struggle to even sit in the seats and attempt to work the paddles—or watched them splash in the water as they threw off the balance of the small boats and made them capsize. That didn't stop them from trying.

The second thing I learned was bingo was serious business, and you should never play with your friends because screams would be shouted, tails would be flicked, wings would be flapped, and blood would be shed (well, maybe I exaggerate about that last one, but not by much.) Bingo was not as boring as I thought, but I vowed never to play again. I would play something safer and less violent, like paintball or skydiving with my wings strapped down. Bingo was going on my list of the world's evils, right next to skim milk.

The third thing I learned was that Equestria had a lot, and I mean a lot of trees. As the ships traveled through the air, I spent much of the time looking over the rail at trees. There were occasional villages here and there, joined together by long dirt roads and rivers. Many of these towns consisted of only a few houses, but a few had upwards of thirty or more. One village had a massive wooden arch at the entrance painted to look like a rainbow. I had initially thought that this might be Rainbow Falls, and we had gotten there early. However, Strong Will announced over the intercom that it was a town named Hope Hollow, and they were a mixed tribal town that held a yearly rainbow festival. I wished we could land and look around, but it wasn't one of our scheduled stops. It would have been interesting to see a regular town that went through all the effort to build a giant rainbow arch despite being out in the middle of nowhere.

Time flew by, and the sun eventually set. I assumed that most of the foals had gone to bed, but that would be on the other two ships in our tiny fleet. Our ship didn't have many foals at all. There were Phobia Remedy's foals, which were very much awake, and then there was that young griffin, and the human baby—both of them were asleep in bed. The rest of us were awake, and it was happy hour.

Lots of firefly lanterns and two staffed bars had been set out on the deck, along with plenty of circular tables and pillows. Everything was placed near the edges of the ship, near the railing, and a large area was cleared in the middle of everything. Recorded music was playing on a gramophone. I couldn't complain about the music; it was a bouncy techno beat—something I could easily dance to. I wasn't dancing yet...beyond shaking my flank. First, I was standing with my friends to decide on what to drink.

"Peach brandy, apple cider, plum wine, I see a pattern here," Sunflower observed. "Everything is fruity."

"Not a drop of beer in sight," Jonathan agreed as he looked over the selections.

The staff, a unicorn stallion, gave us an impatient look. "Are any of you going to choose anything?"

I poked a hoof towards a random bottle. I didn't know what it was, other than it was a deep red. There was no reason for that particular selection other than to show some decisiveness about something and get us moving. "I'll have some of that."

The unicorn nodded and filled a tankard for me. I accepted it graciously and gripped it as best I could with a wing, not wanting to embarrass myself by dropping it. I could easily laugh it off if I did, but it was best not to have to if I could avoid it. I took a seat at a nearby table, and my fellow candidates joined me soon after making their selections.

Blanche frowned at Sunflower as country pegasus took her seat. "So… how did the barrel riding thing go?"

"She ended up freaking out afterward," Roger said, taking a cautious sip of his tannish drink. His face immediately scrunched up. "Yuck! I think I made a poor selection."

Sunflower hung her head in shame. I couldn't leave my friend hanging like that.

"She did better than me!" I said jovially. "I couldn't bring myself to go through with it. I suppose that makes her the braver of the two of us. They wanted to put me in a metal barrel! Can you believe that? I'd have come out of that as marshmallow paste!"

"I'm not spreading you over a bagel," Jonathan said absently as he tried his drink—the same type as Roger's. Unlike Roger, his face remained passively neutral through the tasting. Jonathan didn't seem that animated a guy. Still, he did play on my comment, so there was hope we could get along. I wondered what his magic was. Humans always got the really cool magic.

"I think it is safe to discuss our mutual business," Jonathan continued, completing the task of moving the conversation away from the one Sunflower would rather not discuss.

Sunflower looked around. "Are you sure? There's a lot of people around who can overhear us."

Jonathan nodded. "Yes, but everyone on this boat is one of our family, Phobia Remedy's family, or an Equestrian who wouldn't know what we are discussing anyway. Aside from the Equestrians, everyone onboard has probably put two and two together with the way we are all hanging out."

Roger pointed a wing out to where some people were dancing. "You forgot the old man, but he seems to be in the know, although I'm unsure who he is working for."

"He looks like he is at least having fun," I said with a grin, joining Roger in pointing at the old man. The gentleman was currently out in the middle of the deck, doing the robot dance without a care in the world. "Love your moves!"

The old man waved at me happily and kept dancing away.

"You give my parents too much credit," Blanche muttered over the lip of her cup.

Sunflower pouted at her. "That's not a very nice thing to say about your family."

Blanche set her cup down. "I love my family, but there is a reason I applied to colleges in your country, even before I knew I was a candidate. I wanted to put as much space between them and me as possible. They annoy me to no end, and they've never been comfortable with my magic—even if they don't come out and say it. An ocean seemed like a decent amount of space to have between us. I wish they had done as Rebecca's parents did and skipped this trip."

"Aww, I'm sorry to hear that your parents aren't more supportive of you," I said consolingly.

She shook her head. "It isn't that they aren't supportive. It's the way they fearfully back away from me when I use my powers. It's the way they talk about ponies when there aren't any ponies around. I was the only member of my family that got ETS, and I was immediately put into isolation when it happened. I only partially transformed before ETS stopped, and I was young and scared, but I remember it well. They didn't attempt to visit me when I was sick. They were more fearful of getting ETS than they were fearful for me. Then when ETS was all over, they still didn't come to visit their partial daughter in the hospital until rehumanization became an option."

Roger scrunched up his snout. "That got depressing quickly. I heard no lies."

"That's his thing," I explained, hoping to prompt Jonathan into revealing his powers. "Roger is a lie detector."

"That's an oversimplification," Roger corrected. He eyed me, then glanced around at everyone else. "So… I know Rebecca here astral projects. I can detect if someone believes what is being said. What do the rest of you do?"

Blanche summoned a chisel into her hand. "Solid magic constructs."

Sunflower rubbed a hoof across the table. "I go into trances and draw...things. I'm a storyteller if you know what that means."

"She's like an oracle," Blanche clarified. "What about you, Jonathan? Keeps the playing field level for each of us to know what all the others are capable of."

Jonathan adjusted his glasses. "Then we are all still in the dark. I doubt any of us knows the full extent of what the others' powers can do. Those brief descriptions offer little in quantifiable terms or give any scope. My powers are difficult to explain. Let's say...I'm very adept with electronic devices—the ultimate hack."

I frowned. "Um...gonna need some more explanation than that. I hear the term hack, and I think if someone who claims to do something they can't."

Jonathan took a deep breath. "If I touch an electronic device, I can make it run any function within its capabilities if I am familiar with how it works. This includes software in computers. If I am unfamiliar with how things work, things can go very badly. You don't know how many computers I crashed and computer viruses I accidentally created as a kid."

Sunflower's ears jerked up. "So that's why you are big into electronics! If you understand them, then you can control them properly and don't have to worry about messing things up."

Roger nodded. "Probably why your family might be on edge around you too if you have a history of frying computer software."

Jonathan grunted in reply, but still kept his impassive stony face. I wanted to ask him why so serious?.

Well, I finally got the low-down on the last of the candidates' powers. No one seemed particularly into their drinks—mine was a dry strawberry flavored thing, which was okay, but alcohol really wasn't my thing. No, it was time to liven things up and have some fun.

"I'm going to go dance," I announced as I left my seat. "Anyone want to join me? It's okay if you don't. I know people can be overwhelmed by my epic dance moves! Let's see if that old geezer out there can keep up with all of this!"

Blanche chuckled. "Going dancing with the old man? Your boyfriend will be jealous."

I raised a wing dismissively as I walked out to the dance floor. "What happens in Equestria stays in Equestria!" I paused and looked back. "You guys should come. We'll need to loosen up a bit. There's dancing! Come have fun."

Whether they took my advice or not, I didn't immediately see. I hurried out to the dance area and started shaking my head and flanks, tail whipping to the left and right as I moved with the techno beat. I was standing just across from the old man, who was still doing the robot with the energy of a person fifty years younger and with as much care for what people think of him as a man much older than his wrinkles suggested. It reminded me of a quote from C.S. Lewis that I learned in my English lit class, a layered version of some Bible quote. When I became a man, I put away childish things, including the fear of childishness and the desire to be grown up. You can learn some pretty inspirational things in an English lit class, and I found that to be a good one. You're never too old to enjoy something, and the old man across from me was living that truth.

I was well engrossed in my dancing, but I did notice the others come out and join me. Blanche, being the overachiever that she was, proceeded to put everyone on the floor to shame with her moves—well, everyone but me, but who could possibly compete against my moves? They were positively epic! Jonathan and Roger seemed unsure what to do and just sat there, kind of bouncing.

Sunflower seemed just as dumbfounded about how to dance as the guys, and she came and stood near me, looking around us as if she was considering going back to the table.

"Come on, Sunflower, dance!" I encouraged her as I shook my flank more briskly. "Just move with the beat. Shake that big butt!"

She gaped at me. "I don't know what to do! And we're ponies; we don't have big butts like humans. Well… I suppose you do, but that's because you are...um…."

"Fluffy?" I suggested, still grooving.

"That word works," Sunflower agreed.

I shook it a bit more. "Russell likes my big butt. You're right; ponies normally don't have those. I wonder why humans have such big rear ends."

"I learned in my biology class that it's an evolutionary thing. It helps them stand upright without a lot of effort. Like we have to sit there trying to adjust our tails just right if we try to even stand on two legs for a moment or two," Sunflower explained. "I couldn't even imagine trying to walk five steps on two legs."

I gave her a sly grin. "So...having a big butt lets you walk on two legs? Do you think it will let me dance on two legs?"

She gave me a horrified look. "You aren't going to try—" Her question was cut off as I pushed myself up on my hind legs. "This can only go badly."

Balancing on two legs is not an easy task, and I did not feel that steady standing still with my tail lifted high and my wings outspread, but I wasn't letting that stop me. I took a shaky step to the right…or at least, I tried to. Taking a step when you are standing on two legs means temporarily going to one leg. Ponies aren't meant to stand on two legs. I heard that some ballerina ponies could do it. However, shocking as it might be to anyone watching me dance, I was not a ballerina. The natural laws of two universes wouldn't tolerate any further violation by moving to a sole appendage, and I dropped like a rock and hit the deck hard.

Well, that didn't go well.

People were looking at me, so I rolled over on my back and started pumping my legs above me in conjunction with the rhythm of the music. I clearly meant to fall over so I could we the crowd with even more epic dance moves than they had ever seen before! Seeing this, the crowd quickly lost interest in my fall.

"How do you do that?" Sunflower asked.

I paused and looked at her. "It's not complicated. I lay here, and I flex my—"

"Not that!" Sunflower interrupted. "I mean, how do you just blow off a mistake like that so easily? Like it didn't even happen?"

It took me a second to roll over and stand up. "When blunders occur, you have to roll with them. They happened, and you have no way of undoing what happened. What you do have control over is what you do next. You can sit there, worrying over it, or you can laugh it off and move on. The quicker you do, the better, because the quicker you make it a thing of the past, the quicker it becomes a thing of the past for everyone else. And it's not like most of these things are massive deals. I fell over—what does that matter in the big scheme of things? It happens all the time, and it doesn't impact much at all… except the ground, but I don't think I'm hurting the ground. I'm not heavy enough for that."

"You said something similar right after they gave us that surprise test in our dreams," Sunflower recalled.

I nodded. "Yep. Same thing. You can't sit there fretting about what already happened. Live in the moment." I looked around us and gestured with a wing. "Speaking of living in the moment, let's get to the side, so we aren't standing in everyone's way."

She stepped back. "No, that's okay. You wanted to dance. I should let you do that."

"And you seem to need to talk," I countered. "I think you need a friend to talk to is more important than me wanting to dance. Come on, let's go talk."

With signs of reluctance, she followed me as we stepped off to a more secluded part of the deck.

We sat down, and when she didn't start talking, I decided to prompt her. "So… you still worried about that barrel thing earlier today? Were they barrels? It is already fading from my mind."

Her gaze was like daggers. "You know it was barrels. You're just trying to make me feel better." She then looked down at the wood-grain boards of the deck. "It isn't just that. I think about how I drew on Phobia Remedy's walls and that quiz that I felt like an idiot for not knowing about anything on it. I feel like I'm always making a fool out of myself. I don't know what I have to offer as a Dreamwarden anyway."

"Your powers—"

She wouldn't even let me start to answer before cutting me off. "My powers are the only ones out of our entire group that don't operate on command."

I held up a hoof. "Not true. Roger's are always passively on."

"And mine only works on its own timetable," Sunflower said bitterly. "What good is it if I can't do it when I need to? It isn't even the future. That drawing of Moses was from the past. What help did it do?"

I considered it for a second. "Well, combined with other things, it helped reveal that Moses might be Sha'am Maut. I'm not sure how that will impact things, but that makes Moses pretty notable. Maybe it is enough that your powers can sometimes shine a light on things that wouldn't get much notice otherwise, and as a Dreamwarden, you would be able to determine information about those things you draw much faster so you can get to figuring out why you drew it."

She hung her head. "It still doesn't seem that useful."

"More useful than Blanche's ability," I reminded her. "I admit, Blanche blows us both out of the water when it comes to leadership abilities and knowing all this political crud, but you have to wonder if she feels doubt about what she can contribute. Her magic is incredible, but in terms of being a Dreamwarden, what use is it? The objects she makes don't last long at all, and there are plenty of people and resources at their disposal to get or create the real thing. All of the other candidates, you and me included, bring magic to the table that could be directly helpful to being a Dreamwarden; Blanche doesn't have that. That's probably why the only thing that has broken her down crying was not being perfect on that silly test. That's where she can separate herself from the herd, and that makes her hold herself to a higher standard on those things."

Sunflower sighed. "I just wish I could figure out how to make myself stand out. There isn't much time left. I wouldn't be surprised if they make their final decision not long after returning from this trip. I mean, they have to have time to get everything ready once they choose, right?"

I rubbed a wing against my head. "I guess so. I don't think about that stuff much. I try to live in the moment as much as possible. It isn't that I never think about the future or worry about things. I just try not to. The present can provide enough stress without worrying about what is coming, and I stress a lot more than I let on."

"I noticed you eat more when you're stressed," Sunflower confirmed. "You haven't eaten a lot on this trip."

I chuckled. "Well, it is a vacation. It wouldn't be very vacation-y if I were stressed the whole time. But back to you trying to stand out. Try stopping thinking about powers and how obscenely Blanche outclasses us in politics and leadership. Think about what makes you—you. Did I ever tell you Meadow thought I was you at first because I have a sunflower in my mark? What's your cutie mark story?"

She looked at the flower within a sun on her flank, brushing her pink and green mane away from her eyes as she did. "It isn't anything special. I got it younger than most ponies get theirs. I couldn't even fly yet at the time."

"Getting it earlier sounds special to me. Tell me the story," I prompted as I sat down next to her.

She pursed her lips briefly then sat. "I was eight at the time and still going by my old human name, Dorothy."

I blinked. "Your human name was Dorothy, and you lived in Kansas?"

She frowned. "I read the book, so no making fun of my old name. Dorothy hasn't been my name in ten years."

"I think you missed an opportunity to name yourself Dorothy Gale. I mean, it's the perfect blend of pop culture, pegasus terms, and human terms. It is even the name of someone who goes on a magical adventure to a far-away land. It's too perfect!"

"Anyway," Sunflower said loudly, moving on from the topic of her human name. "As a filly, I had a lot of free rein to run around the farm. There were always at least one pegasi in the air which could keep track of me, and everypony trusted one another. There wasn't much trouble I could get into. However, I was largely boxed in near the farm because we had cornfields, and I was scared to go into the cornfields."

"Why were you afraid of corn?" I asked in confusion.

She shook her head. "I could lose track of where I was really easy. When you're out in the corn, all you see are the corn stalks everywhere. It doesn't take long if you make any turns to lose track of which way is which and have no clue how far you are from the edge of the field."

I considered that, trying to imagine myself as a tiny filly who couldn't fly in that situation. I supposed it could be scary.

Sunflower continued. "One day, our community was visited by a group of Equestrians who were going to show us different things to help with our farming. I didn't think much of it at the time because I was just a kid. All I knew was there were strangers in town, and that wasn't completely uncommon. Strangers came by to trade all the time. I was concerned most with playing with my ball."

I nodded. "As foals are."

"It was an orange kickball, almost as big as I was, but it didn't weigh hardly anything," Sunflower explained. "I had been kicking it around by myself for a while, and I suddenly kicked it in the wrong way, and it went flying through the air, right out into the cornfields. I started crying because I wasn't willing to go after it. I had effectively lost my ball."

"But that wasn't what happened, was it?" I asked.

She shook her head. "One of the Equestrians came down the path and found me. She was a pink earth pony with a pink mane. She asked me why I was crying, and I told her about my ball. She was about to get it for me, but she stopped right on the edge of the cornfield and looked back at me. She then sat down and said, I could go get it for you, but Twilight says we're supposed to be teaching ponies, and we can't teach ponies if we do everything for them. Come here, and let me teach you a song that will help you get your ball. It's a fun song; I promise—Pinkie Promise. She then did some ridiculous rhyme that sealed the promise, but that part I don't remember exactly how it goes. Something about sticking cupcakes in eyes."

"Cupcakes go in the tummy, and going through your eyes is not a good path to that," I said sagely.

That managed a little chuckle out of her before she continued. "So, she said this was a song that her granny taught her as a filly for going into scary places. The song I still remember. it went like this,

When I was a little filly and the sun was going down…

The darkness and the shadows, they would always make me frown…

I'd hide under my pillow
From what I thought I saw
But Granny Pie said that wasn't the way
To deal with fears at all

She said, 'Pinkie, you gotta stand up tall
Learn to face your fears
You'll see that they can't hurt you
Just laugh to make them disappear.'
Ha! Ha! Ha!

So, giggle at the ghostly
Guffaw at the grossly
Crack up at the creepy
Whoop it up with the weepy
Chortle at the kooky
Snortle at the spooky

And tell that big dumb scary face to take a hike and leave you alone and if he thinks he can scare you then he's got another thing coming and the very idea of such a thing just makes you wanna... hahahaha... heh...
Laaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaauuuugh!"

I blinked. "That is a very unusual final verse. Are you sure that's how it went?"

Sunflower snorted and laughed. "Yeah, that's exactly how it went. She said I should go into the corn and get the ball myself. I could sing that song if I got too scared, and she would be right outside the corn to make sure nothing terrible happened."

"Was that Pinkie Pie, the Element of Laughter?" I asked in astonishment. "You met one of the Element Bearers as a foal?"

"You met Wild Growth when you were a foal," Sunflower pointed out. "Is it that surprising I met Pinkie Pie? I didn't know who she was at the time. And we've all had sit-down conversations with Dreamwardens and met the princesses of Equestria. We're also candidates for one of those practically legendary positions."

"Point taken. Continue."

"I went into the cornfields and did precisely as Pinkie Pie said, and you know what? It worked," Sunflower said fondly. "I sat there and sang my little heart out and started to bounce along with the song, practically prancing through the cornfields. Then, I suddenly found myself on the other side."

She looked up at the night sky as she continued. "The sun was shining brightly, and I found myself in a field of white flowers with my ball laying in the middle. I had no previous idea that all of those flowers even existed so close to the dreaded cornfields. It was this fantastic and beautiful place that had been just outside the boundaries that I had set myself, and I had no clue. It made me hungry to see more of what lay beyond, and that is when I got my cutie mark."

I placed a wing over her back and gave her a soft smile. "I think you already have everything you need to deal with stresses and set yourself apart. If you ever doubt yourself, all you need to do is remember that story and be yourself. All your stresses and worries are only another cornfield. Laugh them off and go see what is on the other side."

Author's Note

The chapter ended up being longer than intended,. I have been sick lately and stressed as well. I'm hoping things are better on the other side of all this.

Chapter 91: Ulysses and the Spider

The night passed with no Dreamwardens. There wasn't even a visit from Luna, and none of my fellow candidates deemed it necessary to do a meet-up as we slept. That left me with another night of feeling like my sleep was somehow off. I was just too used to always having Miss Seapony there when I went to sleep that her absence became unnerving. The fact that the will of Luna governed this dream realm created several slight differences in the way it functioned, which led to everything feeling off to me. With all that in mind, I kept to my own dreams through the night.

"RISE AND SHINE! BECAUSE IT IS ALMOST RAINBOW FALLS TIME!"

If there had been any left or right to fall off my bed, I would have. That was not a pleasant way to wake up. Instead, I did a jump that sent my blanket flying and me nearly reaching the ceiling. Iron Will was officially my least favorite minotaur.

That was the first challenge of the morning. The second challenge involved the restroom.

It seemed like the majority of the ship had been woken up simultaneously, and for most people, the first place they went after waking up was the restroom. The problem was, there was only one restroom. If this had been a typical trip by Equestrians, this would not have been a problem, but this was a ship with a mix of ponies and humans. Now, don't get me wrong, I prefer a little privacy when going to tinkle. I had grown up used to it, and it had been an adjustment to give that up when going to college. Most of the other ponies were of a similar mindset to mine. The humans were completely different. The humans were throwing a conniption fit about having to all go into the restroom together and not even being segregated by gender. Blanche's parents were the loudest of the batch, but Blanche wasn't innocent of making a fuss either. The only human who wasn't making aloud hullabaloo was Jonathan, and I could tell that even he had serious misgivings about it. Even the little baby Martinez was crying—although that probably had nothing to do with its opinions about restroom segregation.

Sunflower's family were farmers, and that meant they were early risers. They were also the least concerned with sharing facilities with no privacy, as Sunflower had once explained that this was no different than what they did back home. That meant they had first go to the restroom while the rest of us stood out in the hall fussing—me, Roger, Wild Growth, Wild Growth's husband, Crystal, and the griffins on one side, all trying not to lose our patience with the humans. On the other side were the humans, who were by no means a united front. In fact, the humans spent most of their time going at each other about who would go first. It was almost enough to make me want to go back to bed, almost. Luckily, the night ponies had been awake all night and weren't involved with any of this.

This would have continued, if not for the arrival of a tall figure of ancient yore with hair like the mighty blocks from Stonehenge, face chiseled from the most long-lasting of rock, and finery worthy of any primordial lord. His eyes were deep pools showing sparkling blue water at the bottom of a well that the sun beamed its solar rays perfectly down upon. He stepped forward and began stripping away his second skin, sending the humans scattering, unable to stand his magnificence and glory, before he stepped into the restroom. Not a word was spoken by him because one such as he did not need to speak to such unworthy beings not give his focus a moment of distraction. All we lesser mortals could do was gape in awe at him.

In short, the older man showed up, stripped naked in front of everyone, and went into the restroom to take a shower with no @#$%s given.

The restroom trip became much easier after that, and once I had relieved myself and showered, I made my way to the deck—wondering all the while if there were rainbows at Rainbow Falls and whether our crew had contributed to the yellow this morning.

To my delight, a breakfast buffet was set out on deck. There was plenty of fruit and mounds and mounds of pancakes available, as well as a selection of juices and milk. To my further delight, Equestrians didn't even understand the concept of skim milk, much less have it. Things were looking up after a nasty wake-up call.

Most of the others were having breakfast with their families, which left me having to choose different options than I preferred for who to sit with. Most of the tables were occupied by someone, but I didn't want to eat alone anyway. I eventually settled on joining Crystal and the old man, who had taken a table away from everyone else for themselves.

"Hey! This is the cool kids' table!" the old man exclaimed as I sat down.

Crystal rolled her eyes after finishing off swallowing a berry. "You can sit here. Ignore Ulysses; the old coot is crazy."

"I'm young enough," Ulysses protested. He then reached up to his mouth and pulled his dentures out. "Look at these sparkling whites! Don't see whites like these on old people."

Crystal looked at the teeth and shuddered. "Put those away!" She then looked at me. "Since I doubt you've been formally introduced, meet Ulysses. Don't let his old age fool you. The guy could probably drop Tempest in a fair fight—not that he ever fights fair. He's one of the elite guards for the Dreamwardens. He's Psychic Calm's guy and is scouting Equestria out."

"Little upset to be out here without Psy," Ulysses said with a shake of his head. "But someone has to give him the low down of what he's walking into. Where Psy goes, I go. The guy couldn't do without me—he needs someone with a sense of humor. Otherwise, he might be mistaken for a rock."

I raised an eyebrow at him, looking him over. "You're an elite bodyguard?"

"Yep!" he replies as he quickly used a knife to slice up an orange into eight pieces on the table. I hadn't seen where the knife came from or where it went after, but he was wearing long sleeves. "This whipper-snapper exaggerates a little. I could have taken Tempest with ease about twenty years ago, maybe even ten years ago, but these old bones aren't what they used to be. She fights pretty damn well for someone who didn't have arms for most of her life. Right now, I'd say I could hold my ground against her longer than most. I'd do better, but she knows I'm not as easy a target as I look and isn't fooled. Never underestimate the power of being underestimated."

I looked him over. He seemed normal enough. All I saw was an old man. "Do you have any cool human magic?"

He laughed out loud. "No. No magic for me. I never got ETS. I do everything the old-fashioned way."

"Then… how do you, as a bodyguard, fight magic users?" I asked in confusion.

He whipped out his knife and spun it before making it disappear again. "No matter how powerful the wizard, a knife between the shoulder blades will seriously cramp their style. That's an old quote from my favorite book. It was the guiding quote for my professional career."

I tilted my head. "What kind of a career needs a quote like-"

"Don't ask," Crystal interrupted quickly. "Dreamwardens love picking through the trash and digging up their reclamation cases and things better left alone—or better yet, locked away. That's how I ended up as an employee, and it's how this old geezer did too. It's best not to ask too many questions about the elites' pasts. Most of us had dumpster fires or worse for lives, ranging from serious depressive sacks of flesh to full-blown psychos. Tempest is one of the more stable elite members. I was more the depressive sack of shit. I'll give you one guess what Ulysses was.", /

I couldn't help it; I inched away from him slightly.

Ulysses' mirth seemed to fade away. "Keyword is was. Psy gave me a chance and spent a lot of time with me on the couch, fixing my head and working through my issues. I won't say I'm perfectly normal nowadays, but who is? I owe that pony more than I can say. When someone tries to hurt Psy, they don't even see me coming."

I noted that he said when and not if. People had tried to hurt Psychic Calm, and Ulysses ended up doing something about it—a knife between the shoulder blades. No one ever suspected an old man. Another thing occurred to me; that was definitely a knife from Earth, and I knew that had to be on the list of things not allowed through. He had somehow slipped that knife of his completely undetected through customs. Did he have other weapons on him or just the one? I wasn't eager to find out.

"I'M THE OLDEST AND THE ALPHA! YOU'LL DO AS I SAY!"

My ears flattened at the volume, and the entire crowd on deck turned to see Arachne and Charlotte glaring at one another, wings spread menacingly, chairs overturned.

"Arachne! Training match, now!" Crystal shouted. The twins lowered their wings and started walking towards Crystal, but she shook her head. "No, just Arachne. Someone needs to be humbled. You also won't be facing me. You'll be facing my friend Ulysses here." She gestured a leg at the old man in question. The old geezer just grinned.

Arachne cocked her head in confusion. "An old man, seriously?"

"Seriously," Crystal confirmed. "Rules for the match are simple. Land a blow on his chest within three minutes without flying any higher than six feet is your goal. His rules are simple too—he's not allowed to break any of your bones or cause you any hurt that you can't walk off in thirty minutes or so."

Rosetta stepped forward. "Is this the time or place for this, Crystal? I'm not objecting to you disciplining my daughter, but right now in this way?"

The crowd was all staring. Iron Will was watching, too, with his arms crossed. However, he didn't make any move to interfere with someone setting up a fight on his ship.

Crystal glanced around the crowd. "It was on the list of things we were assigned to do while here—demonstrate what our bodyguards can do so we can reassure families that we can keep them all safe. Most of these people haven't even considered that if their little first-year college student gets the job, there will be parties who will want to kill their kid and target them—even though we made a point of telling them. Assurances need to be made that won't happen, and now's as good a time as any. That may be your kid, but this is my job, Rosetta, assigned by your wife and her colleagues."

Rosetta set her jaw and laid back her ears. "We'll discuss this later, and I'll have a longer talk with Phobia when we get home."

There were a few mutters about whether the captain would just allow this to happen. Iron Will must have heard them. "Iron Will doesn't care as long as Iron Will's ship isn't damaged. Preventing fighting on board is not in Iron Will's contract."

Crystal grinned. "Into places. It is only three minutes for the round, so this will be over in a hurry."

Was this really happening? Were they just going to start one of their sparring matches in the middle of breakfast on a vacation airship? It certainly seemed like it.

The two took positions in the middle of the deck, and all the other passengers made sure to give them space. I heard many of them muttering about what was some older man fighting a filly supposed to prove. A few of my friends whispered about how Arachne was the best night pony fighter in Skytree and easily beat up grown adults. I didn't think anyone was listening in on my conversation with Crystal and Ulysses, so none of them heard what I was told about him. Even Arachne didn't seem to know what she was walking into. He continued to have his most significant advantage in place—everyone underestimated him.

"You may begin!" Crystal shouted.

Arachne immediately took to the air at the maximum height she was allowed, and I anticipated her directly charging in to finish this quickly. I was shocked when that dive through the air was put on hold as the night pony stayed in a hover examining her foe. Ulysses just stood there, looking utterly unconcerned about the combative filly, as he quietly picked his nose, examined the snot, and wiped it on his pants leg. His entire posture was relaxed, showing no tenseness of muscles that one would expect out of someone anticipating getting hit. To tell the truth, the guy looked downright bored.

The filly landed, stared at him for a few seconds, and began circling him. Ulysses smiled and waved at her, which made her bare her teeth, but didn't make her charge in. She just continued to circle.

"What's wrong, sis? Scared of an old man?" Charlotte mockingly jeered.

Arachne spared a glance at her sister. "An old man who the Dreamwardens employ, and Crystal matched me up against to teach me a lesson? I think I have the right to be cautious. You've got eyes, little sis. How about you use them? That guy has at least six weapons on him."

"At least," Ulysses confirmed with a big grin. "My my… Tempest did a good job training you. Have to hand it to you; most wouldn't have caught a hint of that many if any at all. Can you tell me what each one out of the ones you noticed is?"

The filly continued to circle, but shook her head. The old man hung his head in disappointment. "Still gaps in your training then. Oh well."

"Running out of time, Arachne," Crystal warned.

"Don't rush me," Arachne said as she continued to circle the old man. He left his back exposed to her, not even turning to look at her, still not tensing a muscle as anticipating an attack. Instead, he proceeded to scratch his genitals. A few humans made disgusted sounds.

"Thirty seconds left," Crystal announced.

Arachne promptly sat down on her rump. "I concede."

"What!?" Charlotte shouted. "Since when do you give up without a fight?"

Arachne glared at her. "When it is a no-win scenario, that's when. I can tell he's too good to land a blow on his chest in that tiny amount of time, especially when he is expecting it. The only thing I could realistically do is force him into hurting me, so we both lose, and we can call it a draw, but that still leaves me hurt just for the sake of him not winning. I have no vendetta against him where that would bring me any satisfaction. I lose nothing other than the match if I just concede. If I fight, I stand to lose some blood and still lose the match whether he wins or loses. There is no benefit to trying to fight in this situation, so I won't. I'm a daughter of Phobia Remedy and granddaughter of Sunset Blessing, and I'm not going to let Crystal humiliate me. I'll lose on my own terms."

With that said, Arachne lifted her nose and tail and marched back to the cabins below.

Crystal took a deep breath. "That filly is getting more dangerous by the day. I'm glad Rosetta's going to have words with me about this because I have a lot of concerns to express."

"PICK YOUR SPIRITS UP BECAUSE RAINBOW FALLS IS COMING UP!" Iron Will announced.

Chapter 92: Fetch Quest. Part 1

Rainbow Falls did indeed have rainbow waterfalls. How that worked, I didn't know. The best explanation I had was magic. It earned plenty of gasps from the crew as it came into view. As we got closer, we saw that there looked like what I could best describe as a flea market there. I think that was the most bewildering aspect of the place for me. They had this beautiful, magical place, and they used it for people hawking goods. There were a thousand other things they could use the site for, but they instead used it for a swap meet. That felt so wrong, like sacrilege.

Our three ships landed a short distance away, and we were each given our daily allowance. It was explained to us that many of the things for trade at the falls were literally for trade, and the ponies would want goods for goods instead of money. However, there were still plenty of stalls that would accept currency, and if we wanted to get involved in the actual trading, it was up to us to figure out how to go about doing that.

As we left the ship, Sunflower hurried up beside me. "Hey! Want to walk around together? I want a little break from my family, and I also wanted to talk to someone about that duel thing between the old man and Phobia's daughter."

"Guessing the other two ships didn't get something like that for entertainment," I mused as we walked.

Sunflower gave a grim nod. "What took me most by surprise was that Crystal was able to order it over Rosetta's objections. It was like she was sending us a message about the bodyguards. They can order your family around."

I glanced sideways at her. "Are you sure that was the message they wanted to send?"

She nodded. "That was a pretty public display that they can order family around."

I grimaced. "To be fair, that filly needs to be taken down like ten pegs. Who the heck screams that they are the alpha and the eldest? She even sounded full of herself when she conceded."

"I'm the daughter of Phobia Remedy and the granddaughter of Sunset Blessing!" Sunflower mimicked. "Yeah, she acts like that is supposed to make her better than everypony else. I'm surprised she didn't point out she is the niece of Wild Growth too. I don't want to be judgemental, but that filly is a brat. Still, it makes me worry."

"Worry, why?" I asked, perking one ear up.

Sunflower sighed. "That if I become a Dreamwarden and get married and have foals that they'll end up like that, or that whoever I get for a bodyguard will boss my spouse and kids around."

"Well, knowing it could be a problem could help you stop it from ever happening," I pointed out. "I get more uncomfortable thinking about family getting trained like Phobia's foals are."

"Do you think he really had weapons on him?" Sunflower asked.

I nodded. "I know he had at least one knife. I saw him pull it out and slice up an orange. He seemed very handy with it."

Sunflower shook her head. "How did he sneak that through customs?"

"I don't know," I answered.

"How did that filly know he had weapons on him if the customs agents couldn't find them. Did she use magic?" Sunflower pressed.

"I don't think it was magic," I replied. "It was something visual. I don't have a clue what she picked up on. That just highlights my worry. Who trains their kids to pick out hidden weapons with visual clues that federal agents can't manage? It's the stuff I always worried about—all that pressure on my foals and worrying all the time about protection. What kind of life is that?" I shook my head. "And here I am, dating like anything about all that has changed. Am I being an idiot? Should I get out of the relationship?"

Sunflower gave me a shocked look. "What happened to living in the moment? That's a lot of worry about things that might not even matter."

I sighed and kicked a stray rock out of the way of our path. "I know, and sorry for being a hypocrite. I just have always worried about that, and seeing that filly made it all hit home again. Forget I mentioned it."

Sunflower chewed on her lip as if trying to think of something else to say. "I can't say I don't see your concerns, and I agree with them, but I think they can be worked around. You know… if you become a Dreamwarden and have foals, the foals don't need to know you're a Dreamwarden till they are much older. I'm sure you could come up with an excuse for the bodyguard. Skytree is the bodyguard capital of the world, after all."

I blinked and gaped at her. "Are you saying lie to my own family?"

She shrugged. "Not lie, just leave details out. That's the way Dreamwardens are supposed to do it, right? They don't lie; they mislead with the truth. You wouldn't need to keep it secret forever. You could tell them when they grow up. By that time, you should be getting ready to retire anyway. Didn't Phobia say she wants us retiring in our mid-forties or mid-fifties? That's about the time any foals you might have are reaching adulthood if you wait a few more years to have any."

We were almost to the market, and I perked my ears. "Time to stick a pin in this conversation. Time to find some souvenirs."

The market was busy. I was still baffled by why everyone came to market here in the middle of nowhere. We had seen the countryside leading up to the falls and beyond from the airship. There wasn't any town anywhere close to this place. Everyone here had come in by train, balloon, or airship. There was no local economy. Maybe it had become a meeting place to trade between multiple villages long ago since it was an accessible landmark for them all to locate and somehow maintained being a top trading spot long after the necessity of it ceased to be a thing.

It didn't take long for me to spot something of interest. "Cupcakes! Cupcakes, cupcakes, cupcakes! Just what my rumbly tummy needs."

Sunflower frowned. "This doesn't have anything to do with the fact you just had a bunch of stressful thoughts, would it?"

"Can't hear you, too focused on getting sugary sweetness!" I said as I hurried over to the cupcake stand. "Two cupcakes, please!"

"You didn't need to get me one," Sunflower said as the vendor took my bits and passed me the cupcakes.

I blinked and held out one. "Oh… did you want one too?"

Sunflower stared at me for a second, then giggled. "I need to help you keep to your diet."

I had already finished one cupcake while she was talking—chocolate fudge with pink frosting and rainbow sprinkles. "I've been good all trip, don't worry about me."

She was about to reply when something in the next stall made her gasp. "A first edition copy of Daring Do and The Forbidden City of Clouds!!"

I finished off the other cupcake and looked at the book in question. "Um, okay. It's a book. I didn't think you were a book nerd."

Sunflower got right in my face. "Just a book?! It is a first edition of my favorite Daring Do story! It's action, adventure, far away places. It's not a book; it's an experience!"

"So, I guess you want it," I replied. I didn't get a verbal reply. Instead, I got to see her eagerly hurry over to the vendor.

"How much for that book?" Sunflower asked, pointing to the book.

The earth pony mare running the stand looked at it and back at Sunflower. "It's not for sale, but we could work out a trade."

Sunflower's ears fell. "I don't have anything on me to trade."

I came up next to her and considered the situation before looking at the vendor. "Is there anything you saw around here that you were wanting?"

The earth pony considered the question. "Well, it wouldn't be just one thing. I see someone had some original Discord lamps, and I would love to have one. They are highly collectible and hard to find these days. I also saw a stand that had some Daring Do full-body pillows that are outside my price range. If you can bring me those two things, I'll part with the book."

"A lamp and a pillow, that shouldn't be too hard," I replied and smiled at Sunflower. "Which do you want to go look for?"

"I guess I'll go get the pillow," Sunflower replied. "If I get the pillow and you fail to get the lamp, at least then I get a nice pillow."

I wondered if I should tell her what people often used full-body fan pillows for, but I decided that might scare her, and I kept my mouth shut. "Sure thing. I'll find the lamp and meet you back here. It will be a piece of cake to get that book."

The vendor laughed. "Good luck!"

Chapter 93: Fetch Quest. Part 2

I began searching around for the Discord lamp and immediately ran into a problem; I didn't know what Discord looked like. Miss Seapony had mentioned him to me many times, but she had never actually shown me an image of the infamous Lord of Chaos. I knew he was supposed to be made up of parts of different creatures, but that didn't tell me much.

There was no shortage of strange and fascinating things available for trade or sale in the area. More than a few of them made me stop and gawk at them. There was a manticore; an honest to goodness manticore was on sale. The thing was huge! Who in their right mind would even want to buy something that could eat a pony in one bite? Where would you even keep it; tied up on a chain behind your house? Ponies kept a reasonably wide distance between themselves and the beast, and I followed their example.

There was a stall that seemed pretty popular selling buckball supplies and memorabilia. It was apparent the sport was far more popular in Equestria than back on Earth—which made sense; the sport originated in Equestria and had only recently migrated to Earth. I'd only played it a little in gym class during high school. I'd always had to play like I was an earth pony because no one wanted the fat pony who couldn't fly well to be their team pegasus. Just another excuse to get made fun of, even if I did my best to joke about it. Sure, they were using me as an earth pony, but only because I was so awesome at it. I wasn't so awesome at it, and everyone knew it was me trying to make light of it. Every once in a while, laughing at yourself didn't stop everyone else from laughing at you too. The experience didn't leave me with many fond feelings for buckball.

I found myself humming Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer for some reason as I continued searching and eventually came upon a big tent filled with lamps. That seemed promising.

The inside of the tent was somehow still dim despite being filled with lamps that were on. It wasn't dark, and it probably would have been dark if not for the lamps, but it wasn't bright. A few ponies were browsing, but it wasn't crowded. Most of the lamps would have fit right in with any grandmother's living room. I didn't see any power cords going to any of them, so I was unsure how they were even on. Perhaps the Equestrians used batteries for everything? After close examination of the bulbs, I determined they looked a lot like the early light bulbs from Thomas Edison, rather primitive compared to the ones back home. Maybe that was why they weren't that bright. Bright enough to read by but not bright enough to fully light a room. I supposed that was good enough, and it had to be safer than trying to do everything by candle. Most of the ponies browsing were earth ponies with a few pegasi mixed in. There were no unicorns interested in lamps, but I guessed unicorns could just use a light spell.

I grinned as I spotted what had to be the Discord lamp in a corner. I mean, it was the ugliest thing in the entire place, and it was definitely a figure made up of a mishmash of different creatures holding a lightbulb in one claw without any shade. Finding the lamp wasn't hard at all. Now I just had to buy it. Easy-peasy.

I pointed a hoof at the lamp. "How much for that lamp?"

My hoof wasn't the only one pointing, and I wasn't the only one who just asked for the price.

I turned to see my nemesis in the quest for the Discord lamp. It was another pegasus mare, maybe a few years older than me, who had orange fur and purple mane cut short in the back. She looked at me, and I saw her sizing me up. It took me two seconds to realize that she had full intention of getting that lamp and wasn't going to back down just because there was competition. It was on!

"Oh, my extremely rare and hard-to-find Discord lamp?" the vendor, an earth pony stallion, asked. "Sorry, not for sale, but I would possibly part with it in a trade."

"Sweet Celestia, another trade?! Why does nopony just want to sell something? I just want to get Sweetie a birthday present, and this is like the sixth thing in this chain!" the other pegasus lamented towards the roof of the tent before turning her attention to the seller. "Fine! So, what do you want?"

"I want that manticore that Final Jeopardy has," the stallion informed us.

"The manticore, seriously?!" I asked in shock.

"You do realize that you run a shop for lamps, right?" the other pegasus asked skeptically. "Don't you think owning an enormous wild beast is counterproductive?"

The stallion raised his nose. "It will make a good guard dog for my shop back home. Plus, I'm not going to be one-uped by him having a manticore, and I don't. One manticore, that's my price for the rare lamp."

Right, a manticore, that should be fine… at least I knew where it was and didn't have to search. I only needed to find out how to get it before this other mare did.

She and I looked at one another, and we both understood this was a race. Crud, that wasn't good. My chubby chubs were not good at races.

We both took off at a gallop out of the tent, with me trailing her. This wasn't good at all and would only get worse when she got into the air to bypass the crowd. She'd find out what Final Jeopardy wanted first and already be on her way to get it before I ever arrived. I was going to be so far behind.

As soon as I was out of the tent, I took to the air. Equestrian air felt easier to navigate, but if I could fly better in it, then so could she. My fears were confirmed when I looked around the sky and saw no sign of her. She was flying so fast she was already out of sight and must already be at the manticore. Well, the only thing to do was catch up, find out what the price was, and hope I could come up with it before her. I had learned one big lesson already—Equestrians were insane when it came to trades. Who knew a flea market could be so demanding?

I already knew where to find the manticore and started coming in for a landing...and realized I was going too fast. I tried to slow myself down, but physics wasn't that different between Earth and Equestria, and there was only so much you could do to slow down as much weight as I had. I was going into yet another uncontrolled crash.

No, it was worse. I was going into an uncontrolled crash directly at the manticore!

I did everything I could to alter my course, but there was only so much I could do. I managed to curve it so I at least wouldn't collide with the giant scary monster and make it mad.

CRASH!

Urrh… I felt that one. Sitting back up after that was an effort.

I lifted my head and found myself face to face with the manticore, which was sniffing me.

I gave it a huge nervous grin. "Nice manticore. I'll be right out of your—ACK!"

The manticore grabbed me with his forepaws and pulled me to him. I was so scared I couldn't even struggle as he brought me in closer and closer towards him. This was the end. I was going to die as a manticore snack!

SLURP

It licked me!

The tongue continued to slurp me, one gigantic lick at a time, coating me with saliva. It took no time at all for me to be soaking wet with it, and there was no sign that the beast was going to let go. What a way to die. He wasn't going to make it quick. He was going to break me down slowly like a lollipop.

"Hey! Manticore! Want a cupcake?"

I could just barely make out the orange pegasus mare, holding a cupcake up in her hooves placatingly towards the manticore.

"A cupcake would taste much better than a pegasus, wouldn't it?" the mare asked, still holding up the fudge cupcake with pink frosting and sprinkles towards the manticore. I might be about to die, but that cupcake looked so good, and my tummy was extra rumbly right now since this was kind of a stressful situation—just a little bit.

The manticore considered me and the cupcake for a moment before dropping me and going and taking the prof offered sweet. The orange mare took a few steps back after he did, just to stay out of his grabbing range.

"You might want to move before he decides he can have both," the mare instructed me. I didn't need much cajoling. I started moving out of range right away and did a wide track around the manticore to join the mare.

She looked sideways at me. "A little-known secret that Fluttershy taught me; manticores love ponies, but not for eating. The only time they are ever dangerous is if they are in pain. That manticore wouldn't have hurt you, but he might have held onto you and treated you as his little plush toy for the next several hours. Why'd you fly so recklessly that you crashed like that?"

I rubbed the back of my head with a wing. "I was trying to keep up with you. I'm not a great flyer or an average flyer. I'm actually kind of bad at it. I have a hard time correcting course, slowing down, staying steady in a hover, you name it. I knew you would be able to fly here and get here way before I could, and I was trying to make up as much time as possible."

She blinked. "Um, you might have wanted to look down when you took off. I didn't fly here. I had to make my way through the crowd. You might not fly well, but I would trade one of my legs to fly as well as you."

She held up her wings, which I just now noticed were much smaller than average. They'd have been small on a foal.

"No flying for me," the mare said as she lowered her underdeveloped wings. "It doesn't get me depressed that much anymore, and they make a good motor for when I'm on my scooter."

"Oh," I replied, not knowing what to say. I felt kind of stupid for not noticing the size of her wings before.

"But hey, thanks for not noticing," the mare said with a laugh.

I let myself smile. "Thanks for saving me from being a manticore's plaything for the next few hours. I wouldn't want to miss my airship leaving." I held out a hoof to her. "I'm Rebecca, Rebecca Riddle."

She touched hooves with me. "I'm Scootaloo. Are you from Earth? That sounds like an Earth name."

I nodded. "Yes, on a weeklong tour of Equestria. Um...you need that lamp for trade?"

Scootalooo nodded and sighed. "Yeah, or at least, it is the latest thing I need to trade. I need the lamp to trade to this one mare for some baking recipe, which I need to trade to a stallion to get a set of special pie tins, which I need to trade to another stallion for a rare Snails buckball card, which I need to trade to another mare to get some weird hat, which is to trade for what I originally wanted to get—the original copy of the sheet music to a Bridleway musical that I know one of my best friends would love for her birthday. She's hard to shop for on a budget, but she's really into showtunes. What they wanted in bits for that music was way outside my budget, so here I am, trying to trade my way up to them."

"And now you're trying to trade for a manticore. Equestrian value of goods is really weird," I said, chuckling. "And I need a manticore for a lamp for a book, so I can't judge."

"So, ready to see what the next part of this fetch quest is going to be? Without taking any unneeded crashes?" Scootaloo asked. "Let's see how much he values it at."

Chapter 94: Fetch Quest. Part 3

What was the value of a manticore? A lot, or at least, that was my guess, based on Scootaloo's reaction.

"Fifteen hundred bits?!" Scootaloo exclaimed in despair. "Are you sure that there isn't anything that you would be interested in trading for?"

The earth pony stallion, Final Jeopardy, shook his head. "Nope, can't think of anything that I would trade him for. I need the cash; that's why I brought him here—to sell him, and manticores aren't cheap."

"That's more than I've got," I said as I wiggled my money pouch in disappointment. "Sunflower might be getting just a nice pillow. Any way I could talk you down to about nine hundred bits? That's all I've got. Actually… more like eight hundred ninety; I bought some cupcakes." That would leave me broke for the rest of the day, but I'd get a new allowance tomorrow.

Scootaloo turned and gaped slack-jawed at my pouch. "You have that much money in there? You didn't tell me you're rich."

I shook a large bit out of my pouch into my hoof. "I have eight of these big ones which say one hundred on them and a bunch of smaller ones with smaller numbers on them. The smaller numbers added up to a hundred when I counted them earlier. I'm not familiar with Equestrian currency, but I figured that was what it meant."

She looked at the large coin longingly. "Yeah, that's what it means. If I had three of those, I'd have been able to avoid all this trading by buying that music."

Final Jeopardy considered my coin and shook his head. "I could possibly part with it for less. I really need to offload him and need the cash, but I couldn't go for less than a thousand, minimum. It's the only way to recoup the costs."

"I guess that's that then," I said with a sigh. I shook two more of the large coins out of my pouch and offered them to Scootaloo. "Here you go. Consider a reward for saving me from the fate of being a manticore's plaything."

She backed away from my hoof. "You can't just give that much money away, and I don't need a reward for doing the right thing."

"I honestly don't know how much this is in terms of Equestrian money," I replied, then felt the need to clarify. "Well, I know how much in terms of numbers, but not the worth. Go ahead, take it. I have to spend it or lose it by the end of each day. Giving it to you seems like a good way to spend it. I think the pony that gave it to me would approve."

She tilted her head. "Who gave it to you, and why do you have to spend it or lose it?"

"Wild Growth, she's the one who took everyone on this trip. She gives us a daily spending allowance, but we have to return our unspent bits to her each day and get fresh bits the next day. We can't hoard them from day to day. I think that is her way of trying to recover some costs. She's rich and generous, but that doesn't mean she is careless with money," I explained and lifted my hoof higher. "Here, take them. I can't keep them anyway."

Scootaloo looked at the bits and then at the manticore. "You said you're trying to get something for your friend? Is she on this same trip as you?"

I nodded. "She is."

"So, she gets the same allowance?" Scootaloo asked.

"Yep."

Scootaloo grinned. "Then why don't you and she pool your bits and get a thousand?"

I blinked. "That could work. I have to find her to do that. Want to help me look? Her name is Sunflower Smiles; she's a yellow pegasus with a pink mane with some green stripes in it. Her cutie mark is a white flower inside a sun. She may or may not be lugging around a full-body Daring Doo pillow."

"Uh… you girls do know what ponies use those full-body fan pillows for...right?" Scootaloo asked timidly.

I rolled my eyes. "I do, but I don't think Sunflower does. I may be a virgin, but I have the most exhaustive sex-ed teacher ever, and she told me about every kinky thing you can imagine and many you couldn't. However, Sunflower is kinda innocent and sheltered, and I didn't want to shock her. I wasn't sure how she would take knowing the pillow she could be saddled with was normally used for… other things in bed." I paused and hung my head in shame. "I'm such a dirty marshmallow for knowing this stuff. I don't want to have to explain it to her. She might mention it to my friends back home, and they'll tease me about it relentlessly."

Scootaloo chuckled. "All the more reason to track her down before she ends up getting embarrassed or finds out how much you know about specialty fan pillows. If you're going to insist on giving me those bits, it's the least I can do."

"How do you know about specialty fan pillows?" I asked, curious.

Scootaloo blushed bright red. "My sort-of adopted big sister took me to some Daring Doo conventions when I was younger. You see things at conventions, and she had to explain it to me. Rainbow is normally blue, but she was bright red throughout that conversation. I think I was too. She says that wherever there is a fandom, there's a bunch of ponies trying to make clop."

I rolled my eyes. "Oh, I know. You should read the fanfictions my best friend writes—pure smut."

Scootaloo sighed. "I mentor a lot of younger ponies, and every once and a while, something comes up, and I have to sit down with a colt or filly and have that conversation. I'm not their big sister, but a mentor can be like one, and it's part of a big sister's job to have that conversation if their parents don't. You're from Earth, so you might not understand. Here in Equestria, a lot of parents are less involved in their foals' lives. I know me and my friends rarely saw ours growing up—although Apple Bloom's passed away when she was too young even to remember them. That comes up too much, too; things are getting better than they were a generation or two ago, but ponies dying of disease in their twenties or thirties is still far too common. Mine are still living, but I always worried in the back of my mind that each time I saw them would be the last, even if they were never there for a single one of my big life events—well, other than learning to walk or the first word, very early stuff. Others raised me, and somewhere along the line, it became the normal habit for many parents to have somepony else raise their foals. That means it falls on the big brothers and sisters, and the mentors, to explain uncomfortable subjects, but I feel so bad for the foals that have no parents to ask, or parents that are completely absent like mine were."

I gave her a sad look. "For growing up with it as the normal, you seem to take it pretty hard."

"Visiting Earth and seeing how usually at least one parent was always involved with their kids hit home for me," Scootaloo said without looking me in the eye. "It isn't like every parent is absent here, but there are still too many who are. Going to Earth made me realize I wanted things to change here. I saw my parents maybe a dozen times after I started school. Sweetie Belle's parents unloaded her on her sister not long after her sister was off on her own, and they only came around on holidays after that. I hear so many stories like that from the foals I mentor. That shouldn't be the norm for so many foals. I want things to change."

Final Jeopardy coughed into his hoof. "Um… excuse me, but you spending all this time talking isn't getting me my bits."

We looked at one another.

"I know where the stand with those pillows is. I'll head that way and bring her to the bookseller. You already gave me a good description of her. You check back where they have the book. If I don't find her, I'll meet up with you where you are at, and we can circle out from there," Scootaloo instructed. I nodded in agreement before taking to the air again.

This time I didn't rush through the air. I took things nice and slow. There would be no crashing, tumbling, or going splat-splat this time. I was going to find Sunflower with no hiccups.

The great things about flying were it was faster, let you avoid all the obstacles on the ground, and gave you an excellent view of everything below. My talk with Scootaloo had me at that moment much more appreciative of the blessing I had been given by being able to fly at all. I might not be the best or even average in the sky, but I was in the sky, and that was something to treasure. Talking to Scootaloo had also given me perspective about my home life too.

I found Sunflower practically pressing herself up against the book vendor's stall. She had both her wings up and perfect and the pillow clasped between the two wings on her back. It was a very awkward and strange way to carry something. I came in for a gentle landing next to her.

Sunflower looked at me expectantly, and the look quickly turned into a mix of disappointment and horror. "You don't have the lamp."

"Not yet," I replied. "I need to get a manticore to trade for the lamp."

"A what?!" Sunflower shouted. She nearly dropped the pillow but quickly scrambled to keep it clamped between her wings.

I waved a wing at her. "I've got a plan, but I need to get five-hundred bits from you to do it. Do you still have that much?"

She blinked. "Yeah, but that will leave me very little spending money for our next stop tonight."

"I won't have much left either, less than a hundred," I said with disappointment. "It's what it's going to take. If you don't want to do it, I understand. At least you got the pillow for your trouble."

Her eyes went wide. "You can have the bits. I don't want this thing!"

I eyed it. "I figured it was one of those. How bad is it?"

She shrank back a few steps. "Bad, really bad."

My curiosity got the better of me. "Can I see?"

Sunflower backed up another step, shaking her head rapidly. "No! It has an image on both sides, and on both sides the pose is very...it's bad."

"You know… with the way you're holding your wings erect like that; someone might get the wrong idea," I said, examining her wings.

At this point, it looked like Sunflower was ready to cry. I had worried she might get embarrassed, but I had no idea it would be this intense. I needed to do something to help.

"Hey," I said soothingly. "This is a good chance to practice laughing things off. I mean, this is the kind of vacation thing that leads to a great funny story to tell the girls back home."

"I can't think of any way to make this funny," Sunflower lamented.

I thought about it for two seconds. "You can pretend like you saw the pillow and thought about getting it for Julie or Ashley. Suggest that you were sure one of them would have wanted it. Then you can watch them squirm."

"Maybe," Sunflower replied. She didn't seem too confident.

Scootaloo chose that moment to come running up. "There you are! I see you found her."

I nudged my head towards Sunflower. "Yeah, and the pillow was even worse than we thought, but she has the bits."

Scootaloo chuckled as she came up beside me. "Maybe worse than you thought, but I've seen things that can't be unseen. Whatever they printed on that pillow, it can't shock me."

Sunflower had stopped crying and was now staring at Scootaloo in disbelief. "Y-y-you're Scootaloo. The Scootaloo!"

"Um...yeah, that's me," Scootaloo said uncertainly. "Is something wrong?"

Sunflower nearly dropped the pillow again as her face brightened up. "You're one of the founding members of the original Equestrian Cutie Mark Crusaders! I was a crusader when I was a filly!" She looked at me with excitement. "She was a founding crusader, Rebecca!"

"Oh, I didn't know that. I never was in the CMC," I replied. "Up until I got my mark, I lived in primarily human areas, so we didn't have any CMC chapters near us."

Scootaloo gave her a soft smile. "Nice to hear that the Earth chapters are doing great, but I'm not directly affiliated with those. Those were started independently by foals on Earth."

"You still inspired them, and they still tell stories about you and the original crusaders," Sunflower said, nearly breathless. "We didn't have much money growing up, but my parents still paid to have me join the local chapter."

Scootaloo blinked. "Wait… you pay for membership back on Earth?"

Sunflower nodded. "Well, yeah. It has to cover all the supplies and a little bit for running the overall organization."

Scootaloo gawked at this. "We… we never even considered doing that here. I never even considered ponies would be willing to pay. Our supplies come from ponies donating, and there is no organizational budget aside from what me, Apple Bloom, and Sweetie Belle can spare from our other jobs."

"Speaking of donations," I interrupted. "If you want mine, we need to hurry up and get Sunflower's bits."

Sunflower blinked. "Scootaloo is selling the manticore?"

I shook my head. "No, long story on that. She did save me from a manticore. I'll tell you about it later. I need those bits to combine with mine to buy the manticore."

"And I'll help you get the manticore to the lamp seller since the manticore might still want to keep you as his toy," Scootaloo offered. "I doubt he has forgotten you so fast, and manticores can be pretty grabby about what they want."

"He just knows he will never see a better squeeze toy than me," I said, jiggling my belly jelly.

"I'll just come with you. I want to see the manticore," Sunflower said. She was still doing everything she could to hide the image on the pillow, but at least she seemed to have relaxed a little.

It didn't take long to get back to Final Jeopardy and trade him the bits. Mortimer—that was the name of the manticore—tried to grab me again, but I managed to stay out of reach. Scootaloo seemed to be reasonably well-versed in handling wild beasts, and she took the lead with the leash while Sunflower spent her time gaping at our recent purchase. From there, it was only a short walk to the lamp tent.

The lamp dealer came out to meet us, looking pleasantly surprised that we had actually obtained the manticore. They also had enough sense not to bring it into the tent with all the fragile glass inside. We waited for the dealer to tie the manticore up behind the tent and return with the lamp. It didn't take too long before I was holding the atrocity against home decor in my hooves.

I looked at the lamp in my hooves. "To think, a guy required a manticore to trade for this ugly thing."

The lamp looked at me and sneered. "Well! I never! Maybe you don't appreciate fine art as much as I thought!"

Chapter 95: Discord

"Thank you for your cooperation, Melvin," Discord said as he snapped his fingers.

The tent with all the lamps vanished, leaving several confused ponies standing there, including the lamp vendor, still leashed to the manticore, who gave Discord an outraged look. "Hey! My name isn't Melvin!"

"It's not?" A look of confusion crossed Discord's face. "But you look like a Melvin. Bah! Whatever, you got the manticore you wanted and couldn't trade for, while I got to have a little fun."

A towel appeared floating in the air behind the manticore, twirled itself into a tight rope, and then with a sharp crack, whipped it in the butt. The manticore roared and took off running with the pony called Melvin still attached to it by the leash. I watched as he was dragged off into the distance.

Discord turned and grinned at them. "Now that my trade is completed. I can spend time with you three much more interesting ponies."

Scootaloo stomped a hoof and flared her undersized wings. "Discord! Why did you do that to that pony? Give him back his lamps!"

Discord's paw disconnected from his arm and scratched his head. "But they weren't his lamps. I was just being my generous and benevolent self by helping him get what he wanted. All he had to do was help with my little game, and he would be compensated with the friendly little monster he so desired. He didn't even have to lift a hoof," the mismatched creature scoffed. "Find me a better deal than that, and I'll eat my hoof. I might even do that anyway; I know this fantastic recipe for hoof shavings. You need to marinate with...."

"Discord," Scootaloo snorted.

Sunflower and I continued to gawk at him. This was one of the most powerful beings in either universe, one that we had only heard stories about. Sure, most of those stories were about the Dreamwardens chasing him out of the dream realm, but the fact that there was even a chase or that it was repeated incidents was awe-inspiring. Nothing should be able to escape the Dreamwardens in their dominion, but somehow he did, and he did it for fun.

Discord bent down and started Scootaloo in the eyes. "You seem unhappy. I don't understand. It was just a bit of fun." He snapped his fingers, and Scootaloo was suddenly sitting in a rocking chair with glasses on, and a wig on that gave her an old mare appearance. "You've gotten more grouchy since you got older. Next, you'll be yelling at foals to get off your lawn."

Scootaloo jumped out of the chair and shook the glasses and wig off her head. "What about the ponies that bought lamps at his tent? They paid bits for something they don't have anymore!"

Discord gasped, and a hefty price label appeared next to his head, listing a hundred thousand bits. "You think he sold any lamps at these prices?? I know I did quality work, but come on!"

"You missed your opportunity to create a pony made entirely out of money and say what do you think these ponies are, made out of money?" I said with a giggle.

Discord pointed at me. "See! Reta here gets it! Probably because she isn't as old."

Scootaloo stomped a hoof. "I'm not old! I'm not even close to thirty yet!"

"And my name isn't Reta!" I protested.

Discord turned and stared at me. "Are you sure about that?"

I backed up a step or two. "Um...pretty sure. It is my name. I should know it."

"Hmmm, I heard a pretty and a should. Those aren't absolutes. I think you should refrain from inserting your opinion as fact as if my opinion doesn't hold as much value as yours. It's rude," Discord scoffed.

My jaw worked as I tried to manage a reply.

"Hey! What about the lamp!" Sunflower shouted in horror. "I needed that lamp to trade for the book. I don't want to get stuck with this pillow, and most of my money gone for nothing!"

"Oh, fine," Discord said with resignation. He snapped his fingers, and the lamp the bore his likeness appeared once again in front of Sunflower. "At least someone appreciates my grinning face."

Sunflower grabbed the lamp, put it on her back, held in place by her wings and the pillow, and scampered off without a word. I was unsure if it was the eagerness to get the book or the desire to rid herself of the pillow that drove her legs faster.

"What kind of game were you playing, Discord?" Scootaloo demanded, still sounding and looking like she wanted Discord gone.

Discord looked up at the sky, twirling his hand. "Oh, I whispered a few suggestions to ponies about what they should seek in trade. Nothing dear Lulu would get mad about. Ponies can be so open to suggestions with just a whisper. Most of these ponies don't know what they want and grasp onto the first suggestion they hear. It was all in good fun."

"Fun?" I asked, confused at how this game worked.

"Yes, fun," Discord asserted. "It was fun watching my dear pal, Scootaloo, run all around trying to trade for one thing after another. It was fun watching our friend who just exited without a word—very rude, by the way, not even saying thank you or goodbye— get flustered about a pillow. It was fun watching you get up close and personal with a manticore—you know, I think he's single, and I heard you were open to dating outside your species. But anyway, no pony got hurt, and I got some laughs."

Scootaloo stared at him for a moment, then turned, shaking her head. "I'm not dealing with you right now, Discord. I need to get that music before that vendor goes away. Thanks for the help, Rebecca. I hope you enjoy the rest of your trip."

"Hope your friend enjoys it. Thanks again for saving me from being a manticore bedtime toy," I replied.

"Anytime. See you if you ever pass through Equestria again," Scootaloo said. She then hurried off on her errand.

Discord sighed. "Nopony wants to hang out with the Lord of Chaos?? I'm the most entertaining thing anywhere!"

"Seems like you lost your mojo," I observed.

"My mojo?" Discord said, incredulous. He then spun and had an Austin Powers getup on. "I've got plenty of mojo, baby. Hwwarr!"

I looked at him in confusion, and he frowned at me. "What? Are you too young to get the reference? Kids don't appreciate the classics!"

I shook my head. "Oh, I get it. I'm good friends with Yinyu Wu Yan, and if there is any sexual reference, I've probably heard or seen it. What I'm confused about is how do you even know that reference?"

He went back to his normal appearance. "I'm Discord. I know a lot of things, such as you have some fascinating dreams. I loved the hedgehog decor. You're a pony I could have a good time with."

"How do you know about my dreams? Shouldn't Luna have stopped you?" I asked.

He changed outfits again And was now wearing a SWAT team uniform. "Luna is less of an authoritarian about dreams and things than your Dreamwardens. Not a drop of humor among them. Yinyu used to be fun, but since she died, she's been such a stiff."

He got close to me and grinned. "They need some new blood. What kind of new blood might they be getting? Someone fun, I hope. Playing whack-a-Discord with them has some charm, but it can get old after a while."

I gave him an edgy look. "I'm not sure there is any evidence that you can be trusted and plenty that you can't."

He gave a big bow. "The Dreamwardens would say that. They're agents of order, cold, brutal, unforgiving, boring order. I'm an agent of chaos, and without me, there is no creativity. Isn't creativity your thing?"

"Creativity being dependent on you sounds a little far-fetched," I countered. "I do value creativity, and guess what? You weren't on Earth at any point to make it. I guess I'm just as powerful as the Lord of Chaos! Behold, the power of the marshmallow!"

Discord didn't seem impressed. "I can turn you into a marshmallow. All it would take is one snap."

"Then you'd be out the hope of a Dreamwarden that liked you enough not to whack you and might advocate for others to let you be free to wander the dream realm," I smugly reminded him.

He rubbed his chin. "That is a good point." His eyes went wide with shock. "Wait… you'd do that?"

"Well, if you didn't break the rules," I said thoughtfully. "I know that can be tough for you, but you seem to manage to hold to some over here."

His tongue stuck out in disgust. "Oh, very well. There's plenty of room to bend them, as dear semi-departed Sha'am proved. By the way, how is she doing now that she's a he and considerably less wrinkly? Any less of a party-pooper? She always loved foals, so being one should have improved her mood. Even if her memories are all locked away."

I blinked. "Are you confirming Sha'am is now Moses? How do you know for sure?"

He grinned. "I'm not confirming or denying anything, but the Narrative and I have a good relationship, and we have places other than your dream realm in which to talk, so I hear some things—and give little suggestions."

That sounded like confirmation to me. He had also said that Sha'am's memories were locked away; he didn't say they were gone. Her soul and memories were there, carried over to another life. I didn't know if it would be a good idea to unlock those memories, but it still meant this was a second chance at life for Sha'am. In a sense, Sha'am was still asleep and dreaming. How would Miss Seapony, Arbiter, and Ghadab react to that confirmation? The eternal dream had always been something that terrified the Dreamwardens, but if it wasn't so endless as they supposed, then maybe they'd more eagerly embrace going into it. They'd probably want to find out more about Moses and precisely what was locked away in him first, and if he still had knowledge of what he experienced in the eternal dream, but there was hope.

There were still some confusing aspects to Moses. How did the doll work, and what did it mean? What had occurred to make his seemingly undead guardian back when he was living in that war zone? Was Sha'am's spirit not solely confined to him? Was she reaching out from the subconscious and taking action? What did that mean for Moses's powers? There had been a dead person defending him before; there was a word for someone who reanimated the dead; what was it?

It came to me—necromancer. If Moses really had reanimated a body, even subconsciously, then that meant he had the power of necromancy. According to everything I had ever heard, necromancy was dark magic, and that made it inherently evil. Did that make him evil by extension? I didn't think so; Moses was just a lonely kid. He was scared of his own magic and the impact it had on others. He didn't actively choose to do anything.

"You know, you don't seem suitably impressed by me," Discord complained.

I blinked and looked up at him. "Oh, you're very impressive. I'm just comfortable dealing with strange people. I want to be an advocate for the people that get treated like weirdos and outsiders. You get treated that way, which is why I want to advocate for you—if you avoid breaking the dream realm rules. It's also why I want to support Moses, who is way scarier than you if everything suspected about him and his powers turns out to be true. Unless one of you is trying to hurt people, I don't see a reason to be afraid of you."

"Hurt people? I would never! Dead things are about as dull as it gets!" Discord exclaimed in disgust. "I mean, you can try to have fun with a dead body, but taxidermy and zombies lose their luster so fast. Anyway, if I can't get a rise out of you, there is no shortage of Earthlings wandering around the area who will be perfectly willing to gasp at my brilliance… just as long as I avoid the ones near that one green pony with more magic than any earth pony has a right to. Would you believe she bucked me in the face?! Me, Discord, and it hurt! I don't remember the last time anyone managed to make me feel pain!"

That seemed an odd thing for Wild Growth to do. "What did you do right before she did that?"

He spread his arms wide. "I just offered to unblock her magic. I mean, it has to be causing her a lot of pain. Who wants to see someone suffer in pain? Pain isn't any fun. I was being helpful, and it is only a bonus that the result would certainly get a rise out of everyone and cause some chaos. And for my entirely good, completely benevolent, and completely unselfish offer, I get bucked in the face! There's no justice."

I honestly couldn't think of a good reason why Wild Growth would do that. However, he did mention that it could cause chaos. I wasn't sure how her getting her magic back would do that, but I knew that causing chaos wasn't something she would approve of. The only thing I knew for sure was I didn't know the full details, and there was probably some vital detail I was missing.

"Maybe you can ask her why she did it?" I suggested.

"And risk her hooves colliding with my face again? No, thank you!" Discord scoffed. "I think I'm going to go play with your human friends. If any of them get the big job, this might be my only chance to pull some tricks on me before they inevitably use me for a pinata in your dream realm. I can already tell them, in addition to that stallion, are all cut from the same cloth as your current sourpusses. That other pegasus at least gets flustered. Anyway, I'm missing fun opportunities at the moment. Ciao!"

He snapped his fingers and vanished, leaving me blinking at his abrupt departure. Should I warn the others? I thought about it for a second and then decided not to. Let Discord have his fun, and let me hear the stories about it later. It would give us something to talk about later.

Now, where to find some more snacks? Chubby pony needs her lunch!

Chapter 97: Welcome to Mountainshade

Something has gone wrong. We don't seem to have an archived copy of that chapter.

Chapter 98: Rare Conversation Under the Mountain

To say that the ponies of Mountainshade were friendly was an understatement. Wild Growth wanted us to spend money, but I found that difficult, primarily because the main thing I preferred to spend money on was food, and these ponies kept giving it to me for free. Also, hard as it was to believe, my tummy reached a point where it said it was full far faster than I had ever had it do so.

"I can't eat another bite," I said, politely waving away another pony with a treat.

"But you haven't tried mine yet! My spider crumbles are better than Morning Mist's!" the stallion in front of me protested.

"Give it up, Afterlight. She can't eat anything else after having sampled the best," the mare I assumed was Morning Mist said smugly.

"She hasn't done that yet, because she hasn't tried mine!" Afterlight yelled back. More ponies were behind him, just as eager to get their turn at stuffing food down my gullet. This was a new experience. I'd never been in a position where I'd be refusing food before.

"Really, this marshmallow is stuffed," I assured them. "I don't think my belly is used to this much high protein food. It was all excellent, and I'm sure the rest of you have food that is just as good, maybe better, but I can only hold so much. Thank you all; you've been very nice. I'm definitely giving a strongly favorable review of your cooking."

There were a lot of looks of disappointment as they relented. The reason they had all swarmed me was that many of the other tourists were hesitant to try anything with spiders or insects included. Word seemed to have traveled through the bug baking community about which tourists were open to taking culinary adventures, and we'd become targets. I had been a little iffy about it at first, but I'd try anything once, and it turned out that their dishes were delicious— just as long as I didn't think about what I was eating.

Finally free from the grips of night pony bakers, I decided to do a little shopping. I also needed to figure out how to get to the address I would be sleeping at. The streets and roads of Mountainshade might have made sense to the residents, but to me, it seemed a chaotic mess.

It didn't help that I had yet to run across a night pony that wasn't extremely eager to socialize with the outsiders. It wasn't even that we were from Earth that drew the night ponies; it was that we were from anywhere but Mountainshade. They never got so many visitors to the town, and they never went anywhere else. I wondered why. The ponies in the Crystal Empire and Rainbow Falls had been friendly. It seemed like the night ponies would have been welcome in those places. They weren't like most night ponies I had met on Earth. Night ponies on Earth were more reserved, not to mention had a massive gender imbalance that didn't seem to exist in Equestria. However, one thing was eerily familiar to the night ponies back home.

"Miss, would you like to view our rock climbing competition? We have plenty of seats left."

"No! She doesn't want to see that! She wants to come to see our famous moss gardens!"

"Famous to who? You and your kin don't count as famous. Rock climbing is where it is at."

"Don't you dare insult our moss gardens! You eater of snails and worms!"

"That's great, coming from a pony with the diet of a dung beetle!"

"I'll dung beetle you!"

And before I knew it, blows were being exchanged. The two night ponies quickly forgot about me in favor of trying to kick the crap out of each other. Everyone gave them plenty of space, and no one tried to stop the fight. This seemed to be something the town was used to, and I heard some comments about letting them get it out of their system. A few residents even seemed to be taking bets on who would win and how long it would take. Night pony aggression towards one another was alive and well in Mountainshade; even if they were very friendly to ponies they didn't have to see every day.

After freeing myself from that group, I managed to make my way back to some stalls that were set up in the middle of town. I had long since lost track of where any of my friends were in all this hubbub, but I did see plenty of humans and ponies that were part of our overall group. It was pretty easy; if you were not a night pony other than Phobia Remedy's family, you were probably part of the tour group. The earth ponies from the other part of town were supposed to be arriving later, but most of us would likely be in bed by then. Although I assumed some would still be up.

"Hello there, dear. My, that's a lovely shade of white for your coat, and your mane accents it beautifully. Would you mind if I ask you a few questions?"

I turned and saw a unicorn with dazzling white fur and a perfectly styled royal purple mane and tail smiling at me. I didn't recall her being with any of the group, and she stood out enough that I thought I would notice. She didn't look like a local.

"What kind of questions?" I asked.

"Oh, just a few questions about your trip through Equestria," the unicorn answered. "Oh! Where are my manners? I'm Rarity. You may have heard of me? My friends and I are trying to resolve a tiny little issue, and we would appreciate your assistance. We are asking everycreature we can out of your group."

Wild Growth had said Twilight Sparkle and her friends might be around asking questions and to do our best to cooperate.

"Sure, I'll do my best! Ask away," I said as I sat down.

"It is very simple, really. We are just inquiring if you have noticed anypony… excuse me… anycreature—"

"Anyone is the word we use on Earth," I suggested.

She nodded. "A good word. Have you noticed anyone you know behaving in an uncharacteristic way? Or perhaps you came across ponies while traveling that acted oddly in some manner?"

"What do you mean by odd or uncharacteristic?" I asked, unsure what exactly she meant.

She waved a hoof. "Oh, it could be anything. Anything that felt off for any reason. Anything that didn't feel quite right. Especially anyone who wasn't behaving as they normally would, but even a stranger who said things that seemed too strange to simply note as culturally different. It could have been here, or on the airship, or anywhere along your trip."

I sat and thought about it. "Jimsonweed was strange, but I think I understand why she was the way she was."

"Is that a member of your tour group?" Rarity asked eagerly, pulling a notepad and quill from somewhere unknown.

I shook my head. "No, she's Krik's ward. Um...Krik is the former Dreamwarden that now lives in the Crystal Empire if you're familiar with Dreamwardens."

"I am indeed very familiar with them, although I confess I haven't spent time with Krik since his retirement. He is a difficult pony to have a conversation with. I much prefer Phobia Remedy, who I at least share some interests," Rarity said, seeming disappointed. "I do recall hearing that he had brought a ward with him from Earth and that she was a troubled youth in need of a loving home."

I nodded. "That's more or less what I got about her. She's pretty rude, but if you hear about what she went through on Earth, you understand it, even feel sorry for her."

"Well, I hope that things become better now that she's in a healthy environment. However, that doesn't seem to be what I'm looking for. Are you sure there was nothing else that felt off to you?"

"Well, there was Discord, but you expect things to be off when Discord is involved," I replied.

Her brow narrowed. "Discord? You ran into Discord? Dare I ask what happened?"

"To me, not much. I got hugged by a manticore. Which was scary till I learned that it wanted to cuddle me instead of eat me," I explained. "He did something worse to my friends Blanche and Jonathan. He sent them to another world, I think it seemed like months to them, and it was dangerous."

"WHAT?!" Rarity said in an apparent rage before seeming to compose herself forcefully. "Thank you for letting me know. I'll be having a word with Twilight about his actions. Unfortunately, that still does not seem to be what I'm looking for. I know Discord can overshadow most things, but is there anything at all else that felt off?"

I thought about it again. Not much came to mind. "There was the bellhop back in the Crystal Empire. She seemed kinda weird. She also reacted minds funny when I mentioned I had met Wild Growth. She seemed really intense, maybe a little threatening, but the second I mentioned Wild Growth, it was like she was disappointed and lost interest in me."

Rarity was rapidly jotting down notes. "Do you remember anything she said? Specifics would be beneficial."

"Let me see...She said her name was Crystal Burst. The stallion at the desk didn't seem to recognize her and asked if she was one of Thorax's group, whatever that meant. She didn't seem to know her way around the hotel. She said, don't ever turn your back on someone because you don't know who you can trust. She asked if I was there alone, and I mentioned I had friends here from school and was friends with Wild Growth. The second I mentioned Wild Growth, she complimented Wild Growth for being quite the pony and said she needed to leave."

Rarity finished scribbling with a look of triumph. "Yes! That is exactly the kind of lead I was looking for. Thank you very much for your cooperation. I hope you enjoy the rest of your trip, and please, be careful if you run into that pony again or anypony that behaves similarly."

"Um, you're welc—" I started to say, but she already dashed off. That was weird. I wondered what was up with the bellhop. I hadn't seen that pony again, so it wasn't like they were tailing us or anything.

It didn't matter. It was getting late, and I wanted to find where I would spend the night. Time to get some directions. With how nice these ponies all we're, I might get lucky and find one who would lead me right to where I was staying.

Chapter 99: Call to Adventure

It took a while to find where I was going to sleep for the night, but I eventually did. It was a simple one-story, two-bedroom house with a young night pony couple, young as in around my age, that didn't have foals yet. Like most of the town's residents, they were friendly, almost too friendly. I don't know how often I had to tell them that all my accommodations were fine and I didn't need anything else.

I thought I was ready for a good night's sleep in a comfy bed, but alas, that was not to be the case.

There was a knock at the bedroom door. "Miss Rebecca Riddle, there are some ponies here to see you."

I had been on the cusp of sleep and was a little groggy as the bedroom door opened. It didn't let any more lighting the room since that moss was illuminating everything.

The term ponies had been used broadly since it turned out to be Roger, Sunflower, Blanche, and Jonathan. All of them shuffled in, with Blanche and Jonathan having to duck their heads to get through the doorway and their heads almost touching the ceiling once they were in the room. The pony couple didn't stick around, and we were left in private after Blanche closed the door.

Roger stepped forward. "Rebecca, I need you to do your thing."

"My thing?" I asked in confusion.

Sunflower made some odd gestures with her wings. "You know… your out-of-body experience thing."

I blinked. "Why do I need to do my thing?"

Roger looked frantic. "My mom is missing. She never got off the airship. I think the Element Bearers are looking for her, but they won't tell me anything. Blanche and Sunflower were helping me follow them, hoping that it would lead to my mom, but we lost track of them when they left the city."

"I suggested you help. You can move quickly and go unnoticed with your ability," Sunflower said.

I frowned. "I don't know… I'm not supposed to use it for any sort of advantage over anyone, no matter how important it might be. The Dreamwardens get really strict about it."

"You don't have three undead Dreamwardens constantly looking over your shoulder when you use it here. Luna is only one pony, and she has to be paying attention to notice you. She might not even be asleep to notice," Blanche reminded me.

"Blanche and I are good trackers, but they've got a good headstart on us, and it goes through the woods outside. We wouldn't be able to close the gap between us with this terrain while searching in the dark, and we don't know what dangers are out there," Jonathan added in. "That and Ulysses is watching us like a hawk. He won't let us put ourselves in danger."

"I could elude him, but not while trying to track the Element Bearers. I need to know where we're going," Blanche said with a huff. She caught Jonathan's eye and growled. "I can do it! I know his tricks, and I can fight him and give you guys a chance to get away if need be."

Jonathan shook his head. "You might be good with your weapon constructs, but you can't defeat him. He's too good, Blanche. He's the one who taught you how to be as good as you are."

"I can win because he is duty-bound not to hurt me. He's a killer, so not being able to kill handicaps him," Blanche insisted.

"None of that matters if Rebecca doesn't help," Sunflower fussed.

I sighed. "I'll help, but if Luna catches me, there's nothing I can do. Give me a minute, I need to get in the right mindset, and this isn't the peaceful feel-good vibes I need."

Jonathan gave me a dubious look. "You need good vibes?"

I nodded. "I need to be relaxed. You guys aren't relaxing me."

Jonathan turned away, scratching absently at the back of his head. "Well, you'd have been useless on our last adventure."

Blanche sighed.."No denying that."

"Be nicer to her; we're asking for her help and asking her to do something that could get her in trouble," Sunflower scolded.

"My mom is in trouble," Roger said harshly.

I flopped out of bed, coming down hard on the floor. "I'm okay. Can all of you be quiet for a bit, so I can zone out, unless someone can sing a song? That might help."

Roger walked to the corner of the room. "Her powers don't work under pressure. Don't pressure her. I can do that."

I sat, waiting for someone to sing, but no one did. I suppose that was fair. They were on edge and worried about Roger's mom. I was worried too. We were in another world, and the Element Bearers were keeping something under wraps. Wild Growth was in on it too, whatever it was. All those people were big deals, and they were trying to keep us all calm while they dealt with something out of our sight. Like the Element Bearers and Wild Growth, I felt like it was my job to put on a brave face and pretend everything was fine, even if it wasn't. It was hard to do that right now because things were so obviously wrong. None of us were stupid. We wouldn't be candidates if we were. We all knew something was seriously wrong. That didn't mean I didn't need calm for myself, and my friends weren't very good at providing it.

Happy thoughts were out of the question under the circumstances, but I could go for calming. I rhythmically tapped a hoof on the floor, trying to find a beat, or at the very least, give me something to zone out to. I could hear my friends breathing. I could feel their eyes watching. Aside from Sunflower, none of them had ever seen me use my abilities before, so there was a hint of expectation in the air. Expectation was pressure.

I opened my eyes. This wasn't working.

"Can you all wait outside the door and give me a little privacy? You're making me nervous," I said as I pointed a wing at the door.

Roger grunted. "I know you aren't lying, but is there anything we can do to make this easier? This is urgent."

"Music is the only thing that normally helps," I answered, feeling bad I couldn't give a better answer. "I don't have my headset for my phone, and I'm not sure it still has power anyway. I haven't charged it since we've been here."

Blanche headed for the door. "Hold a minute; let me ask your hosts if they have anything that plays music recordings. Equestrians love their gramophones; maybe they have one. These night ponies have been accommodating about everything else."

The couple was found, and it turned out they did indeed have a gramophone and set it up for her to listen to. Equestrian night pony music seemed to favor drums and pan flutes, and whoever performed their music was completely unfamiliar with even the concept of a stringed instrument— at least based on the couple's available music selections. No matter, the drums were good to give me a beat I could dance to. I still had everyone wait outside the room.

It took me a few minutes, but eventually, I was staring at my dancing form again. I smiled, pleased I had pulled it off, and flew through the bedroom door like a ghost. Everyone jumped when I appeared, and they hadn't asked the couple to give us privacy, leaving them gaping at me in their hall.

"You're a nightdreamer!" the young night pony mare said in awe.

"There hasn't been a nightdreamer since Old Fern passed away when we were foals! We did not know one of your tribe could do it," her husband said in astonishment.

The mare seemed beside herself with excitement. "You must let the princess know! She will be so happy to know there are nightdreamers among the Earthlings."

I was completely unfamiliar with the term nightdreamer, but I could tell that was their name for the ability. I was more concerned with the last thing said.

"She knows already. So you don't need to tell her anything," I hastily assured them. "For all I know, she is watching me."

"If she has not greeted you yet, she must not be asleep. She would surely do so otherwise. Nightdreaming is so rare that it would immediately attract the princess's gaze," the mare informed me.

Roger was impatient. "Sorry to interrupt, but do you think you can do what we need now?"

I nodded. "Where do I start?"

"Go outside and head northeast. I know they were headed in that direction," Blanche informed me.

"Right!" I said, smiling cheerfully to assure them everything would be okay. I then blushed. "Um… what direction is northeast?"

Blanche facepalmed. "You're a pegasus; aren't you supposed to have an innate sense of direction?"

I shrugged my legs and wings. "I'm not a very good pegasus."

She gave me a flat look. "Looping around the mountain on the opposite side of where the airships are parked. How quickly can you move?"

I gave a big grin. "I have no mass, so I can move faster than any pegasus can fly, and I don't have to worry about running into things or what the end currents are as I go."

The two night ponies stepped back, looking fearful.

"You should not go northeast," the stallion insisted.

The mare nodded. "Any other direction than that."

My friends all turned as one to look at them, but it was Roger who spoke up. "What's so scary to the northeast?"

The couple looked at each other then back to him. "Hollow Shades," the stallion whispered. "We keep our distance from it. Some farm on the very outskirts, but none go near the center."

"Why?" I asked, wondering what had these ponies freaked out.

"The Well of Shade is in the center," the mare explained. She then realized that meant nothing to us. "The Well is the palace, where the old nobility lived, up through bad times. It is a bad place. There are...remnants, shadows. You must stay away from the shadows."

The stallion looked at me pleadingly. "It is dangerous, even to a nightdreamer. The shadows can strike against even those without bodies. They are dark mind magic. They are remnants of the royals' anger and hate that linger within the Well. You must not go near the Well."

"That sounds like something you would call the Element Bearers in to deal with," Jonathan said thoughtfully.

Sunflower flapped her wings nervously. "That sounds like somewhere we can't send Rebecca off to alone."

Roger flicked his tail. "We have a location. So we don't have to send her alone. We can all go together. I'm not going to sit here while my mother is in danger."

I whimpered. This pudgy marshmallow was not made for adventures.

Chapter 100: The Hollow Shades

I returned to my body and took a deep breath as I stretched out some cramps I had developed while dancing in such a confined space for longer than I usually would.

"There's a big barren area out on the other side of the mountain," I explained. "There's this spot where there's this adobe town with straw houses with these weird cliffs or something shading it. The whole place looks abandoned, and it looks like it's been that way a long time— except for the straw; why is that still there? Anyway, I saw the Element Bearers, Wild Growth, Starlight Glimmer, Crystal, and Ulysses walking out towards it."

"I guess we don't have to worry about Gandalf the bloody tracking us if he's already with them," Blanche grumbled with satisfaction.

"It also means they're expecting violent trouble," Jonathan said slowly. "Not just him, but Crystal and Wild Growth as well. The Element Bearers, Starlight, Glimmer, and Wild Growth, when put together, are enough to take on an army, the bodyguards are practically extemporaneous, but they're marching off to a seemingly abandoned town, bringing every bit of help they can get."

"Abandoned town with a possibly haunted palace underneath it," Roger said in a grim tone.

"There's not supposed to be any such things as ghosts," Sunflower whimpered. "The Dreamwardens said so."

"Even the Dreamwardens work with limited information. This is Equestria; there might be things here they don't know about," I helpfully added in. "It's also a good reason why we should leave this to them. We aren't cut out for this kind of thing."

"You aren't cut out for this," Blanche corrected. "You're staying here. You've done what you're useful for."

"I'm coming; this is my mom we're talking about," Roger said in a tone that brokered no argument.

"You'll be in the way," Blanche asserted.

"All of you will be in the way of The Bearers and the others. You should stay here," I pleaded.

Roger stepped towards Blanche and glared up into her eyes. "I'm going."

Sunflower did a nervous flap of her wings. "If Roger is going, I'm going too."

Blanche rounded on the high-strung pegasus. "What possible purpose would your presence serve?!"

Sunflower cowered down. "Moral support. Plus, I'll be worried sick while you're gone. If I'm there, I could fly for help if something goes wrong."

I chewed on my lip and flattened my ears. "If you all are insisting on going, then I'm going too."

"You're even more useless than her!" Blanche yelled. "This is dangerous enough without having to babysit you three."

I couldn't believe I was doing it, but I stood my ground. "You're going into ruins. You might need someone to scout. I can do my thing and look around without causing something to collapse."

Jonathan cleared his throat. "You do remember them saying that whatever is down there can get you while you're projecting, right?"

I shook my rump. "Well, if it can touch me, I can touch it too, and I can take the form of something that can put up a fight. I can turn my projected form into anything I want. For all we know, whatever is down there can't be touched in other ways. I'm useful."

Blanche pursed her lips. "I hadn't considered that. Okay, you're going, since your ability can be weaponized in this case. I'm impressed. Way to think outside the box."

I think I would have preferred she came up with a better argument for me to stay.

It took us nearly an hour to make our way around the mountain and to the abandoned town. I hoped that by the time we got there that the Element Bearers and the others would have already be on their way back, victorious. They'd have run into us and chewed us out, but I could live with that. Unfortunately, there was no sign of them.

"Why do all these houses still have their roofs?" I asked as we trotted into town. "This place was supposed to have been abandoned for centuries. The roofs should all be gone if they're just straw."

"Maybe somepony comes out here and fixes things up from time to time; kind of a preservation thing," Sunflower suggested.

"Keep your voices down. We don't know what could be hiding here," Blanche scolded. "Stay behind me and in front of Jonathan."

"Don't know what I'm supposed to do to protect them. I don't have any weapon," Jonathan muttered.

"Just keep your eyes peeled," Blanche instructed him.

I kept looking around at the vacant buildings. The path road was broken and cracked, and some of the buildings had collapsed walls. There was no liter anywhere— no discarded pots, toys, or cloth. The place was completely empty. Those straw roofs creeped me out because everything else was in disrepair, and it seemed like those roofs would have been the first things to vanish. All it would take was a good gust of wind. There was no wind, not even the hint of a breeze. The air was as dead as the town.

"We should search the town for anything unusual," Blanche announced. "You're up, Marshmallow. You can search the whole place quickly with your projection."

I took several steps back. "I need to be calm; this place is making me nervous!"

She glared at me. "Didn't you just argue an hour ago that you could be useful because you could use your ability?"

I gave a sheepish smile. "Didn't think it all the way through."

She took a long breath and started up at the sky for a moment before looking around again. "Fine, music it is. Okay, everyone. It's time to serenade Rebecca. How about Row Row Row Your Boat? It's simple and droning."

Sunflower looked at her in disbelief. "We're going to stand around in the scary ghost town and sing?"

Blanche looked at her with a raised eyebrow. "You have a better idea that gets this search done quickly and doesn't have us going into structures that could collapse in on us at any point?"

"No," Sunflower conceded.

Blanche nodded. "Well, Row Row Row Your Boat, and keep singing until Rebecca can manage to do her thing."

Sunflower blinked and started singing. It didn't take long until the other three joined in with her and left me closing my eyes and trying to get in the song's rhythm. It might have helped if Roger didn't sound like a dying frog and Blanche like a cat in agonizing pain, but the longer they sang, the more their harmonies synched together, and I found myself swaying along.

It took about three minutes, and I could tell they were getting tired, but I found myself staring at my swaying body once again.

"That ability is weird," Jonathan said flatly.

I looked at the four of them. "I'm going to go invisible while I search, so I don't attract the notice of anything that might be out there. Don't freak out when you don't see me, and don't let my body go dancing into any holes or anything."

Blanche nodded. "Be quick, but don't rush so much you overlook something."

Roger stared at my swaying body. "Your body can just wander off and get into trouble while you are doing this?"

I shrugged. "Sometimes. It's just kind of doing its own thing. I normally am in a closed room where that can't happen."

"That's inconvenient," he muttered as he watched my body groove.

"My mind is elsewhere, so my body is kind of dumb," I said as I pointed at it. "Anyway, let me search. Be back soon."

I turned invisible, and I watched Sunflower waving a wing in front of my body's face to see if it was indeed as brainless as I implied. My body didn't notice and continued to sway in place. Yep, my body was a dumb dumb.

Time to search. I didn't have much of a strategy for how to search. I simply flew into the closest house, passing through its walls like they were the ones not there instead of me.

No ponies were present in the first house I went into, but I did see there was some scaffolding and extra bracing for the walls that indicated there were indeed restoration efforts regularly underway for the town; they were just out of sight. If the night ponies were so scared of this place, why were they taking the time to restore it? I thought about it, and the best idea I could think of was they weren't as scared as they acted, but they wanted to build up the idea that it was scary to outsiders. Mountainshade was trying to develop its tourism. The abandoned night pony capital sitting within throwing distance could be a major attraction, and if it had a reputation, that could make it an even bigger draw. It was kind of sneaky, trying to scare us away so we could go home telling about how we heard about this place.

I wanted to get a closer look at how they were restoring the buildings, given my interests. It would be cool to see the techniques in action, but there were more important things to do. I moved on to the next house.

It didn't take long to search every house in the area. There weren't that many, and they were all bunched up together. I hadn't seen any stairwell or anything like that leading down to the supposed palace underneath. I could just go down without one, but that wouldn't help the others get down there, and if it was pitch black below, I had no way of knowing if I was in the palace or in the middle of solid stone. That wasn't helpful at all.

There was one way down below; there was a well in the center of town. It didn't look that impressive from the surface, but if it was the only way down, it was the only way down. There didn't seem to be anyone or clues on the surface. I had to check the underground.

I floated over to the well, and sure enough, there was a rope for climbing going down into it. There were no walls I could see as I looked in; it went down into a large area open area.

Nothing to do but go down there and hope that the night ponies were just making things up about the ghosts that could attack me while I was projecting.

I went down, and enough light was coming through the well opening to see the immediate chamber. Tall marble pillars held up the ceiling and paths that led deeper into the complex. One of the walls had a strange design on it. The whole place was thick with dust, and I could clearly see the tracks from the Element Bearers and the others going deeper into the complex.

ANOTHER PONY COMES. SO MANY AFTER SO LONG. DO YOU DESIRE POWER? POWER BEYOND YOUR IMAGINING? JOIN WITH ME, AND YOU CAN HAVE IT!

I spun around, looking for the source of the voice, but it seemed to be coming from everywhere. The shadows in the darkest corners seemed to be moving. Worse, whatever was down here could see me while I was invisible.

Eyes lit up in the shadows, and that was enough for me. I fled back to the surface

Okay, the night ponies were not lying about ghosts!

Chapter 101: Into the Well of Shade

Author's Note

I'm clarifying some canon issues for those who don't know and will have questions. The Pandemic AU is an AU and follows a modified show canon. Part of this is that events after the season six finale did not happen in this AU. The original Pandemic story was written before season seven was completed, and therefore those events aren't reflected. With that in mind, the return of Starswirl and other legendary heroes during the season 7 finale versus the Pony of Shadows never occurred. However, elements of that are now being repurposed.

Chapter 101: Into the Well of Shade

"Do we have to go down there?" Sunflower asked as she looked into the abyss of the well.

"I do, and probably Rebecca too, but you had best stay up here with Jonathan and Roger," Blanche said as she checked the rope.

I took several steps back. "Why just me?"

Blanche gave her a flat look. "Because you say there is something incorporeal down there, and I'm not sure if my methods of fighting will work on it. I need something ethereal to fight something ethereal."

"I'm not sure I would call myself ethereal. Miss Seapony says that term means something else," I replied nervously.

"I need to come down too," Roger insisted.

"And how do you expect to do that?" Blanche asked. "How is an earth pony going to climb a rope down? Do you expect Rebecca and Sunflower to fly you down there? Have you seen the two of them? There's no way they'd manage it without dropping you."

"The Element Bearers have earth ponies, and they got down there, and Wild Growth went down there too," Roger reminded her.

Blanche nodded. "They also have a unicorn and a unicorn who can teleport them and one of the best flyers who has ever lived. Given their records for durability, Wild Growth, Applejack, and probably even Pinkie Pie could probably survive the jump down without any serious risk. You aren't them."

Jonathan adjusted his glasses. "I assume it is our job to make sure Rebecca's body doesn't go dancing off into trouble or into the well."

I shivered. "That would be very bad."

Sunflower gulped and looked down the well again. "I'm coming with you. I can fly for help if you get into trouble."

"You're claustrophobic, and we're going underground. That makes you more a liability than anything else," Blanche said as she crossed her arms.

"I can be brave!" Sunflower insisted as she took a step back and flapped her wings. "I wanna help! Yeah, it's scary, but you're my friends and worrying about you and Rebecca is scarier. You can't stop me from coming!"

Blanche sighed in exasperation. "Fine, but if you get to being a burden, or if I think it is getting too dangerous, I'm sending you back."

"And how are you going to protect yourself?" Roger asked.

Blanche held out a hand, and a long pike appeared in it; a second later, it vanished. "I can make my weapons in an instant. Whatever took your mother has to be flesh and blood. If it's flesh and blood, I can put a blade through it. They brought Ulysses and Wild Growth with them, which means they anticipate a physical confrontation."

"They also brought Crystal, who is better at fighting magical threats," I reminded her.

"We should be prepared to face anything. If we are lucky, the others will be able to deal with it without any aid," Blanche replied.

"I don't know what we're supposed to do if all of them fail. We're in way above our heads," I muttered.

"I don't disagree," Jonathan said with a nod. "But this is for one of our own. We're doing this to help settle his mind. I'm confident you're just going to run into the Element Bearers returning from a victory with Roger's mother in tow."

"In which case, the worst we have to worry about is getting chewed out," Blanche said with confidence, heading towards the lip of the well. "Someone start up a song for Rebecca."

Sunflower shuffled her hooves and took a deep breath. "#When I was a little filly, and the sun was going down—"

I listened to Sunflower sing; none of the others were singing with her, probably because they didn't know the song. I knew why she was singing that one in particular. She was trying to get herself prepped to go down there. Bravery wasn't the absence of fear, but facing it, and she was about to face one of her biggest fears— if not her biggest fear— head-on. I was scared too. I didn't like that there was something down there that could see me when I was just an invisible spirit. I needed an extra helping of bravery too. Roger better appreciate us doing this for him.

I didn't know the lyrics, but I have a good memory for tunes and was able to recall that much. So I hummed along.

It didn't take long for me to get in the grove and separate myself from my body. I didn't bother making myself invisible and quickly signaled that I was ready as Sunflower stopped singing.

Blanche grabbed the rope leading down the well. "Let's move." She then went over the edge into the well.

Sunflower and I shared a nervous look and took to the air and followed.

It was dark going in, but when we got further down, I saw all the torches were lit with an eerie bluish-grey light. It hadn't been that way a few minutes ago. Whatever was in the dark was expecting us. The shadows in the corners were still moving, and I knew we were being watched.

Blanche finished her slide down the rope, and Sunflower landed beside her. I came down in a hover near them.

ANOTHER PONY! YOU ARE AFRAID, LITTLE PEGASUS. WE CAN GIVE YOU POWER. POWER, SO YOU NEVER HAVE TO BE AFRAID AGAIN!

Sunflower whimpered. "I-I'm not interested! Go away!"

Blanche arched an eyebrow at her. "Who are you talking to?"

Sunflower jumped around, looking for the source. "The scary voice that is offering me power. Like I would accept anything from something that sounds like that."

"What scary voice?" Blanche questioned as she looked around.

I looked at her in confusion. "You didn't hear that? You don't see the shadows moving?"

Blanche shook her head.

"I don't see anything; I just hear it," Sunflower said, ears flattened to her head.

"I guess you have to be half in the dream realm to see it," I said as I looked at the shadows. "But why can't you hear it, Blanche?"

"Maybe I'm not on the right mental wavelength," Blanche mused. "If it was created by ponies and exists partially in a dream state, it might not be able to communicate with humans, and whatever it is offering might not be compatible."

"If it is partially a dream, do you think Luna knows about it?" Sunflower asked. "It stopped talking."

"You weren't interested. I'm guessing it needs a pony to give into it willingly. You rejected it, and it lost interest," Blanche said. "That would be why it still exists despite Luna. It isn't doing anything without permission. The ones who created it died fighting a Dreamwarden, but before that, when it was already too late, they must have learned the trick to it...you follow the rules."

I looked around and saw the shadows withdrawing. They did seem to be losing interest in us. I had to wonder what would happen if a pony ended up accepting, but I also was glad I didn't know.

"I doubt any of the Element Bearers, Wild Growth, or Crystal would accept," I said after the last shadow left.

"And Ulysses is on the wrong wavelength and has no magic, thankfully. I wouldn't trust him to say no," Blanche muttered.

"So… we're safe from the monsters? We don't need to worry about being attacked?" Sunflower asked in a hopeful tone.

Blanche shook her head. "Whatever took Roger's mother wasn't this; it was something physical. That is still a threat. We're also in thousand-year-old ruins; I would still be concerned about structural integrity."

I looked around. There were a lot of doors in the corners leading off to the unknown. "Which way do we go?"

Blanche bent down and pointed at the floor. "The good thing about ruins, there's a lot of undisturbed dust, and people leave tracks in the dust. There's an easy trail to follow. Sunflower, keep your hooves on the ground for now. We don't want your wing beats blowing away the trail."

Sunflower landed while I stayed floating in the air. I had no physical form, and I couldn't blow anything around. Blanche continued to stay bent down, examining the floor.

She stood up. "Something other than a pony or human is down here. I don't recognize what kind of tracks these are. I think it is a quadruped, but not like any quadruped I have ever seen, but it's big, based on how far apart the tracks are. It is hard to make out a lot of information about it because its tracks are partially obscured by the Element Bearers tracks following it."

"If something big came and took Roger's mom, how did it get on and off the airship without being noticed?" I asked.

Blanche shook her head as she stood up. "I have no idea, but it's definitely what the Element Bearers are following. There are no return tracks, so they must all still down here, somewhere deeper inside."

"I hope whatever it is that we're following didn't accept the voice's offer," Sunflower said in a quiet voice that seemed too loud in the ruins.

"If I'm not hearing anything, I don't think it can either. Whatever this is, it isn't a pony, and the voices are tuned to ponies," Blanche said, still looking at the floor. "If I had to guess, I would say something insectoid or arachnoid. It isn't a mammal, bird, or reptile."

I shivered. "Giant bug or spider? I'm glad Phobia isn't here, considering how she reacted when she thought I was a spider."

"It's her mom, Sunset Blessing, that's arachnophobic. She'd probably run away as fast as she could," Sunflower said and kept her head low. "Although I'm not thrilled about going into Shelob's lair either."

"Think we can do without the Lord of the Rings references," I said. "I don't want to be thinking of giant killer spiders."

"I don't see any webs, so it might not be anything like that," Blanche said as she looked around. "Let's move forward. We aren't doing anything by just standing around other than losing our nerve."

Blanche started walking, and Sunflower and I fearfully followed behind, constantly looking to our sides, half-expecting something to come out of the shadows at any minute.

"These weird blue torches weren't lit when I came down here earlier," I said as we headed towards one of the doors to the side of the main entrance gallery.

"Maybe they're motion sensitive!" Sunflower suggested. "They detect that someone is moving around and turn on for that?"

"Why would night ponies have motion-sensitive lights?" I asked. "They see in the dark."

"They aren't that bright of lights, and even back in the city, they have lights there," Sunflower pointed out. "Just because they don't like bright light doesn't mean they don't like light at all."

"You two need to be quiet. Your voices can echo and carry. We don't want to draw attention to ourselves," Blanche scolded in a harsh whisper.

We shut up, but that only made me feel more nervous. Talking was soothing. It made me think more about how I was with friends instead of in a horrible place tracking down some unknown monster, and it also distracted me from looking at every shadow. The voices might be silent for the moment, but whatever had been in the shadows shared the same non-space with me.

We went through a darkened door, and the next room's torches came to life as we entered. We might have needed that light to navigate, but I wished they had stayed out. That way, I wouldn't have to see what littered the floor.

"Yinyu save us," Sunflower whimpered.

It was more a long wide hallway than a room, and from one end to the other, it was filled with skeletons. None disturbed or dedicated by scavengers, some still had the metal remains of their armor on them, although all trace of cloth and flesh had long since disintegrated with time. Spears were jutting out of many of the skeletons. This was a final battlefield where no one had ever removed the dead, and no animal had ever come to scavenge. This wasn't just ruins of the palace; this was a tomb.

And the shadows crawled along the walls, watching and waiting among the dead.

Chapter 102: In the Tomb of The Well

Something has gone wrong. We don't seem to have an archived copy of that chapter.

Chapter 103: Searching for a Bug

How do you go scouting for a giant, shape-changing bug monster? I wasn't sure. I was pretty sure that I wasn't supposed to go floating around calling 'Here, Bursa, Bursa, Bursa. Hey, Bursa!' That might have possibly, maybe, perhaps, a stupid idea. That's why I didn't do it…twice.

I floated along by myself, through walls, and out into other corridors. I was invisible and formless, but the eerie lights still came on whenever I entered an area. I guessed they detected magic, not movement. That meant that there was no hiding that I was around, even if I was invisible and not making a sound. I wondered why Bursa wasn't triggering the lights if she was down here. It seemed unfair that she got to move around stealthy, but the rest of us didn't.

Since I wanted to be as unpredictable in my movements as possible, I took to flying through walls and traveling through them for stretches of a few hundred feet before coming out somewhere else. That made lights go out and flicker back on in some random other places. I was the ghost in the walls, and if I had an audience, they would only know the general region of the massive labyrinth I was in.

I hoped I didn't lose track of that. My only way of finding my way back if I got lost was to go straight up, above ground, find the well again, and try to find everyone else from the entrance. That or wander aimlessly until I floated across them again. The complex under the Well of Shade was massive, and I'd yet to have found any giant bug monsters, red resin, or captured ponies. I had seen lots of ancient dead bodies, along with what looked like a treasure hoard room that amazingly was still sealed and had never been looted. I was sure any archaeologist would die of happiness if they came down here if it weren't for the constant whispering of the shadows.

Oh! And the shadows could touch me. That had not been pleasant to find out. I'd tried coming out of a wall at one point only to run into a mass of the creepy-not-normal shadows, and it was like running into a brick wall with my physical body. Thankfully, the ghastly shadows weren't everywhere, and most shadows in the place were normal run-of-the-mill, not haunted types. I just had to go back in the wall and come out somewhere else. Still, it was unnerving.

I wonder why Luna never got rid of these things.

"You called to me, Rebecca Riddle?"

I stopped dead in my tracks as Luna appeared before me, or at least, her dream form did. The alicorn looked around, and her ears flattened as the shadows quickly retreated from the area. In my mind, I almost felt like I could feel their terror of Equestria's Dreamwarden as they fled.

"Oh my! This is the Well of Shade!" Luna exclaimed. "What are you doing here? This is a cursed and dangerous place, Rebecca Riddle. You should not be here, even in your projected form. Explain yourself."

"We're trying to find Roger's mom. Some bug named Bursa took her down here," I answered.

"This is where the pseudo-changeling-queen has holed up?" Luna asked. "Are Twilight and her friends there as well?"

I nodded. "Yeah, she found us when we came down. She has me looking around for the bug lady. She felt it was safer than sending us home unprotected."

Luna seemed to consider that. "Not an ideal situation, but perhaps the most advisable strategy given the circumstances. I would not expect any of her friends to succumb to this darkness. Who else is here?"

"Sunflower and Blanche are down here; Roger and Jonathan are outside with my body," I informed her. "Luna, what's up with this place? These shadows are all kinds of bad juju."

Luna sighed. "They are fragments of minds—the collected remaining consciousness of those who laid down their lives here…my victims, all bound to these halls. No singular consciousness has survived, only purpose and emotion. They are less than what they once were, slowly fading with time. If you had set hoof down here a millennium prior, you would have found their presence overwhelming. Perhaps in another millennium, they will all fade completely away, and this place will be safe to inhabit again."

"Why haven't you gotten rid of them?" I asked, gesturing around.

"You would not understand," Luna said, shaking her head, crying. "They would not surrender, and the threat they presented was too great. The war had raged on for so long and taken so many. I had no choice. I couldn't allow it to continue. They were helpless against me, unable to touch me with their mind magic, yet they wouldn't stand down. I slew them, begging them to surrender, but they kept fighting. These shadows are all that remain of those night ponies."

"But why do you let them continue to be here?" I asked again. "Shouldn't you put them to rest?"

"The souls are at rest; these are fragments, echoes," Luna explained. "Yet they are still life— soulless life, but life all the same. Life that only exists due to my guilt. I cannot bring myself to crush it out without reason. It would be a daunting task anyway. These fragments do not sleep. They skirt the border of the dream realm, but they do not breach it. They are beyond my purview. It is best to advise ponies to keep their distance and let time wear them away."

I could see where she was coming from, but I still wasn't sure I agreed. These shadows were evil. It wasn't even a personal opinion to call them evil. They wanted to possess others, and they wanted to hurt. All they knew was rage, fear, and the desire for vengeance. If they couldn't be fought in the dream realm, it seemed like this place should be sealed or destroyed. This was some awe-inspiring architecture, a regular wonder of the ancient Equestrian world, so being inclined to destroy it was not something I felt lightly.

Luna watched her. "I feel your disagreement with me. That is alright. You are allowed to disagree. Krik has also stated his belief that I should purge the Well of Shade from existence, so you are not alone in your opinion. It is my decision to make, and I say the Well of Shade should stay. I hope that one day the night ponies can return to their ancestral halls. This place is a major part of their history and heritage. That day may yet be far into the future, but I will not destroy the home of their forestallions and foremares. I have taken enough from them. I will not take this."

"Um, well, do you know any good places that the bug lady could be hiding?" I asked. "This place is big."

"Sadly, that is a problem," Luna answered. "The Well is massive in scale, extending through many of your Earth miles. When you get deeper in, you will find the old residences of the nobles. There are over a hundred of them, each a mansion. That is a lot of rooms to hide within."

"Oh…well, that sucks," I said miserably, thinking about how much searching I still had to do.

"I will try to dispatch the guard to assist in your endeavor. I shall not have them enter the Well for fear of its corrupting effects, but they can guard the entrance and side gates, as well as be ready to provide medical assistance. Twilight always seems so hesitant to call for assistance."

"There are side gates?"

"There were side gates," Luna corrected. "They have been sealed since the war and blocked with debris. The night ponies only had one exit in and out by the end of it. Some of the entrances they blocked themselves, my sister's armies blocked others, but the result was the same. I do not think Bursa will be able to use them any more than they could, but they are worth watching for the sake of caution. She is strong; it is not out of the question she could dig her way through if she felt cornered. She is not evil, merely confused. We would not hurt her, but she is desperate to return to your world and must always be approached with caution."

"We don't have giant bug ladies back home, Luna," I informed her. I didn't blame her for not knowing. I didn't know everything that lived on this side of the portal, so why should she be expected to know all about Earth?

"She was not as she is now when she was on Earth. From the broken memories I have gathered from her, I believe she was once human," Luna replied with a sigh. "We made her what she is today. It was a mercy. She was dying. My student was actually the one who devised the method of saving her, and Twilight herself performed the spell."

I shivered. "What kind of injury could possibly require turning her into a bug monster?"

"It was beyond mere injury. Her entire resonance was collapsing. If not for my student's ingenuity and Twilight's skill, Bursa would not have survived," Luna answered. "Terrible ponies on Earth did unspeakable experiments on her in their quest to make an alicorn. She has gotten over her hatred of ponies that she developed after what was done to her, but she has not put aside her lust for revenge or the desire to return to the place of her birth to find her history. Your government assures me they are doing all they can to find her tormentors, but a creature such as she cannot be allowed on Earth."

I looked forlornly at the walls and sighed. "Guess I should get back to looking. I can only keep this form up so long before my body gets tired of dancing its tushie off. I'm going to have to go back to it soon."

Luna nodded. "You show remarkable ability to have maintained it this long. I would advise finding Twilight, rather than continuing your search, to advise her that the guards are coming."

"Will do!" It sounded better than searching around this place. These halls were creeping me out. I looked forward to seeing daylight again.

Luna vanished, and I tried to determine which general direction I had come from. I had been moving through walls and corridors somewhat erratically. Finding Princess Twilight and the others might be a tall order in itself. Since Luna was gone, I heard the whispering of the shadows coming back out again. That meant having to dodge around those.

After about a minute of trying to get my bearings, I chose a direction. Landmarks were primarily the occasional mural in a wall or some very distinctive skeletal remains— many were wearing armor or robes, and sometimes there was somebody who had been wearing something incredibly ornate or gaudy, or they had something else that stood out like a pike sticking out of the skull. There was no shortage of things that I would never forget seeing, even if I'd rather never have seen them. Once I was out of this place, I had no intention of returning.

I was making my way down a larger corridor when it suddenly went dead quiet, and all the shadows vanished.

"YYEEESSSSS!!!"

I came to an abrupt halt and looked around. That hadn't been me, and it didn't sound like anyone I knew. Whatever It was, it was big, and it was scary, and the voice echoed through the halls from somewhere deep within the complex.

I had a feeling the situation down here just got a lot worse.

Chapter 104: Two Battles

I didn't know what was happening, but it didn't take much to figure out that it was terrible.

The shadows were all gone, as were the whispers. That should have been a good thing, but I could feel something else awake, something terrible. The sensation was so intense I could point like a compass to where it was, although I was unsure how far away. I could tell it was getting closer.

Someone had said yes to the shadows. I didn't know how I knew, but I knew. The shadows could touch me while I was in a projected form. Did that mean this thing could too? I listened to my gut quite often, and it was screaming the answer was yes.

I took off. I didn't know if it was the right way to get back to Princess Twilight and the others, but it was the opposite direction from where my 'I wanna live' sense said the big bad thing was coming from. That was good enough.

I passed into yet another hall filled with the remnants of Luna's massacre. Seeing lots of skeletons was not what I needed. This thing I felt behind me resulted from this, and I felt even sicker to my stomach thinking about it. I might have been a simple little pegasus who couldn't even name her ancestors who lived when this happened, and I might not have known the full details of that war, but I swore there had to have been a better way Luna could have dealt with these ponies. It was a monstrous act that had created a monster. If I got out of this and managed to become a Dreamwarden, I would do everything in my power to stop stuff like this from ever happening again.

Movement caught my attention, and I looked up at the ceiling. Running in the same direction as I was something big, black, with hints of red. It had six legs that gripped the roof and a red mane, but where fur should have been, there were just black plates. What was the term for that? I should have paid more attention in biology classes when discussing bugs. Each of its legs was oddly shaped and filled with holes. It figured I would find the monster I had been looking for while running away from an even bigger one. Bursa was bigger than a human, a lot bigger, but also kind of skinny, like she was starved. I couldn't see her face from this angle but saw a jagged black horn. Bursa might have been fearsome under most circumstances, but right now, she seemed as terrified as I was of whatever was coming and just as eager to escape.

Well, she was moving insanely fast and probably knew the way out. I decided to tail her. Come on, crazy bug lady, don't let me down!

We passed through hall after hall. I hoped she knew where she was going because I wasn't sure where we needed to go. I just knew that whatever was behind us was getting closer. The lights still reacted to me, but not to Bursa. The thought briefly passed my mind that I might be freaking her out even more since I was invisible, and I didn't believe she knew I was there. I knew I would be scared if the lights all suddenly started coming on behind me when they hadn't before. Announcing that it was happening because of me wouldn't improve the situation, so I kept my mouth shut.

Bursa might have been moving fast, but whatever was behind us was faster. I could feel it getting closer. At this rate, it would be upon us before we reached daylight. I could make a run through the ceiling or just let my projection drop and give the others a warning about what was coming, at least the ones watching my body. Either of those would be the intelligent choice, but if I left, Bursa would be by herself. Bursa might have been the one who had foalnapped Roger's mother, but she was terrified and alone, wanting to go home with a monster far worse than her that was quickly advancing on her. She didn't know I was there, but I couldn't leave her. If that thing caught up, she shouldn't have to face it alone. It might not be the intelligent thing to do. The smart thing to do would be to end the projection and give a warning to who I could, but this was what my conscience said to do.

The sense of the thing behind us was practically upon us, and Bursa stopped at a fork and hesitated. She didn't seem to know which way to go. She didn't have time to think about where to be thinking about where to go.

She needed to move.

"Bursa! Choose a path and move! It is almost here!" I shouted at her.

The bug lady jumped and fluttered her tiny little wings. It would have been silly looking, but it was another thing that took up time. Now time was up, and the monster was upon us.

The light nearest me dimmed, and the already dark passage got darker like the light was being eaten by the new arrival. It swirled in a mass of twisting shadows as it entered the hallway before taking a more definite form. It stood tall, taller than even Celestia, a giant. It was all black with glowing white eyes and possessed both a long horn and bat-like wings. The shape was feminine, but it was hard to tell. One thing was sure; it was focusing a hateful look at Bursa.

"NOW, DIE!!" Screamed its voice with a hint of an echo. It sounded like a command with a touch of regalness. A queen ordering an execution.

Well, that was undoubtedly a villainous monster thing to say. It seemed like the thing I was on a hunt for needed saving. There was no way Bursa was out running this thing, not when it had already caught up. Maybe I could distract the monster to buy her time. Look at me, playing hero! The mighty chubs to the rescue!

"Hey! Tall, dark, and really in need of some sun, look at me!" I said as I turned visible, shrank in size slightly, and started flying erratically in front of its face.

It shook its head and growled at me. "Miserable pegasus! Your kind shall not live the coming judgment! You, in particular, shall suffer most terribly!"

"I'm that annoying? I might take that as a compliment," I snarked, still whizzing around her like some persistent fly.

The thing started blasting with its horn, trying to knock me out of the air…or, more likely, just kill me. I didn't know if the beans could hit me, but I still did everything I could to avoid them. I'd rather not find out the hard way that they could.

"You stupid pony! She is going to bring the entire place down on us!" Bursa snarled at me.

"Then run, bug lady!" I called back.

"Don't call me that!" Bursa yelled.

Was she really going to stand there and fuss at me ribbing her? I wanted to tell her I was distracting this thing so she could get away, but telling her might make the thing lose interest in me.

SMASH!

Owww…okay, still not sure about her beams, but she could hit me with a wing, and I felt it. I at least didn't lose my projection just because I was hit. She'd put me through a wall, literally. Thankfully, it didn't hurt the wall.

I came out of the wall, puffed myself up, and used my most macho voice. "Hey! We aren't done! You think a wall will stop me!" Yeah, I could be in an 80s action movie….maybe not. Maybe 90s, perhaps?

The thing had made it as far as the entrance to the following passage in that little time but turned to look at me. Bursa was thankfully gone.

"You have a strong desire to die. I shall help you get what you want," she growled.

Oh, poopy, she looked mad. At least she had lost interest in Bursa for the moment. I didn't know how many attacks I could take. That hit hurt. I didn't think it did any damage. The pain was all in my head, but older dreamwalkers always whispered about how terrible Sha'am Maut was, and she was just pain– pain that left them traumatized. Best not to be hurt too much.

I turned and shook my too shy at the monster. "You shoot like a…um…something that shoots very bad!"

It shot at me again, missing me by a hair. "And you insult poorly."

I stuck my tongue out at it. "Sorry, but that was an attempt to compliment you because I felt so bad for you after watching you try to shoot me. I might have set the bar too high with that one. What can I say? You're that bad."

It snarled in rage and charged at me.

Yipe! Time to move. It was fast, but I could go faster in projected form. I needed to keep to the halls, preferably going deeper into the complex.

I turned and flew at a fast pace through the halls. It didn't matter where I was going; as long as it followed, and if my senses were telling the truth, it was doing just that. We entered a larger area, with full-scale buildings off to the sides. There were also a lot more dead bodies here. The entire floor, from one end to the other, was a mass of bones. I was going to need some therapy after this.

It came into the chamber and started blasting at me some more. The sounds of the blasts and the explosions as they connected with the ceiling and buildings echoed loudly throughout the area. That might be good. Twilight and the others might hear it and come deal with this thing. They were the heroes. It was their job to beat up monsters like this. I was just a distraction.

The blasts suddenly stopped, and I turned to see what was happening. The monster shadow pony was leaving! It must have decided I wasn't worth the effort; or worse, realized that I was only trying to draw it away.

"Giving up so soon?" I yelled at it. It didn't even acknowledge me as it left.

Should I chase after it and try to annoy it some more? No, at this point, I had bought all the time I could. I needed to alert the others. I had no idea where I was in relation to them, so I needed to do this the fast way– drop the projection. I could alert at least some of the others, and they could figure out what to do. I dropped my projection.

"Rarity, reinforce my lasso with your magic! She's going to break it!"

This sounded interesting.

I opened my eyes to see…somebody's butt. Not what I was expecting. I was pretty sure it was Jonathan's since it was human.

"Rebecca's back!" Roger announced, practically in my ear. Did he have to yell when he was that close to me?

Jonathan did me the good favor of moving his butt away from my face. I then saw that he had been standing to protect me. Bursa was outside, and Applejack was struggling to hold her with her glowing lasso…why was it glowing? I glanced at Rarity and saw her horn was lit up. That made more sense. Bursa was twisting and screaming as she tried to escape.

Well, she was, and then she transformed into a pegasus foal with black fur and red mane. The lasso fell off the much smaller body, and Bursa took to the air.

"Oh, no, you don't!" Rarity yelled.

A glow enveloped Bursa, and the filly was yanked down to the ground with an audible squawk. She didn't stay down for long and transformed again, this time into a giant black dragon. The dragon then turned its eyes on Rarity and advanced.

"Oh, dear…" Rarity gasped as she started backing away. "Applejack, some assistance, please."

Applejack came running. Just as she reached Bursa's side, she turned, lifted her hind legs, and gave Bursa a solid buck in one of her reptilian legs. The dragon roared with fury and took a swipe at Applejack with her tail, knocking the earth pony away. I held my breath and then released it when I saw that Applejack was a little dazed by the blow but unharmed. The relief was short-lived because with Applejack down for the moment, Bursa returned her attention to Rarity.

"Stop! This isn't the time to be fighting!" I yelled.

Bursa jerked her head and looked at me, and those eyes widened with shock. "You? How? That thing should have killed you!"

I hopped to my hooves. "That thing is on its way, and we need Element Bearers to have a chance against it. Don't hurt them!"

"They attacked me!" Bursa bellowed.

I walked purposefully past Jonathan towards Bursa, meeting her eyes. "You foalnapped Roger's mother! We were coming to rescue her. Tell us where she is, and I'm sure they'll let you go."

"Um…what's happening?" Roger asked in confusion from behind me. "Why did we suddenly switch from fighting to talking? What's coming?"

Bursa's lips pulled back to reveal her teeth. "You dumb, fat, pegasus; who do you think was down there?"

"I don't know. I know it was bad!" I answered. "Hurry up and tell us where Roger's mom is, and you can run for it after that. There's no more reason for you to keep her."

Bursa changed shape again, this time into an adult version of the filly she had just transformed into. She flapped her wings and took to the air but paused to look down at me.

"You don't need to go searching for her. She was the one hunting us. She'll be here soon enough. You have your answer. Good luck dealing with her. I value you my life too much to see how it goes."

Bursa then flew away. Well, poop…

Author's Note

Hi, everybody! You're favorite chubby pegasus here, saying I have been busy in an alternate timeline trying to help save the world, and make the world a better place by banning skim milk, but my adventures here are not at an end.

Chapter 105: Back into The Well

Roger got right in my face. "What does she mean my mother was hunting you two?!"

"Miss Riddle! We had everything well in hoof!" Rarity fussed.

Applejack wandered over, a little unsteady on her hooves after taking what should have been a bone-shattering blow to the face from Bursa's dragon tail. "Ya sure about that? Aye feel like Big Mac just tap danced on my head. What's this about Roger's ma huntin' ya?"

I backed up to get some space from Roger. "There was this big shadow alicorn thing down there! I was scouting in my projected form and found Bursa running for her life. It nearly caught her, but I distracted it and then found out it could still hit me."

"What does that have to do with my mother?" Roger asked.

Rarity looked grim. "If Bursa was telling the truth, I think that means your mother is that thing. She must have given in to the shadows and let them possess her."

Roger gaped. "Why would she do that? She's a good mare."

Rarity gave him a sympathetic look. "A good mare who felt powerless and scared. A good mare who didn't see a way out of her situation. Ponies do many things they normally wouldn't when they are scared. It doesn't make them bad. They are only reacting to their fears."

"You took that explanation from Phobia Remedy," Jonathan commented.

"Perhaps, but it is true," Rarity asserted.

Applejack frowned as she looked at the well. "Reckon we might need to use the Elements on her if that's the case. Sorta like Luna, when she turned into Nightmare Moon. She ain't rightfully in control of her actions, so we gotta purge the darkness from her."

"That requires us all to be together, darling," Rarity replied as she looked at the well. "That means we need to join our friends, but what of these three? We can't leave them here alone, and Roger may be important if we are to cure his mother."

Applejack sighed. "S'pose your right. We'll have to bring y'all with us. Just stick close and stay behind us. It's for your own good."

Jonathan walked over to the well and looked down it, shaking his head. "Here we go again with me following Blanche into some insane place filled with danger. I thought I was done with that. Believe me; I know how to stay back and let others do their thing."

"Good, just keep those other two back as well," Applejack instructed. "Rarity, gettin' us back down there is your thing. Try not to drop us on the ground this time."

"I rarely do that! Teleporting is not as easy as it looks, especially with groups!" Rarity fumed. She looked at all of us. "I should probably do it in two trips. I will take you and Jonathan, then come back and get Rebecca and Roger."

"Is this because I'm fat?" I asked.

"We use more gentile words than that, darling. In my line of work, I prefer to say rotund. Fat is such an ugly and insulting word, meant to shame, but, yes, it is because of your weight," Rarity answered. "I can only teleport so much at a time, and it is easier if I more evenly distribute the weight between trips, so I do not have to recalibrate my spell as much, and you weigh more than what our human friend does. I figure Applejack's muscular physique factored in this is close to an even distribution."

I blinked. "So, what you're saying is, Roger is skinny and needs to gain more weight. Got it."

"This isn't the time for humor, Rebecca," Roger snapped.

I gave my wings a little flap. "Sorry, I just spent several minutes running away from and dodging your mom, who seemed very interested in ending my life, and now I'm heading right back to her with my much slower, clumsy, and breakable body. If she hits me like she did down there, she'll reveal my jelly-filled center, so I'm nervous, and I don't have so much as a cookie to eat. I'm relieving stress the best I can."

"We'll protect you, Miss Riddle. Don't you worry," Rarity assured her with a smile. She looked at Jonathan and Applejack. "Get close together. We want to make this quick. We still don't know how Bursa got past our friends."

"It's a maze of tunnels down there. She could have taken a different path than them," I informed them. "Um…quick warning for Jonathan and Roger, there's a lot of dead bodies down there, a lot. They've been sitting out for a thousand plus years, so they're all bones, but it's a little gruesome."

"I don't care. I just want to save my mom," Roger growled.

Jonathan shrugged but didn't say anything.

"Let's be off then," Rarity said as she walked over to Jonathan and Applejack. A second later, she lit her horn, and the trio vanished.

"Dang nabbit, Rarity! Aye told ya not to drop us on the ground!"

It looked like I had another crash coming, but that didn't bother me. I was used to hitting the ground. I was more concerned about going in and facing that monster in person. Still, this was Roger's mom, and he deserved our solidarity.

I still wished I had some fudge to snack on.

I might have been dragging up the rear, but it was still up to me to point where we needed to go. It was easy enough. I could still feel where Roger's mom was and was shocked the others couldn't. It was a little puzzling why it was only me who could feel her, maybe because I was more in touch with the dream realm than the others, and this thing existed at least partially there, but we didn't have time to sit down and figure it out. We had stopped briefly to see if I could get in contact with Luna. She might be able to fight this thing from the dream realm, but she must have been awake at the time. My projection period was very brief this time around, and we were back to walking…well, they walked; I decided to fly. I might be a poor flyer, but I didn't want to walk among the bones. I was unsteady, but I was willing to put the extra effort in.

Jonathan and Roger held up pretty well to the surroundings, as did Applejack. Rarity was another story.

"This place is the worst possible thing!"

Yeah, someone disliked the skellies even more than me.

Applejack sighed and looked back at her friend. "Rarity, can ya hush? Ah'm trying' to focus on track' and you cryin' about stuff is very distractin'."

"We could gag her," Jonathan suggested in his customary monotone.

Rarity scoffed. "You shall do no such thing!"

"Aye won't let them gag ya, but ya need to be quiet," Applejack said calmly. "Rebecca, How close are we getting to Roger's ma?"

I pointed at a wall. "Close, in that direction. Almost on the other side of that wall."

"We're a passage or two away, and we still haven't found the others. If what Rebecca says is true, we don't want to run into it without them," Jonathan said.

"Unless they are already confronting her," Roger said.

I shook my head. "I don't think so. With how close we are, we would hear the battle."

"Unless it has already defeated them," Jonathan said grimly.

Applejack shook her head no. "Pinkie and Fluttershy might not be much of a fight by themselves, but aye don't think Twilight, Dash, and Wild Growth would go down so easily, or the wardens' bodyguards."

"Blanche would at least escape," Jonathan added in.

"No love for Sunflower?" I asked. "She'd at least fly away."

"Let's assume they haven't encountered her yet," Rarity asserted, ignoring my quip about my friend. "How do we avoid running into her in the meantime?"

Applejack shrugged. "Hope the tracks go off in a different direction. If not, we need to find a detour."

"No need, the rest of us are two rooms over."

I did a startled jump as Blanche carefully crept into our area from the next doorway. She looked over her shoulder and quickly put more room between her and the door, joining us.

"What's going on? Why are ya here?" Applejack asked.

Blanche pointed back. "The next room is circular with several passages leading in different directions. One of those passages has Twilight, Sunflower, and the others, but one of those passages leads straight to that thing. We need to keep to the wall when we get in to avoid being directly in its sight. We aren't sure what it is doing, but it is staying put, for now."

"Is everypony safe?" Rarity asked worriedly.

Blanche nodded. "Fluttershy is on pins and needles. She can feel where that thing is for some reason, and it is making her anxiety spike. Twilight decided to have the group sit put and have me find you. Pinkie and I are the best at sneaking, but she would struggle to get out of the well on her own. There are benefits to being human."

"Rebecca can feel it too, and her anxiety is at a heightened level as well," Jonathan said, pointing at me. "Maybe it is a pegasus thing?"

Blanche shook her head. "No, not if Sunflower and Rainbow Dash can't feel it. Twilight can, but not at Fluttershy's level. She has to focus to feel where it is. Fluttershy is practically a compass who can point where it is at any time. We can figure that out later. We need to focus on getting to the others. We can make a plan once we are all together. Follow me, and hug the wall."

I shivered as I looked at the wall where I knew the thing waited beyond. Yeah, I knew exactly where it was, and I did not like being this close. The feeling was much worse than when I was projecting. It was a nearly overwhelming sense of dread and fear. I needed happy thoughts– chocolate cake and cookies, Bob Dylan music playing on the computer, the Skytree monument, my parents throwing me a birthday party, my bathroommates joking around, Miss Seapony enjoying my dreams with me, me and Maggie hanging out, Russell holding me and complimenting my stripes and spots, all things that happened to be very far away at the moment.

I landed, and we all followed Blanche out of the room at a practical crawl. I would have brought up the rear, but Applejack and Rarity had wordlessly decided to sandwich me between them. Maybe they were afraid I would bolt. It wasn't an unreasonable suspicion; I was terrified. I actually wished I could project at the moment because I felt much safer and braver in my projected form. It made me feel ashamed, even though I knew that there must have been some magic at work impacting both me and Fluttershy. The fact that I knew it wasn't just me and that there was something more than my normal fear at work gave me a little confidence to keep moving, but it was itty-bitty.

The next room was indeed circular and had five doors. The door to our immediate left was the one where the sensation was coming from and the only door that didn't have a door directly across the room from it. There were lines drawn on the floor going from each entry to the doors that were not to the immediate left or right of them, and additional designs drawn in sections of the floor at the intersections of the main lines. I was glad Blanche was leading our group to the right. I hadn't been through this room earlier, and the walls between the doors were covered in painted murals. I was only partially aware of them in my current state. I just knew they looked old, even for this place. The entire room seemed somewhat ceremonial, and the door that led to where Roger's mother was had a large door with scenes not drawn but carved into the stone arch surrounding it. Yeah, there was probably a reason she had camped out in that room. At least this room was bone free.

The appropriate room was the next one over, and we thankfully didn't have to pass in front of that important room's line of sight. This new room seemed like it might have been a library at some point, a big one, with every wall covered to the ceiling with shelves. Most of the things on the shelves were scrolls, but there were some books. Everything was covered in dust, and most of the items looked like they would fall apart if anyone so much as touched them. Actually, Twilight was standing next to a shelf, looking at it in horror, and she had a pile of dust and scraps at her hooves. Pinkie and Sunflower were trying to comfort Fluttershy, who was sitting on the floor with her wongs tightly wrapped around herself as she rocked back and forth. Wild Growth and Rainbow Dash were walking around the room, tapping on shelves and examining everything closely.

Wild Growth noticed us come in first. "You found them fast. You just left," she said in a hushed voice.

"They were almost here. They must have been searching for us, and Rebecca can track that thing too," Blanche informed Wild.

That got Twilight's immediate attention. "Really? That confirms my theory that those that have used mind magic are more sensitive to the presence of the collective night pony consciousness."

"Pony of Shadows," Pinkie corrected.

Twilight's face twisted in disgust. "That's just an old mare's tale, Pinkie. This is the collective-"

"It's easier to call her the Pony of Shadows," Dash cut in.

I looked around. "Where are Crystal and Ulysses? Weren't they with you?"

The group looked down at the ground, not meeting their eyes.

Fluttershy whimpered. "Crystal got gunked in place by Bursa when she ran by us, and we had to leave her when the Pony of Shadows came, and we found out we couldn't fight her. We don't know what happened to her after that."

"Ulysses stayed behind to fight that thing and buy us time. Not sure what happened to him either," Rainbow Dash said.

"Now it is in that room across the way and just sitting, gathering power," Pinkie said.

"Well, Bursa got away," Applejack informed them. "She did tell us that that thing in the other room is Roger's ma before she left. Now that we are all here, we can try giving her an element blast to see if we can un-shadowfy her."

Rainbow Dash did a flip in the air. "Oh, yeahhh! Pony of Shadows isn't going to know what hit her!"

"Keep your voice down, Rainbow!" Twilight hissed. "We don't know if she is sleeping or what she is capable of."

"Why is she just sitting still?" I asked. "She seemed like she was on a mission to kill Bursa when she first came out, then I distracted her, so Bursa didn't die, then she was on a mission to try put a donut hole in me. I don't know if she could put a hole through my projection, but she was blasting left and right and was about to bring the place down."

"You caused a diversion? And you kept her occupied?" Blanche asked in disbelief.

I shuffled my hooves nervously. "I can be very annoying when I want to be, and I thought I was mostly safe when I was projecting myself…until she knocked me through a wall with her wing. That's when I found out she could hit me. I still tried to keep her busy for a while, but she seemed to realize what I was doing and lost interest in me. That's when I stopped projecting and woke up to find Applejack and Rarity fighting with Bursa."

Blanche gave a little nod. "You stuck it out after you realized you could be in danger. I didn't think you had it in you."

"I couldn't let her kill Bursa," I asserted with a little hop. "The crazy bug lady just wants to go home. I don't think that makes her evil. She doesn't deserve to die. Have you seen this place? Enough people have died down here to last a hundred lifetimes. We don't need any more."

She grunted. "Well, let's hope that Bursa didn't end up inadvertently killing Crystal by gunking her in place to be an easy meal."

"And that Ulysses is okay, too," Sunflower added in.

Both Blanche and Jonathan gave Sunflower unreadable looks. Dang, no love was lost between them and the crazy older man. After this was all over, I should take the time to find out exactly what kind of adventure the trio had been sent on by Discord, but I was afraid to find out. Blanche was so much more intense now and aggressive. Jonathan was harder to read, but he was changed too. I seriously reconsidered supporting Discord being able to visit Earth's dream realm. He might have saved a world, but he had scarred my friends for life in the process. Urgh! Why did stuff like that have to be balanced against each other for pros and cons? Who has to make choices like that?

The answer was obvious– a Dreamwarden judging whether Discord could safely be permitted in the dream realm.

"We think she is gathering power," Twilight answered my question. "If whatever is possessing her is bent on revenge against the ponies of Equestria, she likely wants to be strong enough to be sure she can overcome an army. On the plus side, I think she is disabled from using her full power. The night ponies of old conducted half their operations in dreams, but she may fear Luna after what happened a thousand years ago. She won't risk confronting her in the dream realm…although she may target Luna first to attack in the physical world. She's strong enough to be a threat to an alicorn."

"Which is why we need to Element-up and kick her shadowy flank now!" Rainbow Dash insisted.

Twilight nodded. "Yes, let's do this."

Chapter 106: The Power of the Bard

We all crept out of the room, keeping towards the walls. The element bearers had taken the lead. My friends and I brought up the rear. With me sandwiched behind Blanche and Sunflower, who was bringing up the rear. The sense of that thing was a constant pressure in my skull. It was both nerve-wracking and annoying.

"Why does this room have to be a big pentagram?" Sunflower whimpered. "Why are pentagrams even a thing in Equestria?"

"They appeared in the other world, too," Jonathan said. "Also associated with dark magic there. It must be something that transcends the omniverse."

"Hush," Blanche hissed.

Well, I felt unobservant now. I had noticed the lines on the floor before, but they hadn't clicked together in my head. A big pentagram room right outside the room, the big scary shadow pony was sleeping. If the universe were making a joke, there'd be a big crystal we could access as a save point before going into the other room. I thought about commenting as much to ease the tension, but being quiet seemed like a generally good idea…plus, I was unsure who would get the joke. Probably Roger and Jonathan; they were kinda nerdy. I could see Jonathan spending hours playing Final Fantasy; The Final Fantasy. Actually, probably best to keep my mouth shut. If I had to explain it, I might have to admit to my mighty level 96 Moogle bard I hadn't touched in three years. The Great Moogaloo exited on a high note and would not be dragged back in! Plus, I doubted my roommates would appreciate me repeatedly shouting commands at my laptop.

The element bearers and Wild Growth gathered near the entrance, all looking to Twilight for direction.

"Should I go in first?" Wild Growth asked. "I might not be able to do much damage to shadows, but I can take a hit better than any of you. If she lashes out, she'll hit whoever is in front hardest."

"Not sure you should go in with the goal of being that thing's personal buckball," Rainbow said worriedly. "I should go in first. I'm fast enough to dodge whatever that thing lashes out."

"Perhaps it would be better if Twilight and I went in and focused our shields together for defense?" Rarity suggested.

Twilight shook her head. "No, we need to focus on using our element powers. The quicker we bring her down, the better. Wild Growth is right. I'm the only other one of us who can withstand a direct hit from that thing, and I need to be focused on the elements. She makes the best distraction to buy us time, and she has a natural resistance to magic being used against her." She gave Wild Growth a long look. "Resistance to magic, that does not mean immunity. I have to stress that. Don't get too foolhardy. Just because you're hard to hurt doesn't mean you're invincible. That thing has enough concentrated magic to maim an alicorn with enough hits. It was made to be a final act of vengeance against Celestia and Luna once fully powered. It isn't fully powered yet, but we aren't on that level. It's probably already strong enough to take either you or me down if the fight goes on too long. Don't let your fans' stories about your invincibility go to your head. Try to avoid getting hit with anything. Keep moving."

Wild Growth smiled. "My fans have no idea what my true limits are, but I've about killed myself once by pushing them. Don't worry, I know not to test my limits, and I don't have any desire for another near-death experience. My one chat with death was enough."

Twilight looked back and forth between Fluttershy and me. "How is it feeling? Any change?"

Fluttershy shook her head. "I don't feel any change. I don't think she is awake."

"Me either," I concurred. "Why are we the only ones feeling her?"

"Magic overlap with night ponies," Twilight said quickly. "That thing is highly concentrated night pony magic. You're feeling it because you share magic with it and have used that magic frequently, even if you aren't night ponies. I feel it, too; alicorns have the magic of all pony tribes, but I don't feel it as strongly since I haven't used my night pony powers as much as you two."

"My grandstallion on my mom's side was a night pony. I get it from him, I think," Fluttershy said shyly. "I didn't know my stare was night pony magic before you told me. I'm glad Luna doesn't get mad at me."

"Explains the whole Flutterbat thing," Applejack muttered. "Recessive genes gettin' activated."

Twilight gave a grim nod. "Well, that isn't what happened in her case. Her recessive genes were an important factor, but activating them wouldn't have that immediate effect. However, it's a way of explaining it to get the general idea across, even if it's technically incorrect, but I wish I had known about her ancestry at the time; it would have helped. Anyway, in regards to Roger's mother, as a night pony, was probably even more vulnerable to the shadows. She might not have been hearing whispers but eager shouts."

"If this thing is getting stronger by the second and is going to be that strong by the time it reaches full power, we need to stop wasting time with unimportant details," Blanche said grimly.

Twilight gave another grim nod. "Agreed, but we need to have a plan of action in place. When we go into the room, we'll divide up. Me, Applejack, Rainbow, Fluttershy, Rarity, and Pinkie will go to the left and start preparing to use the elements. Wild Growth will try to draw its attacks away from us to the far side of the room. Roger, you'll go to the left and try to talk to your mom. She'll be hopefully distracted by Wild Growth, but I'm hoping that part of her will still hear you. Blanche and Jonathan, you two stay with Roger and make sure he is moved if his talking draws her attention away from Wild Growth. Rebecca and Sunflower, you two keep to the air behind us on the right and be ready to dodge if necessary. Rebecca, do your best to monitor what you're feeling with your senses. Alert us if there are any significant changes. Fluttershy will be distracted."

"Um…if it is sleeping, shouldn't you just sneak in and element blast it before it wakes up? That seems like it would make more sense," Sunflower said as her wings twitched.

"She's a night pony overflowing with night pony magic; she'll notice as soon as we go in there, even if she is asleep. Night ponies' instincts make them more aware of hostiles coming at them while they sleep. It's a necessary adaptation when they're asleep at the times most other creatures are awake. She might already have noticed us, is awake, and refuses to come out while gathering power. She'd know we have to come in," Twilight explained.

"She's awake."

I about jumped out of my fur at the voice. I wasn't the only one. Everyone turned to see the spider-like form of Bursa standing behind us. She'd crept up so quietly that no one had heard her.

"I can feel her. She is filled with anticipation. She is waiting for you to come in," Bursa continued.

Several of our team took defensive stances, but Applejack put herself between them and Bursa. "Wait! She ain't goin' fight us. She had her chance to get away. She did get away, but she came back, an' she don't look ready to fight. I reckon we can take time to ask her why she's here."

Twilight blinked and then gave the changeling a thoughtful yet still cautious look. "Well, Bursa?"

The changeling looked down and away. "That thing…I can feel it. I can feel what it wants. It wants to crush all hope. I don't like you ponies. You imprison me on this world, but…."

"But you don't want it to get rid of hope," Twilight finished for the changeling.

Bursa nodded stiffly. "Yes, and I feel…guilty…for helping it come to be. It is my mistake that I need to help fix. I will help you, and you let me go after it is done."

"It really doesn't like Bursa," I informed everyone. "I think that it remembers who ponynapped her. If it leaves here, it is definitely going to hunt her down."

Bursa glared at me and hissed– like, legitimately hissed, like a furious cat or snake.

I backed my flank up against the wall. "What'd I say?"

"I don't think she appreciates the reminder, darling," Rarity said and then raised an eyebrow at Bursa. "Although, Bursa might not be completely altruistic in aiding us if you're correct. It would be in her best survival interest to help us ensure the shadow monster does not get out."

"Yeah, but I can feel guilty too!" Bursa snapped. Then glared at me. "Annoying fat pegasus!"

Twilight sighed. "We'll accept your help, and we'll let you walk out of here uncontested."

"She ponynapped my mother!" Roger protested.

Twilight nodded. "I know, but her aid now will better distract your mother. I'm not going to double-cross Bursa when she came back on her own to aid us." She looked at Bursa. "I'm letting you get away for now, but I expect you to abandon your current plans for trying to get to Earth. We know you were trying to sneak back as one of the tourists. It wouldn't have worked anyway, you'd have been caught before getting near the portal, but we can't have you endangering people with your schemes."

Pinkie Pie jumped next to Bursa and hugged the changeling. "Aww, she's just a lonely bug that wants to go home."

Bursa sneered down at the pink pony. "Continue to touch me, and I'll eat you."

Pinkie Pie promptly released Bursa and inched away with a sheepish grin.

"Right," Twilight said, seemingly accepting Bursa would behave herself after. "It's going to be the same plan, but now with Bursa and Wild Growth working together to draw attention to the far side of the room. The two of you should try to keep its attention divided between you so it can't focus attacks. Try not to strike at it if you can avoid it. We don't know if that will injure Roger's mother or if contact with it will injure you. Does anyone have any questions?"

I looked around. No one was saying anything. So that must have meant we were good to go.

"Let's do this. Wild Growth and Bursa in first, everyone else, follow quickly behind," Twilight instructed.

Wild Growth and Bursa charged in, and before any of the rest of us could follow, things started happening.

"DIE!!"

BOOOOMM

I was knocked down before I had a chance to take flight. The shadow pony had struck immediately at the entrance when the two went through, causing a minor tremor and shattering the tile at the entrance, so there was now a giant crater there. Dust filled the air, and several of us, myself included, started coughing.

"Missed me! Try again!"

"Over here, monster!"

"They survived the attack and are drawing her away! We need to move!" Twilight shouted.

It was a struggle getting back to my hooves. Now that the thing was active, its presence was suddenly even more overwhelming.

"Twilight, wait! Fluttershy ain't doing so good!" I heard Applejack cry out.

"That thing isn't going to wait. We need to hurry before it ends up killing Wild Growth!" Jonathan yelled.

"Mom!" Roger yelled.

"Roger, not without us!" Twilight shouted in alarm. "Blanche, Jonathan, stay with him.

Excuse my language, but this had turned into a bit of a clusterfuck. I couldn't even see what was happening, aside from the view of my hooves trembling, making me wish I was a little more round, so I couldn't see that either.

"When I was a little filly, and the sun was going down…"

Huh?

"The darkness and the shadows, they would always make me frown…"

Was Pinkie Pie singing?

Sunflower suddenly joined her in singing, almost timidly but loud enough to be heard over the crashes and explosions in the other room. "I'd hide under my pillow from what I thought I saw…"

Pinkie Pie giggled and continued singing. "But Granny Pie said that wasn't the way
To deal with fears at all…"

We were going into battle, and those two were singing? Maybe I had knocked my head, and I was reenacting the last great battle against Bahamut, and they were playing my bard.

The two of them now sang together in harmony. "She said, 'Pinkie, you gotta stand up tall
Learn to face your fears
You'll see that they can't hurt you
Just laugh to make them disappear.'
Ha! Ha! Ha!"

I couldn't help it. This was so absurd it was funny. I had to laugh.

Sunflower now sang with more confidence, even joy, and Pinkie sang along with equal enthusiasm.

"So, giggle at the ghostly
Guffaw at the grossly
Crack up at the creepy
Whoop it up with the weepy
Chortle at the kooky
Snortle at the spooky
And tell that big dumb scary face to take a hike and leave you alone, and if he thinks he can scare you, then he's got another thing coming, and the very idea of such a thing just makes you wanna... hahahaha... heh...
Laaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaauuuugh!"

I don't know why, but hearing Sunflower say those lines with all the matching enthusiasm and energy to Pinkie Pie broke whatever hold that was on me, and I was able to get to my hooves and finally see what was happening. The first thing I noticed was Fluttershy was also getting to her hooves.

"Good work, you two. You fought off her influence on them. Now let's move!" Twilight commanded. The rest of the elements let off a whoop, and I heard that same whoop coming from my mouth. Never underestimate the power of a silly song! Let no one underestimate the importance of the humble bard!

Oh, crud, they'd drawn me back in. My roommates were going to kill me. Oh well…to battle!

Chapter 107: Battle Against the Shadow

What is chaos? I suppose most Equestrians would point their hooves at Discord and say, 'that's chaos'. If you had asked me three weeks ago, I'd have said that it was me flying in a storm– which is unhealthy for me and any bystanders who might get a giant cream puff to the face. I suppose that scientists could come up with some logical definition of chaos, even though that seems like a contradiction in itself, but who am I to disagree with people way more intelligent than I am?

No, chaos was what was currently happening in the chamber.

It was dark, but there were enough light sources to mostly see what was going on. Bursa was firing red beams of light at the shadow monster in what had to be a direct violation of the order not to strike her, but it didn't seem to be doing much. The shadow monster was lashing out, primarily at Bursa but also on and off at Wild Growth. The mighty earth pony was bucking broken bits of granite and marble at the monster. This, too, seemed to have little impact other than annoying it and drawing its attention. Blanche had made a round shield that seemed to be made of light and a long spear made of the same. It made her look like a Tolkien-like hero. She was standing defensively between Roger and the shadow monster. Roger was shouting to his mother, pleading, but the sounds of explosions and other shouts drowned out his cries.

It took me a few seconds to notice Jonathan. He was not with Roger as he had been instructed to be. He was running to different spots of the wall, dangerously close to where Wild Growth and Bursa were drawing the shadow monster's attention. He would stop for a moment and place his hands together on the wall, then begin moving again, dodging attacks aimed at our distractions. I could see what he was doing, but I had no clue why he was doing it.

I felt a gentle nudge and turned to see Sunflower beside me. She didn't say anything– there'd be no way to hear her over this racket, but she gestured with her muzzle that we needed to take to the air and get in position– so we were out of the way, protected, and better able to dodge if it came up. Right, I could do that…probably. Maybe I should have stressed to Twilight that I couldn't fly very well. If I tried to dodge while in the air, there was no telling who or what I would end up crashing into. Nothing to do but try and hope there was no need to dodge.

I took to the air alongside Sunflower, and we quickly got into position behind the element bearers. I wondered how long it would take for them to-

A rainbow blasted out from the bearers and struck the Pony of Shadows, making her wail, answering my question before I could finish thinking it. It wouldn't take them long at all.

Bursa and Wild Growth stopped moving around, and the Pony of Shadows seemed to yank and pull against the rainbow that was hitting it dead center. It wasn't going down or disintegrating or whatever it was supposed to do. It was not happy, but I was unsure if the rainbow would be enough. How long could they keep that beam going? If the beam gave out before the Pony of Shadows did, we might be in trouble.

The Pony of Shadows, still struggling, fixed its gaze on the element bearers. "Fools! You cannot beat me! I will slay you Equestrians and have justice!"

"Mom! Fight the shadows! Come back to me!" Roger shouted out, finally able to be heard now that the Pony of Shadows was no longer assaulting Wild Growth and Bursa

The monster turned its head towards Roger and spoke as if the rainbow beam was merely a temporary inconvenience. "Don't worry. This is a good thing. I'm getting you the justice we deserve too."

Roger seemed taken aback. "What? What justice?"

The thing's gaze hardened. "These Equestrians are responsible for us being ponies, for me never being able to spend the time with you that you deserved while you were growing up. They made it so I missed almost every important moment of your life. I never wanted to be an absentee mother. It is their fault!"

"That's not true! That was one lone pony acting on her own! The rest of the Equestrians had nothing to do with it!" Roger replied.

"No! They are guilty! Sunset Shimmer wasn't some outlier. They seek to dominate everything," the Pony of Shadows yelled-hissed. "Look around you! See all the death they bring! An entire civilization was exterminated in a genocide! They regulate other peoples on their world to the outskirts and name the world after themselves. They're the evil ones, hiding behind a veil of false smiles. They must be exterminated!"

Hypocrite much?

Jonathan had briefly paused while running around the room when the rainbow first hit the Pony of Shadows, but he was now at it again—running along the wall, focusing his hands on specific spots. The Pony of Shadows took notice of him for the first time.

"No! I see what you are trying to do!" the monster roared as it yanked harder against the rainbow.

Several insignias on the wall started to glow, laid out in a partial circle around the room. The missing part of the circle was the area Jonathan had already traveled. The Pony of Shadows seemed to get stronger, strong enough that its yanks at the beam staggered the element bearers. They didn't go down, but the thing was putting up a bigger fight now, and it seemed all the more likely it would break free soon.

"Jonathan! Keep disabling those matrices. They're what are filling her with additional power," Twilight commanded as she firmed up her footing. Disable matrices? How could Jonathan…oh! I remember– he said he could short out artifacts with his magic, just like he shorted out computers when he was younger. There must be some artifacts in the walls. Those artifacts must be why the shadow monster chose this room to gather power. I could possibly be the least intelligent of the candidates, but I understood now what was going on.

Wild Growth and Bursa resumed their efforts. The things Wild Growth bucked as well as Bursa's blasts, all seemed to connect when they hit the Pony of Shadows, but they didn't seem to do any damage. At best, they were an annoyance to the monster, and at this point, not enough of a hassle to make it lose interest in Jonathan.

They needed to be more annoying. If there was something I could do well, it was be annoying. The problem was I was not currently projecting, which meant I could be squished, or burnt, or impaled, but if the Pony of Shadows hit Jonathan, it might end up smooshing all of us.

Hoping that my erratic flight paths would make me harder to hit, I left my safe area and flew near the shadow monster.

"Hey! Look at me! Remember me? You knocked me through a wall, but I'm like a roach. I just keep coming back. Yoohoo!"

"Rebecca, what are you doing!?" Sunflower shouted in alarm.

"Rebecca, you idiot!" Blanche yelled.

Despite them being concerned about me, the Pony of Shadows seemed to be ignoring me. She was utterly focused on Jonathan. She was jabbing at him with long spearlike projections that jutted out of her body. Jonathan was much more agile than you would expect a geeky science nerd to be. He probably picked up some skills in that other universe. The latest strike barely missed him, and he practically did the limbo at a full run under the thing before slamming his hands on a spot in the wall, and another crystal went out.

"Wild, Bursa, help him take those crystals out!" Twilight ordered.

Wild Growth changed direction and headed towards the wall where another crystal was glowing. "Demolition, I can do that."

The mighty green earth pony didn't stop to buck the wall. She just ran straight into it, leaving a gaping crater that the edges of quickly started to crumble around. The entire thing caved-in on her, taking the crystal down.

"Wild Growth!" Blanche shouted in dismay.

Her concern was short-lived as the earth pony emerged, pushing through the rubble like she was walking through water. It took a lot to hurt Wild Growth. She might have been a shadow of her heyday, but she was still the strongest earth pony alive.

Bursa, trying not to be outdone, shot a blast at the nearest crystal to her. The blast connected, but all it seemed to do was glow brighter. She stared at it in consternation for a moment before one of the Pony of Shadow's appendages smacked her from the side, knocking her hard against a wall.

"Bursa!" Wild shouted and was immediately struck by another shadowy appendage that sent her straight back through the wall she'd just climbed out of and brought more stone rubble down on her head. While all that was going on, Jonathan managed to play Simon with the crystal Bursa tried to destroy. Two crystals were left.

Getting hit by that shadow must have been worse than having a wall collapse on Wild Growth because she was slower getting up this time. How hard did that thing hit? I looked over at Bursa and gasped. She wasn't moving, and she was leaking red goo all over the place. Was she dead? No, she just twitched. That meant she was alive, right? Although, bugs could twitch while dead. I hoped she wasn't dead. With that in mind, I gulped and resumed my annoying buzzing about the monster's head.

"I'll avenge you, Bursa!" I shouted. "Hey, look at me!"

The Pony of Shadows shook its head. "I'm not falling for your tricks again. When I'm at full power, I'll destroy you, but I'm not wasting energy on a shadow."

Did she think I was still projecting? She must have been really distracted not to notice I was physically present. Was there some way I could use that to my advantage?

Jonathan moved towards the next crystal, but the Pony of Shadows sent all its extra appendages at him. He managed to jump backward in time, but the limbs formed an almost perfect wall blocking him from reaching the next crystal. That was bad.

Okay, there was a crystal in the wall with my name on it. Scratch that; it better not have my name on it because that would be weird, and I would have so many existential questions about my life. Anyway, there was a crystal that the monster wasn't paying attention to, and it thought I was a projection, so it would consider me dashing at the crystal as an attempt to distract it. Magic blasts might not work on it, but ancient night ponies weren't prepared for my flab! I just had to hit it really hard, and it would break. Good plan!

My path was clear; my target was in sight, and I even was facing it. Facing it was great; it meant I didn't have to do something complicated like try to change direction. I didn't have room to build up to full speed, but I was maybe a tiny bit heavier than the average pony. That should make up for the lack of full momentum, I hoped. I got as high as I could and began my dive bomb. I should hit it-

SLAM!!

"Hahaha! That was sad. I'll kill you last."

Ouchie. I fought the wall, and the wall won.

I was dazed, but I could tell the crystal was still intact. So much for me being-

There was suddenly a lot of crashing, and something picked me up. I was moving. Wweeeeee!

I might have hit my head a little too hard.

NNOOOOOO!!!

"The crystals are down, now's our chance! Let's take her down, girls!"

This all sounded very interesting, and I wondered how I was moving, but at that moment, I needed a nap.

Chapter 108: Waking Up

I awoke in an unfamiliar room with an unfamiliar crystal pony stallion poking me with a stick.

"Ah, you're awake! Good!" the stallion said happily.

"My head feels funny," I mumbled.

"That would be the bandages and the pain meds," the stallion said.

My vision was a little blurry as I looked around the room, but it steadily improved over a few seconds. It was a plain-looking room made out of blue crystal. There was a wall behind the stallion with a bunch of medical supplies stacked on a shelf. There were two wooden doors, one that looked like a closet and one that led somewhere else. I was in a bed with an IV drip attached to my right foreleg and a blanket pulled over my rump.

"Am I in a hospital?" I asked.

The stallion put a hoof on my side and seemed to be checking something. "The medical wing of the decontamination center. You hit your head very hard and gave yourself a concussion."

"Decontamination center?" I asked in confusion.

He pulled his hoof away, picked up a quill in his mouth, and made some notes on a parchment. He then set the quill down. "Yes, you and your friends were exposed to dark magic and an area with unknown bacteria. Portal regulation requires that you spend a week monitored in isolation before crossing through it. We are in the village of Shivery Stones. It is technically part of the Crystal Empire, but it is about half a day's walk from the city or about a thirty-minute flight. Not much here, just a minor mining operation, guard post, about a dozen civilian homes, this center, and a lot of snow."

I blinked. That was a problem. "I have to spend a week here?! I'm going to miss classes back at school!"

"You have actually already spent five days here. You've been going in and out of consciousness. You were pretty doped up, so you might not recall that. We will give you a doctor's note and paperwork from the decontamination team," the stallion explained.

Well, I guess I had to live with that. I was going to be so far behind. I didn't look forward to the catch-up work.

"Was anybody else hurt?" I asked.

He nodded. "The changeling queen Bursa suffered severe injuries but should fully recover in time. We called in a pair of specialists to take care of her. Wild Growth had some injuries that seemed severe, but she has somehow already recovered. She is quite remarkable. Other than that, a few of your friends had minor cuts and scrapes but nothing to be concerned over. Miss Wilco is suffering from magic exhaustion and emotional trauma. Somepony will write a referral for her to see a specialist for ongoing care once you return to Earth. She had the highest exposure to dark magic as well and is being closely monitored for any lingering effects."

Oh, that meant we saved Roger's mom. Roger must be relieved. Emotional trauma didn't sound good, but it was better than being a shadow monster out to kill the world. I hoped that she would be alright.

My parents were going to be worried sick about me, Maggie too, and Nightscape, and Julie, and Meadow, and Ashley, and Russell. Oh, no, Russel! I was going to be here for an extra…I didn't know how many more days than I was supposed to be– math was hard with a fuzzy head. He was going to have some human girl start flirting with him and steal him away, or maybe Meadow would. I knew Meadow had eyes on everyone that was male and had a pulse. I could see her trying to seduce him in my absence

I might be feeling paranoid. Still, I didn't like the delay in going home, and I was in the hospital, and that made me want some comforting cuddles. I wasn't too picky about who cuddled me right now. Russell would be great, or my parents, even one of Julie's crushing hugs. Maybe Sunflower would hug me if I asked nicely. I had an adventure in which I suffered grievous injuries. I needed cuddles.

"Am I going to have a scar?" I asked, thinking about the bandages on my head.

"Uh, well, we did have to do some stitches, and there will be a permanent mark there, but your fur should completely hide it," the doctor pony said.

"Oh, no! I'm scarred for life! Will you give me a hug?" I asked, giving him my best puppy dog eyes.

He gave me an apprehensive look. "I don't think that is appropriate for a doctor to do with his patient. Perhaps I should tell your friends you're wide awake so they can visit you."

Oh, yeah, I would prefer that. I could get a hug from one of my friends, and I could see how they were doing. If we were going to be stuck here for a few days, at least we were stuck here together.

He went to the door. "I'll let them know you're awake. Stay in bed."

I didn't have much of a choice. I had an IV attached to me, and it was taped on well. I'd end up pulling it over if I tried getting out of bed, and I might rip it out of my flesh and make a bloody mess if I did that. I didn't want to be a bloody mess, and that might hurt, so in bed I was going to stay. At least it was a comfy bed. Hospital beds back home weren't comfy. I think they went out of their way to not be comfortable back home, like there was some particular brand of hospital bed engineers that product-tested hospital beds to ensure that patients wouldn't be in pain in bed but would feel just enough discomfort that they would be practically begging to get out of bed as soon as they could. I wondered if Equestria had a problem with patients not wanting to leave hospitals as quickly as possible.

It didn't take long for the door to open and for Sunflower to come hurrying in with her wings spread wide. "Rebecca! You're alright!"

"No wall has killed me yet!" I said with a smile and winced because smiling hurt.

Blanche and Jonathan came in a moment after Sunflower. Both stopped and crossed their arms as soon as they entered the door.

"That was the biggest buffoon move I have ever seen in a combat situation," Blanche said dryly. "I can't believe you would do something that moronic. You could have been killed."

My ears flattened. "I was just trying to help. I was sure that the Pony of Shadows would ignore me, and I could take out that crystal. Um, did I take it out?"

Blanche shook her head. "No, you didn't. You didn't so much as put a crack in it."

Jonathan raised a finger. "But you might have inadvertently won us the day with your antics."

It hurt, but my smile returned. "Oh, good! Uh…how'd I do that?"

"Roger's mother was so dumbfounded and shocked by your stupidity that she didn't notice Wild Growth got back up," Blanche answered. "While Miss Wilco was laughing her demonic flank off at your idiocy, Wild Growth barreled through the wall, taking out both remaining crystals and picking you up along the way before the wall could collapse on you. With the crystals down, the bearers were able to purge Miss Willco of her possession and destroy it."

"I guess I'm the most distracting thing around," I giggled.

My giggle was cut short when there was a flash of light, and two yellow eyes were suddenly staring me in the eyes.

"That's my title!"

I looked back at the eyes and blinked. "I thought your title was Lord of Chaos."

"You!" Blanche shouted.

The eyes pulled back, and I could now see the rest of Discord. Jonathan had his back pressed against the wall, and seemed like he was considering making a break for the door. However, Blanche was snarling and had made a sword with her magic that she was brandishing at the chaos god. Sunflower had stepped back and was looking back and forth between Discord and Blanche. Discord looked bored.

Discord put a paw on the sword tip and pushed it down. "Oh, hello…you. What was your name again? Something about boiling water, right?"

"It's Blanche!" Blanche screamed. "You fucked up my life on a whim and almost got me and Jonathan killed, and you can't even remember our names?"

A dictionary appeared floating in front of Discord. He put on a pair of reading glasses and opened it. "Blanch, verb, to take the color out of. Blanched, to scald or parboil in water-"

"I parboil you in water, you monster!" Blanche yelled as she raised her sword.

"Blanche, violence is never the answer," I warned my friend.

She glared at me. "Sometimes, it is the only answer. You wouldn't understand, meatball. You didn't go through what we did."

Discord snapped his fingers, and Blanche's sword turned into a long wet noodle that promptly slumped in her hands. "You should be thanking me, human. All of you should. I saved the world twice. Well, two worlds anyway. Every creature is always so ungrateful for everything I do for them. You're welcome."

"Two worlds?" Jonathan asked.

Discord turned and gave him a big grin. "Of course! Do you really think you would have even known you could disable those old crystals if you had never journeyed to that other world? Would you have had the skill to pull off those acrobatics that kept you from getting skewered? I'd say I put you in a position to succeed, yet I don't even get a thank you!"

He turned to look at Blanche again. "You were instrumental in saving that other world. Think of all the creatures who have better lives because I thought you were too much of a boring bookish nerd who wasn't living up to your ass-kicking potential. I put you in a situation where you could learn to be all you can be, and I didn't even enlist you in the army."

Blanche pointed at me. "You didn't do the same to her, or Sunflower, or Roger."

"Well, that's just petty that you'd say that," Discord said with annoyance. "You know, as well as I do, those three would have died. That cream puff is mildly amusing, but watching her get roasted and dealing with her crying friends and family is no fun for anyone. She'd be the first to die, and the other two wouldn't do much better. I hate death. Death is never funny. Well…rarely ever funny…there's the occasional ironic death that everyone has to laugh at, but you just can't properly plan those things."

"I'd be the first?" I whimpered.

Jonathan adjusted his glasses. "That is an assessment I can agree with. My apologies, but you just aren't that kind of survivor."

"Yes, but you two are!" Discord exclaimed. "I knew you would overcome your situation and become stronger and more confident due to the experience. You four-dimensional creatures just need a little push every once and a while. You really should be more grateful."

"Maybe we were happy just being book nerds and organizers! Did you ever think of that?" Blanche demanded seethingly.

"But you still are, but so much more now," Discord said defensively. "And can you really say you aren't happy that you saved all those people in that other world?"

"You could have done that with a snap of your fingers!" Blanche said, pointing a finger at his lion paw.

Discord crossed his arms and lifted his snout high in the air. "I don't do that. It would mess with my reputation. I mean, I'll rescue Fluttershy if she's in trouble, but I can't have creatures thinking I'm going to save the day. I would never get a moment's peace. Plus, that is so orderly and boring. It is much more interesting to shove someone else out there to take care of things. There's always some world that needs saving. It is the nature of things that they break down and collapse. It's a wonder any of you make it past the stone age. Every once and a while, I notice creatures that are just the right fit to save a place, and I say, why not? Let's pull out some popcorn and see what happens."

"Seriously? That's horrible!" Sunflower exclaimed.

He turned and smirked at her. "Maybe you all are competing for the wrong job then. You want to be a Dreamwarden? Do you understand how often you'll be staring at a situation, think that it is terrible and someone should do something, but you can't even tell anyone about it because of those silly rules the Dreamwardens have? What's a handicapped dream god to do, then? You learn how to give nudges and little pushes to break people out of their comfort zones, and you hope they fix the problem that you are worried about without telling them a thing about the problem or what they should be doing. You just recognize their potential that they themselves don't see, and you do what you can to help that along– convoluted plans that exist on a hope and a prayer. It can be traumatic for the individual, but it is probably more traumatic for all the people that they could have helped if you didn't mess with the person's life. Dreamwardens and I aren't so different."

I had never considered that. I suppose it was one way of getting around Dreamwarden Oaths so you could help people. It required messing with people, possibly disrupting their life, but if it helped many more, was it worth it? Now that I thought about it, have I already encountered the Dreamwardens doing just that? Yinyu had messed with my life for the better, but she'd definitely messed with it. She'd done it because she liked me, but she had an agenda too, one she wasn't always open with me about. I thought about Jess and how the Dreamwardens kept her busy, but how much did she know, and how much did they do to push her? There were others, Sunset Blessing maybe, that they constantly messed with, yet could there be some greater goal?

This was exhausting to listen to and think about, and I was still head-bandaged in bed with an IV in me.

"I just want some cuddles," I whimpered.

Discord laughed. "A mare who knows what she wants and is not afraid to express it. I like her. Here you go!" He snapped his fingers.

A giant boa constrictor suddenly appeared, wrapped around my body. I screamed, and all my friends rushed to my aid.

"I think my work here is done. Ta-ta for now!" Discord said, disappearing as Blanche and Jonathan worked to remove the serpent from around my body.

Chapter 109: Vacation's Over

Waiting lobby number eight, waiting lobby number eight. There was number seven, and there was number two, and there was fourteen...where was eight? Why in the world would they number the waiting lobbies if they were not in order? I might not be the most orderly and conventional mare, but even I wouldn't make things this confusing. Well, maybe I would, but not for stuff as mundane as a waiting lobby that people need to find so they can be with their families. This place wasn't even interesting to look at. It was like walking around an airport, except it had plain gray walls instead of nice big windows to see the planes taking off and landing. The lack of windows made it feel like I was down in the Well of Shade again, minus the bones. At least it had gift shops and a food court. Perhaps I should find the service desk and ask for directions. Security might help, too; they were everywhere. There were so many security guards decked out in heavy military gear that they made the TSA look like library monitors. They were guarding every door and every stall, even the restrooms, and it was never just one guard.

The place wasn't crowded, but some people were walking around, and a few clusters of three or four were looking around the area in equal confusion. It was easy to tell the Equestrians from the Earthlings, and not just that humans automatically came from Earth and that gaggle of griffins definitely wasn't born on Earth. The Equestrians tended to wear more clothing than the ponies from Earth. Why was this? Probably because they heard rumors that all Earthlings wore clothes, and the Equestrians didn't want to stand out. The fact that they were wearing an exorbitant amount of clothes that didn't even make sense in conjunction with each other didn't help either. I mean, a winter scarf, what looked like a prom dress, a lampshade for a hat, and galoshes all together? Yeah, you're a tourist. It's that winter scarf; you can't possibly pair that correctly with a lampshade.

Everybody else's family had been with them in Equestria and had stayed with them through the isolation period. They didn't have to find anyone when they got back here; they got to leave straight for home. Sunflower had wanted to help me find my parents, but Sunflower's family had been too eager to get going. Family came first. I could be disappointed, but I couldn't fault her for leaving me to fend for myself. It wasn't that big a deal. I just needed to find that silly lobby that they might as well be labeled as a vegetable instead of a number. Lobby number asparagus would have been a better name than lobby number eight.

Oh, wait, there it was, and it was right next to the food court. Happy dance time! I started prancing in place, followed by a moonwalk and some good headbobs. Yeah, feel it! Work it! Shake that flank! People were staring, but who cared?

I did stop dancing after a moment, but only because my tummy was a little rumbly. The food court had a Zombie Bob's Pizza. I might try to talk my parents into taking a minute to buy a spinach and artichoke pizza from there…or two…or three. The food at the center back in Equestria did not match their beds. No matter where you went, hospital food still sucked. Family first, then begging for edible food.

I scampered over to the appropriate lobby and entered. It was a big room with many chairs, benches, and a pair of ninety-six-inch TVs– one displaying the news and the other some game show. There were only five people present. Two guards, my parents, and-

"Russell!" I shouted with joy and flew at him, tackling him from the air and knocking him out of his seat before he had a chance to turn to look at me.

"No flying allowed!" one of the security guards shouted.

"Sorry!" I yelled, then rolled over, so I was no longer lying on my dazed boyfriend's head. "Russell, you okay? I didn't mean to hurt you. I was just excited."

He rolled over in the opposite direction and coughed, "Ugh! Give me a moment to breathe. You always know how to make an entrance. Good to see you, babe."

My ears flattened. "You aren't hurt, are you?"

"I'll be alright. I've been slammed down plenty of times while wrestling. You aren't the heaviest person to come down on my head," he said as he sat up. He then smiled at me. "You seem alright. I heard you hurt your head."

I rubbed my head. "I got stitches. Now I'll be scarred for life. I need cuddles." I blinked and then smiled sheepishly at my parents, who were both now standing over the pair of us. "Oh, um, sorry. Hi, Mom. Hi, Dad. I missed you two too."

My mom crossed her arms, and I could tell she was doing her best not to smile. "You wouldn't object to me getting first dibs on cuddling you, would you?"

I hurried over to her and wrapped my forelegs and wings around her legs. My mom finally let her smile bloom and clumsily bent down to hug me. It was a tight hug.

"You are alright, right?" Stepdad asked. "We heard you were in a hospital and had been exposed to dark magic. We didn't get any more details about what happened, only that you had a concussion and had to wait to come back until they were sure you wouldn't bring back any dark magic or foreign illnesses."

I let go of my mom. "I'm feeling good. I do have a scar on my head, but I guess nobody can see it. I fought with a wall. I didn't win."

His eyebrows rose. "Must have been a tough wall. You've hit plenty before and never had to go to the hospital for it. What about that part about dark magic?"

I looked around. It was still just the guards, but that was still too much. "I don't think I'm allowed to talk about it in public. I can tell you about it after we get out of here." I looked at Russell. "What are you doing here? I'm happy to see you, but you'll miss classes. I don't want us both to be behind on classwork."

He rubbed the back of his head. "Ma insisted. She said, Boy, you better be there when your marefriend gets back. You can catch up on your classes, but you need to show her how much you care about her. That filly's a keeper. I was more than happy to agree with her."

I turned and hugged him. "Aww! That's so sweet, but you didn't need to do this. Now give me cuddles!"

And cuddles he gave–a nice big hug in his dark, white-splotted arms, my spotty-man. My mom hugging me felt great, but there was something even better about Russell's hugs.

"Eh-hem, sorry to interrupt."

I looked over at the entrance to the lobby and saw Phobia Remedy there, flanked by Tempest. The two security guards were both looking at the Warden of Fear nervously.

Phobia looked at the pair of guards. "You two may stand outside."

"Ma'am, we have been assigned-"

The Dreamwarden held up a wing. "I have the authority to override any order your supervisor may have given you if I am not putting anyone in danger. Tempest can guard us fine enough, and I request you leave. When the two individuals that I am waiting for arrive, you may come in to alert me and resume your posts inside. There are cameras here. It isn't like I'm being unmonitored."

The guards looked at each other, but both seemed to acknowledge that the Dreamwarden was right. She might not have absolute authority over them, but she could order them around to a degree. Dreamwardens were among the highest-ranking officials in the world. The two of them reluctantly left the room and shut the lobby door behind them. Tempest took position at the door, arms crossed, and the Dreamwarden focused on us.

"We did not expect a visit from you, Dreamwarden Phobia Remedy," Mom said breathlessly. "Did you visit each of the others when they came through too?"

Phobia shook her head. "No, but I am not here for our six wayward teens who got into trouble. I am here to wait. Crystal and Ulysses are due to return as well today. I'm simply here to pick them up. This is the waiting lobby I was assigned."

"You couldn't get someone to do that for you?" Stepdad asked. He then went wide-eyed. "Sorry, I meant no disrespect. I just heard you rarely leave Skytree unless you have to."

"No disrespect was taken," Phobia assured him as she walked over to a bench a short distance away from us and climbed on it. "Crystal is one of my personal bodyguards. I have many bodyguards, but only two personal ones. A Dreamwarden's personal bodyguard is absolutely devoted to their warden, but the Dreamwarden also gives the bodyguard a certain amount of devotion. They have our absolute trust. We listen when they have something to say. We care very much for their wellness, both physical and emotional. Our personal bodyguards are as much family as our blood, and just like I was here to greet my wife and offspring when they returned days ago, I am here again for Crystal. She needs even more care than my other family right now. She was hurt, and I have been worried about her. I also promised Psychic Calm that I would be here for his bodyguard as well. To make sure his remains are returned in one piece."

My eyes watered. "Wait…Ulysses died? I didn't know. Nobody told us. He just sort of vanished, and I forgot about him."

Phobia nodded and sighed. "It may have been discussed while you were still in recovery and not something your friends thought to bring up. My understanding is that Blanche and Jonathan were the ones more familiar with him and that their relationship with him was troubled. He will be buried without fanfare, but Psy is quite shaken to learn his friend is dead. As I said, they are like family. Even though they serve with the intention of laying down their lives for us if need be, the loss of one is devastating. Crystal was severely injured, but I'm happy she at least is coming back to me living and breathing, and she will make a full recovery in time."

I felt bad. I knew Crystal and Ulysses had been in the Well of Shade and had fought with the Pony of Shadows to help the others get away, but I hadn't even thought in all my time after waking back up to ask about them, not even when I didn't see them returning with us. How'd I completely forget about them like that?

Phobia looked at my boyfriend. "Russell Rice, correct? We haven't met."

Russell stood up. "That's me. You've heard about me?"

Phobia nodded. "Your dreams are beyond our reach, but I have other eyes and ears. I have a question for you, a bold one, if I may ask."

"Uh, sure, you can ask," Russell replied hesitantly.

Phobia focused a stern gaze upon him. "I know you know what your marefriend is being considered for. Tell me, if she were to get that job, what would you have her do if someone were to capture you and demand she gives them information in exchange for your safe return alive?"

"That's not fair!" I shouted, fluffing my feathers.

Phobia looked at me and didn't look impressed at my display. "Dreamwardens don't always get to deal with things that are fair, and sometimes we have to be direct, especially when dealing with those we do not know the mind of. I would have my answer."

Russell gaped, then lowered his head. He was silent for a few seconds before answering, "I'd want her to try to save me but not to give in to their demands. I understand the weight of the job you are considering her for, and I know the consequences of being close to her. I matter, but far more people than me can be hurt if she gives in."

I was crying now.

Phobia turned her attention to my parents. "And you? What would you have her do if your lives were on the line?"

Mom seemed ready to cry too. "This is a cruel question to ask."

"I am not needlessly cruel," Phobia replied. "I know your hearts; you can abstain from answering. Asking you simply hammers in the point. This is something for Rebecca to consider and consider soon."

"This is a test," I whimpered. It wasn't a question. I knew it for what it was.

"Psychic Calm was very devastated by Uylsess' passing and wishes to expedite his retirement. Our timetable is going to be advancing," Phobia said. "Expect many difficult tests in the coming days– some that your friends will fail. The question is, will you fail as well?"

The door opened, and a guard stuck his head in. "Madam Dreamwarden, the mare in a wheelchair is here…and the people pushing the coffin."

Phobia left her seat. "Let me attend to my friend then and do my brother the honor of returning his to him. A good day to you, Riddles and Mister Rice. I hope none of you ever have to have a day like the one I'm having."

I cuddled against Russell's legs and cried. No amount of cookies and cake could make me feel better.

Chapter 110: Dismissed

I didn't get a chance to tell my parents or Russell about the big things that happened during my trip to Equestria as we took our plane home. There were too many other people around. I did talk about some things. I told them about the Crystal Empire, Mountainshade, Rainbow Falls, the airship, and seeing a minotaur. I had to leave out the details about Discord, Jimsonweed, the Sunstone, Bursa, the Well of Shade, and the Pony of Shadows. They just weren't safe subjects to discuss in public, and I found myself reflecting again on what it must be like to be a Dreamwarden and not be able to say anything about so much you knew was going on. It was harsh and sobering.

Phobia Remedy's questioning upon my return was also on my mind, and while I hated it. I knew the weight of duty. I remembered how Miss Seapony laid down her life, so her foals could get away and not be used against her. I also remembered how Phobia Remedy and Arbiter had been willing to sacrifice their entire families during the Cataclysm of Riverview to spare the world the horrors that could have happened. Dreamwardens sometimes had to make tough choices, and sometimes those tough choices involved people we cared about. I disagreed with the decision that Phobia and Arbiter had made. I would have risked the worst, but it wasn't just for the sake of what they could have done to their loved ones. It was how awful a thing it had been. It may have been the lesser of two evils, but it was still evil. I'd have looked for some other way or risked the greater evil happening and would have tried to find a way to fix it. I couldn't bring myself to hurt people like that.

Still, that brought me back to her question. Was I hurting people if I gave in to those kinds of demands? The answer was almost certainly yes. If someone were willing to hurt my family to get what they wanted, they would hurt others even more once they got it. It would pain me, but I would refuse to give in to demands because I couldn't be the source of that suffering that would come.

There was an odd bit of jet lag, moving from one universe to another, and even though it was still midafternoon as we flew back home, I found myself getting very tired and soon drifted off to sleep.

I then found myself in what seemed like a giant three-sided amphitheater, and the fourth side had six pedestals and, beyond them, a field of stars. Sunflower, Blanche, Jonathan, and Roger were all there beside me, sitting together in front of the pedestals, and on top of the pedestals, the Dreamwardens sat in their full nightmare guises. Phobia Remedy was a shadow with glowing red eyes. Psychic Calm was a massive stag, looking sagely down upon us. Miss Seapony was her usual dragon-seapony self. Arbiter was in her partial-angel form, robed in orange, holding her staff. Ghadab was a burning bush for some reason instead of a burning pony. The last guy with the hard-to-pronounce name, the Warden of Order, was a dark figure in white with a long billowing cloak but was missing his face.

Arbiter rapped her staff upon the pedestal. "Greetings. We felt you would all fall asleep early, given the time difference between the Crystal Empire and New York City. We have reviewed the full report of your activities in Equestria…and beyond Equestria for some of you. We had not anticipated your trip to be so eventful, but everything is a test, and for everything, you are judged."

Phobia knelt and stared into the humans' eyes. "Blanche and Jonathan, we understand you are withdrawing your candidacy for the position of Dreamwarden that Psychic Calm will soon vacate. We are all disappointed to hear this, but we accept your withdrawal. We are all impressed by the courage and resourcefulness you displayed on your adventures, and while we are saddened you had to endure such hardship, we are pleased with how you have grown. While you are no longer interested in becoming Dreamwarden, we hope that you can be convinced to lend your aid and support to whoever ends up being chosen."

"I'll consider it," Blanche replied. Jonathan just nodded.

Phobia turned her attention to Roger. "Concerns were raised about your continued candidacy. There was a vote called regarding the matter. Roger Wilco, by a vote of four to two, you have been removed as a candidate for Dreamwarden."

I stood in shock, but not in as much shock as Roger. Poor Roger!

"W-w-why?!" Roger stammered out.

Arbiter gave Miss Seapony a sideways look. "Because we have enough Dreamwardens who would compromise the good of all for the good of their families already."

Miss Seapony glared at Arbiter and hissed, showing all her fangs. The angel ignored her.

"We do not condemn you for not being willing to sacrifice your family if it came down to it. It is admirable that you would do anything for them, but it is not something we can afford to let happen with a Dreamwarden. We hope you can understand this and not resent our decision," Psychic Calm said in a near monotone.

Oh, that was why Phobia had made me think about that. I was kind of glad I had thought about it and come to a firm decision about it; otherwise, they might be dismissing me now too. Still, I felt bad for Roger. It had to feel terrible for him, especially after all he had just gone through with his mom.

"The field of candidates is now reduced to two," the Warden of Order said. "Ironically, the two candidates most favored by the ones who dissented from expelling the other."

"Just because I was not as inclined towards that one does not mean I wanted him dispelled for acting with justice, you weak-livered germaphobe!" Ghadab growled.

"We may disagree about what constitutes justice, martyr, but justice has little to do with our decision. It is about what is best to keep us from being compromised," the Warden of Order answered back calmly.

Miss Seapony flicked her lower half at him. "Feeling more confident about addressing your elder siblings like that now that you are in line to no longer be the baby?"

The Warden of Order shrugged. "Perhaps, but don't discredit whoever ends up being chosen. Arbiter hit the ground running and tried to assert herself right away; maybe our new sibling will too."

"My mortal life had ended. I only had a purpose as a Dreamwarden. I had an incentive to assert myself. I move on from the past and embrace the new," Arbiter reminded him.

"The chubby one is fairly loud a good deal of the time, and the farmer's daughter just showed some spirit. Plus, you never know what traits they'll inherit; only take educated guesses. The winner could inherit an extra boost to assertiveness," the Warden of Order reminded her.

"Let's hope they don't inherit our whore sister's virility," Ghadab groaned.

"Whoever it is, she should be happy to get my virility!" Miss Seapony snapped at him. "Let's hope that she doesn't inherit your disposition!"

"These two? Sadly, that is unlikely," Ghadab lamented.

They were talking about us as if we weren't standing right here. It was kind of rude.

"We're standing right here!" Sunflower shouted, beating me to the punch and fluffing her feathers. "Don't talk about us like we aren't!"

"Hahaha! My candidate has backbone!" Ghadab cackled.

"Rebecca was ready to do the same thing!" Miss Seapony protested.

"But she was too slow, whore. Point to mine," Ghadab counted.

Miss Seapony raised her snout high. "I hardly call that point-worthy."

"And smashing her face into a wall is?" Ghadab asked dismissively.

"Maybe," Miss Seapony answered with a snort. "It shows bravery in a much more difficult circumstance. If Sha'am were still with us, Sunflower's little outburst would be seen as a braver feat, but Sha'am is gone."

"I think that mouthing off in front of Sha'am might have been considered more foolhardy instead of brave, but we digress," Arbiter said.

"She wasn't that bad after we censored her," Ghadab said. "She was almost kind at times after that…almost, and she had a way with foals that I envy to this day. I miss her. I miss the old skeleton and the no-tongue sneak."

Miss Seapony nodded sadly. "Me too."

Phobia sighed. "Forgive us for discussing you as if you aren't present. With the field now so limited, and the urgency to make a decision more pressing, the merits of every action you take, no matter how small, is more likely to be quickly examined, judged, and debated. You are hearing only a small portion of what is happening right now. There are many animated and heated arguments happening simultaneously that we are keeping out of sight-"

"I've been disemboweled three times in the last five minutes!" Miss Seapony protested.

"You deserved it after what you said about me!" Arbiter shouted.

"Let's keep the more violent disagreements private, shall we?" Psychic Calm said.

Phobia's shadow grimaced. "Anyway, this will be a very trying time for both of you. Do your best, and try not to let the stress get to you. We would hate to have to focus on additional candidates this late in the process."

I remembered something and looked at Psychic Calm. "Sorry about your friend. I didn't know him very well, but I know he was important to you."

"First to show compassion regarding Psychy Wikies' loss,'' Miss Seapony said quickly.

"Only because the nightmare queen stressed to her how important the guards are to our mortal siblings!" Ghadab protested.

Arbiter slammed her staff down. "Can we just let a show of compassion be just that for a moment? I know the three of us are dead, so we don't get it as quickly, but our brother is in mourning!"

Yinyu pressed her fins together and looked down. "Sorry, Psychy."

Ghadab's fire dimmed. "My apologies, head shrink."

"Forgive Yinyu and Ghadab for their competitiveness as well. Being dead leaves them with little excitement, and having their favorite candidates as the remaining finalists is about as good as it gets for them," Phobia said in a long-suffering tone.

The stag nodded. "I understand our siblings' zeal. I accept the apology."

Arbiter frowned. "Maybe it is a good thing that they get to see us as we naturally behave around each other. I'm going to miss you, Psy. You were the only one who never descended into childish squabbling."

"You include yourself in that, sycophant?" Ghadab asked snidely.

Arbiter gripped her staff tightly as she glared at him. "Oh, I know I'm as guilty as the rest of you."

"You do like to hit us with that stick," Ghadab agreed. "Such a violent person."

"I'm about to beat a bush with a stick," Arbiter growled.

Oh, dear.

Miss Seapony burst out laughing, and Arbiter's ears flattened. The others looked ready to laugh; even Phobia's shadow somehow looked amused. I wanted to laugh, but I might lose points with Arbiter if I did that. Were we being graded on points? They talked about points. They could have just been saying that, but they hadn't clarified.

"Laugh it up, Yinyu," Arbiter said.

"Oh, I will!" Miss Seapony said and then when back to guffawing.

"You walked yourself into that one, sycophant," Ghadab said with amusement.

Arbiter waved a hand. "I know. I know. I realized my error as soon as I said it. I would say she has such a dirty mind, but the rest of you are ready to laugh too. Phobia is even smirking."

Miss Seapony got her giddiness under control and smiled at us. "Arbiter wasn't always such a stick in the mud. She was pretty fun when she was still alive, playful even. She'd get into all kinds of mischief and sang songs to calm herself when she got scared. She even had a very active sex life with-"

"Do you mind?!" Arbiter said, flailing her staff at Miss Seapony.

Miss Seapony giggled. "I don't mind at all."

Blanche put her hand on Roger, who jumped at the touch. "Hey, be calm. I was just going to point out that you should be glad you are out of the running. The three of us could never fit in with the chemistry of these maniacs. Rebecca and Sunflower are the only ones who possibly could."

Roger gave her a half-hearted smile, but he still looked miserable. I walked over and hugged him; Sunflower had the same idea and hugged him in conjunction with me. After a moment, Jonathan bent down and joined us. I glanced up at Blanche, but she shook her head.

"Sorry, I'm not a hugger. That right there was my version of comforting," Blanche said, crossing her arms again.

The Dreamwardens had vanished sometime while we were hugging Roger. We all knew the six of them were still there, or at least the three who never went away were at least, but I was happy that they were at least pretending to give us some privacy. Roger was clearly heartbroken, and the Dreamwardens' antics weren't helping things.

"It's probably just as well," he finally said as we released him. "Mom is in bad shape right now after what she went through. She was carrying around a lot more frustration and resentment than I knew she had. The stuff she said didn't all come from the shadows. They just fed on it and nurtured it. Now she's gone and killed somebody, and nothing can undo that. I need to spend some time with her to help her get through this. Maybe take a semester off from school. I don't think I will tell her yet that I've been dismissed. It might make her more depressed if she gets it in her head that she messed up my chances."

"Won't she get upset if she gets it in her head that you are dropping out of college because of her?" Sunflower asked.

Roger shook his head. "I don't know, but she's my mom. I have to help her. They're right. I would do anything for my mom. She's sacrificed so much for me."

"It seems cruel that they out and tell you that you'd stopped being a candidate like that," Sunflower said.

"Maybe they understand that he wants to help his mom, and they didn't want him to feel torn about what to do," I suggested. "I mean, helping his mom is what he really wants. Why lead him on pointlessly when they already decided he wouldn't be the heir? He could be spending that time and energy helping his mom instead of trying in vain to get a job they already decided he wasn't getting. It's the fairest thing they could do."

"Maybe," Sunflower conceded.

Roger looked up at Blanche. "I'm sorry about Ulysses. I know you spent a lot of time with him. My mom wasn't in her right mind."

"We weren't that close. He definitely wasn't a friend," Blanche muttered, refusing to look Roger in the eyes. "He was old and slowing down. He was bound to get in over his head sooner or later."

"He was your mentor when it came to fighting," Jonathan said quietly. "He taught me a thing or two. I know he wasn't always a good man, but he did what he could to help us and did what he thought was best for everyone, even when he got it wrong."

Blanche gripped her hands into fists. "He only understood killing. You never heard what he told me about his past. He deserved to be locked up for life in a dark cell with no windows and no visitors. I don't believe in the death penalty, but for him….If I were Psychic Calm, I would never, never have employed him or given him a chance."

"He couldn't have been that bad," Sunflower said.

Blanche stomped. "He murdered someone for the first time when he was twelve years old! That one I can forgive. His father was an abusive man, and it could be argued he did it in self-defense, but that wasn't the end of it. He was sick in the head! He murdered people on the smallest provocation! He was in the army, and what he did could only be called war crimes! Sometimes he killed in anger, and sometimes he killed for pleasure. How could that person ever become the trusted bodyguard of the Warden of Peace!"

The stag reappeared, and somehow there was lightning across the clear starry sky. "While the dead hold no secrets, I'm a doctor, a psychiatrist, and I hold to additional oaths than my oaths as Dreamwarden. There is doctor-patient confidentiality. Before he was my friend, he was my patient. A very sick man, as you said. While I cannot disclose anything from our sessions, I can say that I helped him, and he, in turn, loyally guarded me. We talked for many hours, many a day, about the sicknesses that plague the minds of humans and ponies. I was his confidant, and he was mine. I don't know the full details of what happened when he was with you, but I can tell you he was not the same man he was in the stories he told you."

Blanche stared at the Dreamwarden. "And Dreamwardens can't state something they don't believe to be true."

"Not in the dream," Psychic Calm replied.

"But Dreamwardens can be wrong about what they believe," Blanche pressed.

"True," Psychic Calm admitted, still in a monotone, but the light around us seemed to dim. "However, I had much more experience dealing with him than you. I may not be able to convince you that he was worthy of my friendship, nor may I be able to convince you he was a changed man, but I request that you not be so vocal in your disdain of him in my presence. Whether you think him worthy of being my friend or not is irrelevant. He was my friend. A friend I will never get to see again and didn't get a chance to say goodbye to."

Blanche took notice of the fading light and must have decided that continuing to anger the Warden of Peace might be very foolish because she silently nodded. He nodded back, then vanished.

"I'm going to do it. I'm going to take a semester off and take care of my mom," Roger said firmly. "Just one semester. It's just as well. I wouldn't be able to focus on school right now. It's better to take a semester off than flunk out the first semester."

I hugged him again, tighter. "It feels like we barely got to know you and you're already leaving. You might have been the competition, but for a little while, we were all in this together. We had an adventure together. You need to hang around Skytree long enough for us to throw you a going away party."

He chuckled. "I'd like that. It's actually a bit of a relief not being in the running anymore. The pressure to please them wasn't the big deal, it was the pressure about what would happen if I won. I guess I'm just not cut out for it."

"Yeah, it is kinda demanding. The stuff they require is hard to deal with," Sunflower said quietly.

Blanche shook her head. "I'm surprised that the two of you didn't get dismissed for the same reason as him. The Dreamwardens had to be examining you for the same thing. The two of you would have been the last two of us I would have expected to be willing to be that cold."

Sunflower stepped away from Roger and looked away. She didn't say anything for a few seconds before replying, "This job is bigger than our feelings. Sometimes doing the necessary thing can be painful. I knew what I might expose my family to, and they know too, and we all agreed if it ever came up that I would do what was responsible instead of what I want, no matter how much it hurts."

The human frowned and looked at me. "And you?"

I walked over next to Sunflower and put my wing on her as I faced Blanche. "I'd thought about it before. I was always hesitant to get in a relationship because I knew what I could expose my loved ones to. I still don't think I will ever have foals for the same reason. I'm willing to risk the relationship now, but Russell and I both know what can happen, and we know what I have to do if it does. Though I admit I only recently came to that full conclusion."

"What about you, Blanche?" Sunflower asked. "I know you dropped out, but could you do it?"

She smirked. "The good thing about dropping out of the race is I don't have to figure that out." Her smirked shifted into a slight frown. "But that isn't an honest answer. The honest answer is that I'm willing to lay my life down for someone else, but I'm not willing to have them do the same for me. I guess I'd have been dismissed if I hadn't already conceded."

"Same," Jonathan said. "It's part of why I conceded to begin with. I knew this question was coming, and if you had asked me before Blanche and I went to that other world, I would have given another answer, but things changed; we changed.

Blanche's smirk returned as she turned her attention to Roger. "I guess we owe you an apology. If we hadn't already dropped out, you wouldn't have to have been dismissed by yourself today. The Dreamwardens would have kicked all three of us out of the running together."

Roger chuckled. "I admit, being singled out like that hurt my feelings."

I hung my head. "I guess we won't be seeing much of you guys after Roger's party, will we?"

Blanche laughed. "Oh, you'll be seeing Jonathan and me. Do you honestly think we won't hang around to help whoever wins out? The two of you need someone to keep you out of trouble. I think you proved that by bashing your head into that wall. I lament either of you trying to navigate politics by yourselves. Roger might have managed, but you two are hopeless."

Jonathan raised his hand and smiled. "Willing to lay my life down for someone else."

I smiled. "Going the bodyguard route?"

Blanche cocked an eyebrow at us. "Can you think of anybody better? Better to sit behind the throne than on it."

Chapter 112: An Even More Epic Battle!

DING DING DING DING

"Wakey-wakey, eggs and gravy!"

I blinked away sleep and flattened my ears against the noise. It was still dark. What time was it?

"Ah! You're awake! Come on, out of bed! Get that blood moving! Stretch those wings!"

I rolled over to see the source of the noise. It was Julie. She'd had a speaker with an alarm sound pushed right up next to me.

"Uh, hi," I mumbled as I continued to blink and try to decipher what was happening. "Nice to see you again. Why are you waking me up?"

"Why is she waking all of us up is a better question!" Meadow yelled from the bathroom. "Tone it down. Greta is going to be knocking on our door if you keep that up!"

Julie grinned, and the next thing I knew, I was being pulled out of bed by her muscular wings and into one of her patented Julie bear hugs.

"It's time to do workouts!" Julie practically sang as she swung me around like a rag doll, a heavy rag doll.

"Worphouts?" I mumbled into her wings.

She released me. "Yep! Workouts! We are going to turn you into a bowling ball so if you ever have to ram a wall again you'll make a dent in something other than your head."

"Julie! She hasn't even gotten to settle back in yet!" Meadow fussed. "After their ordeal, they deserve a day to rest!"

"Or at least let the rest of us rest!" Ashley called out. "It's barely five in the morning!"

I gave my roommate a warm smile. "Maybe not today, Julie."

Her smile fell off her face into a pout in a mere millisecond. Her lips had dropped faster than I did when trying to fly in a storm.

"But I'll work out with you…what's today?" I asked, not even sure what day of the week it was.

"It's Friday," Julie informed me.

I nodded. "I'll work out with you tomorrow, I promise. First thing in the morning. I need to spend today catching up with my professors."

Julie hugged me again. "Oh! I'm so glad you're back. This room is so lonely without you. Nighty is off snuggling with her fiance half the time, leaving me all by myself in this room. Ashley's been snappy and hiding out. I've been stuck with just Meadow for company."

"You say it like it's a bad thing to hang out with me!" Meadow yelled as she entered the room.

"I haven't been snappy. I just can't take your hugging. You know I don't like being touched!" Ashley shouted from the other room.

"Hey…has anybody seen Sunflower?" Meadow said suddenly as she glanced back into her room.

Julie looked around. "Nighty isn't here either, but that's hardly new."

"Relax," Ashley from the bathroom doorway. "Sunflower was up before any of you, and she asked Nightscape to help her with some training. Nightscape is probably giving her a workout right now."

Julie pouted again. "Workouts without me? I'm the workout pony."

Ashley smiled. "I don't think you are going to be much help with combat training."

I blinked. "Combat training? Sunflower? Why is Sunflower doing combat training? Did I miss something? Am I supposed to be combat training now? This body is not made for combat!"

Julie patted me on the back with her wing. "Well, I'm going to do my best to help with that." She looked over at Ashley. "But, shouldn't you be the one helping her with that? You're her BG, after all. Nighty is with Becky, not Sunny."

Ashley shrugged. "She wants to know about aerial combat, and I don't have wings."

"But why is she even doing it?" I asked.

Ashley leaned against the doorframe. "She doesn't want to feel helpless. You weren't here when she was talking to us last night. I know what it's like to feel helpless. During your little adventure that is what she felt. Think about the Dreamwardens. Yinyu died trying to save her foals. I'm not sure if being a better fighter would have helped her, but it couldn't have hurt. Ghadab died fighting Bedouins who wanted him and his whole tribe dead. Phobia spends her entire life under guard. Can you blame her for wanting to learn some self-defense? Plus, the candidates are down to you two. You two may be friends, but it's time that you start focusing on showing what you've got that the other doesn't if you want this job– what sets you apart. She understands this. Sunflower's magic might be far less reliable or consistently useful as yours, which could be marked against her, but I'll give her this, she's far more able to evolve to meet what challenges she sees. Our little country filly has grown a lot, and I'm sure the Dreamwardens have noticed."

Meadow fluffed her feathers. "Oh…I hope this doesn't become a full rivalry. I don't like that kind of drama, and they're both my friends."

"It's like the championship finals," Julie said. "I'm sure it will be fine when it's all over, but things might get a little intense till then."

Meadow shook her head. "I'm not so sure it gets better after. This isn't some silly collegiate competition. This is their whole future on the line. They both have huge life goals tied up in this. Losing this means surrendering those goals, or at least being denied them. That's a pretty big deal, and I could imagine the best of people being a little resentful if they lost. You can't lose this and think, oh well, better luck next time. There is no next time."

"Way to apply the pressure and soothe her nerves, Meadow," Ashley snarked.

"Sorry! I was just thinking out loud," Meadow said, aghast.

I waved it off. "It's fine. I've told the others since the beginning, I want the best candidate to win, and if that isn't me, then it isn't me. I spent all that time I was asleep answering another lightning-surprise round of questions, and I'm sure Sunflower did too. For us, we'll just be relieved when this is over. By the way…does anybody know what the capital of Turkmenistan is, and does anybody have an aspirin? Not to get into details, but I might have insulted the Turkmenistani diplomat."

Ashley laughed and walked off. "Possible future dream demi-god, everybody! I'm team Sunflower, all the way."

Meadow gave her roommate a dirty look and then looked back at me. "I'll get you an aspirin then get you to breakfast."

"I'll come too!" Julie said hurriedly. "We got to make sure you are eating some good proteins to turn that flab into hard muscle."

"As long as I get to eat, I won't complain," I assured her.

I shouldn't have told Julie I was okay with whatever she served me. There were way too many beans and nuts in my food, and I got no dessert! I was also at the cafeteria too early for Maggie to be up, so I didn't get to see her either, but I left her a message as soon as my phone was charged.

From the cafeteria, it was on to running from one professor's office to another to explain I had been held over in Equestria. I figured that it would take a lot of work to explain without mentioning there'd been a shadow monster or a bug monster, but not really. All that paperwork that the Equestrians had given me told them I had been delayed performing unspecified and classified services to the Equestrian crown that had helped avert the latest possible disaster in Equestria. It was all nice and official while not saying anything specific. Plus, Wild Growth had sent a similar letter to the school explaining why three of its students were taking longer to get home and to excuse our absence. Wild Growth was one of the school's biggest donors, so the administration was inclined to ensure that happened.

Doctor Morris was the one who was least pleased with my extra time out of class and was even less pleased that I would be missing that day's lecture as well. However, he did compliment me on my report. He even sat down and read it right in front of me– silently, not out loud. I included as many details about Crystal Empire, Mountainshade, and Well of Shade architecture as I could, did my best to try to define what I felt were the key features of each, and had even done in-depth comparisons of the two different eras of night pony architecture. I was pretty proud of my report. He ended up giving me an A- for it. I lost points because I didn't include a proper scale for my hoof-drawn depictions of buildings so people knew their dimensions and they weren't labeled as concept designs instead of drafts. That last one I felt was a nitpick, but I didn't argue. I knew he was demanding, and I still ended up with an A despite his nitpick. I was told that I'd be giving a presentation of my report first thing in class Monday, and he expected me to have larger visual aids with proper scaling. Yea for over-the-weekend homework!

It was still before lunch after I caught up with all my professors– all minus Doctor Toussaint, who I doubt noticed I'd been missing. Why did I stay enrolled in his class again? Oh, yeah, I wanted at least one class I didn't have to study for or do any homework for. That might have been bad of me, but I deserved at least one super easy class. Anyway, I checked my phone and saw Maggie had messaged me back, saying she wanted to catch up with me after her last class on the day. I also had a message from Lántiān. She wanted me to foalsit Drizzle for four hours tomorrow. No hi, how are you doing? Glad you're back. Nope, it was, you're back, get back to work. At least she remembered I was supposed to be back, and I'd get to see Jordan and Drizzle's smiling faces. I could hope for Lántiān's smiling face, but I'd likely get a scowl from her. I could live with that.

I wasn't paying attention when walking back toward the dorms when I suddenly heard loud squawking. I turned to see that I had walked a little too close to the nearby geese. Several 0f them were advancing on me with very hostile intent. Uh oh…I violated their territory. One of the first things you learn on campus is never to violate a goose's territory. Their territory was typically within five feet of wherever they might be standing at the time.

I backed away, debating flying away. The thing about flying away was the geese had wings too, and they probably flew much better than me. They'd be able to do more damage to me in the air than on the ground.

"Nice geesies, are you having a good day?" I said with my most winning smile.

HOANKK!! The lead goose bellowed as he advanced toward me, it then started hissing and flapping its wings at me.

Okay, Mister Goose was having a bad day, or was it Miss Goose? I was not an expert on goose genders. I best not say one or another. Misgendering someone was always a surefire way of making them even more angry.

I backed up some more. Then turned and bolted. This did not deter the geese from pursuing me, and me being a chubby pony who was not currently projecting, was not faster than a gaggle of animals with legs not much longer than the space between my belly and the ground. I'd survived a shadow monster, a changeling queen, and a very well-made wall, but I was not prepared for the horrors of cantankerous ganders. This was how it all ended.

Something swooped over my head. They were coming at me from multiple directions!

"Rebecca, stop!"

I stopped. Nightscape landed in front of me, wearing sunglasses. She wasn't looking at me, she was looking past me.

"Just do it as I told you, Sunflower Don't break eye contact, keep your shoulders squared up. Don't let them sense your fear," Nightscape instructed.

I turned to see Sunflower staring down the goose that was pursuing me. The bird stopped short, and hissed at her, bobbing its head rapidly. It never occurred to me until I watched the terror bird, that geese and swans were like hybrids of snakes and ducks. After my run-in with Discord's boa, I was not sure I was very fond of snakes. Geese were aggressive flying snakes, and Sunflower was staring one down. I was maybe a trifle bit jealous of her bravery.

HOANKK!! The lead goose bellowed once again, this time at Sunflower, but she stood her ground, not even flinching at the terrible battlecry.

"Just hold steady and don't break eye contact," Nightscape instructed her. "It's just a dumb bird. Once you convince it that you aren't afraid of it, it will lose its nerve. Don't make any aggressive moves. If it thinks you are going to try to attack, it won't back down, and it will try to strike first. Just hold steady. Make it think you are so dominant and unintimidated that you don't have to try to defend yourself."

The standoff continued, with the bird continuing to hiss, honk, and flap its wings. It would advance a step or two and then quickly retreat, but Sunflower held her ground. The other birds were honking loudly as if trying to incite the fight, but the goose refused to attack, only making a show of itself. Eventually, the bird turned and retreated, head down. The other birds honked together in chorus, perhaps they were laughing at their companion's cowardice.

Several nearby students let loose a cheer, and both Nightscape and I whooped as we went to congratulate our friend– who was conspicuously still standing just as still.

"Sunflower, that was awesome!" I congratulated my friend. "Thank you for saving my spotty hide!"

"Way to go, Sun. I wasn't sure you were going to have it in you," Nightscape said as she patted Sunflower's stiff form on her back.

"Can I move now?" Sunflower asked.

I looked at the gaggle who were retreating to the other side of the pond, and ponies on that side of the pond were, in turn retreating away from the gaggle who might feel they have some fight to pick with ponies after this public humiliation.

"Yeah, they're gone," I informed her.

She practically slumped to the ground. "Oh, thank God! I felt like Sunset Blessing!"

I blinked. "Because you did something everyone thought impossible and invoked a religious concept?"

She shook her head. "No, because I felt like peeing all over myself!"

Nightscape chuckled and smirked at me. "Tempest and Crystal told her old SB does that whenever she gets scared while we were over there training. Crystal's doing okay by the way. Cranky about being in a wheelchair, but should recover. Mares around the house are actually giving her props for trying to tackle something that supposedly was made to kill an alicorn."

"That's good to hear," I replied, then looked back to Sunflower. "And I thought you were very brave. I bet you could stare down a peacock."

Nightscape started vigorously shaking her head. "Nonono, do not try that with a peacock. You pull that with a peacock, and it will send you to the hospital. Know what kind of enemy you're facing whenever you try to stare one down. Geese will back down. Peacocks will take it as an open invitation to fight, and you're not ready after one training session to take on a peacock."

"There might be some life lesson in there about facing enemies in general," I giggled. "I think I'll take the lesson without putting myself in harm's way. I'm still really impressed. I'm sure that earned you points with someone, and maybe lost me some."

Nightscape leveled a glare at me. "More for not paying attention and getting yourself into that situation to begin with than not being able to stare the bird down. I mean, Phobia Remedy would have run with her tail between her legs too, but she'd never have gotten into a situation where she needed to."

I shrugged. "The lesson I'm focused on is learning to listen to my bodyguard's chastisements. I hear you, and I'll not be daydreaming while crossing the green again and therefore walking too close to the geese."

"The geese are coming back this way, and I don't have the nerve to pull that again so soon," Sunflower warned.

I was already moving. "Time to make a hasty retreat before the counterattack comes."

As we were walking at a brisk pace, Sunflower came up beside me. "By the way, Phobia Remedy wants you to visit her at your earliest convenience. She said the guards will let you in."

Great, another thing to pack into my stuffed first weekend back. No downtime for this marshmallow.

She put her head closer to me. "And she said the time for him retiring has been moved way up. We've only got a week left."

I tripped and fell flat on my face. A week?! No pressure!

Chapter 113: Dreams Dashed

The earliest convenience was what Phobia Remedy had said. Well, it felt very inconvenient to go visit her right now. Spending time with my best friend was my priority. I hadn't seen Maggie yet since being back. Granted, I hadn't been back that long, but I'd spent too much time away from being able to talk to my best friend. Friendship was magic and all that, and I wasn't going to delay seeing my best friend longer than I needed to. Phobia Remedy had a little bit of Luna in her, and Luna believed friendship was magic, so she should understand. It was afternoon now anyway. Weren't night ponies suppose to be asleep around now? It would be rude to show up while she and her family were trying to get some shut-eye, or head-cover, or whatever night ponies used as a euphemism.

So, with my lunch finished, I decided to go over to the other wing of the dorms while Nightscape went to bed, and Sunflower tried to catch all her professors in their offices on a Friday afternoon. I didn't believe that seeing her professors was possible. Professors tended to make a break for it after their last class ended on Fridays. That's why I ran around campus in the morning. It was probably better to email them. She might have better luck that way.

I didn't think Maggie's last class was quite over yet, so it was better to go knock on Blanche and Yolanda's door and hang out with them while I waited for Maggie to get back. I was placing a fifty-fifty bet Yolanda was currently shell-shocked that the girl she had been bodyguarding came back no longer needing a bodyguard because she quit trying to be a Dreamwarden and because Blanche went from being a bookworm sculptor to a macho world-saving sculptor who could probably take on any threat Yolanda could with both hands and feet tied behind her back. Then again, Wild Growth supposedly had bodyguards when at public functions, and those bodyguards were almost certainly about as useful as the Canterlot royal guard was at guarding the alicorns. Perhaps Blanche could keep a bodyguard to act as a decoy or something, or maybe Yolanda would be reassigned to guard me and Sunflower. I didn't think I needed any extra. I was a big hero too. I heroically took on that wall. Nobody takes on a wall like Rebecca Riddle…except for Wild Growth. When Wild Growth takes on a wall, the wall loses, along with the floor and the ceiling, but I softened the wall up for her!

I trotted into the dorms and headed to the human side elevator. After a short ride to the correct floor, I exited the elevator just in time to see their RA literally dragging a boy out of a room– somebody was in traaa-ble. That RA must have a little earth pony in her, that was a big dude. I wondered if he did wrestling like Russell.

I passed Maggie's door and gave the bathroommates door a soft little knock. It took five seconds before it opened with Yolanda looking down at me.

"What do you want?" she asked, keeping a neutral expression.

I beamed a smile up at her. "I wanted to hang out with Maggie, but know she isn't done with classes yet, so I thought I would hang out with you and Blanche while I wait for her to get back. I haven't seen you in a while, and I haven't seen Blanche in…well, it's been a day, but I missed all of you!"

She stared at me then gave a dejected sigh. "Come on in. You can wait in her room. Blanche isn't here."

I walked in and watched her close the door behind me. "I can still hang out with you. How's your week plus been without us around? Anything interesting happen? Have any misadventures? Adopt a pet? Stop a bank robbery? Solve world hunger? Get a boyfriend?!"

She waved me away and walked towards her bed. "No. I went to class. I ate at the cafeteria. I did a report. I also drew some…stuff. I did hang out with Maggie a bit more since it was kind of lonely around the room. I don't feel like hanging out with you or anybody else right now. Can you just go wait in Maggie's room?"

My ears sagged. "Oh, you aren't having a good day, or maybe you are feeling depressed because you were stuck here while we were off having adventures. Is there anything I can do to help cheer you up?"

She wiped her face and then looked back at me. "Can you convince Blanche to take back quitting? I mean, it was never a guarantee she would win, but she had way more leadership skills than you two fillies. It may not have been, but it felt like a sure thing, and I'd have been her bodyguard."

"Um, I don't think I can convince her of that, and she might get dismissed as a candidate if she did resend her quitting," I said.

Yolanda flopped into her bed. "You're right. If she seemed like she had cold feet previously, they aren't taking her back. I'd ask if you were interested in a bodyguard, but I have to be honest, I can only take you in small doses. I don't know if I could stand following one of you around for years."

I blinked. "This is more about you than Blanche, isn't it?"

She held a hand up and pointed one finger upward. "Bingo! Yeah, it might be selfish, but I had high hopes for the future. It was a secure paycheck, traveling the world, and being close to one of the most important people in the world. Do you know what I'm facing now? I'm a mediocre artist who is three years into a graphic design degree I won't ever make use of because the profession is overcrowded and I have nothing that distinguishes me, but I'm three years in and can't start over with something else from scratch. So, yeah, I'm having a bad day."

"Artists don't get the respect they deserve, and non-artists don't understand the stress and pressure," I said as I approached her.

She rolled over and looked at me. "You aren't an artist, you're an architect, and maybe you won't even have to be that."

I fluffed my feathers. "Architects are artists too!"

"Ones that make way more money than I ever will," she countered.

"Not always," I countered back.

She sat up. "Well, you will. Your mother is some big-shot business executive who can give you connections the rest of us can only dream of."

I fluffed my feathers some more. At this point, I looked like a white poof ball. "My mom is extremely big on me being self-sufficient. She cut my credit line as soon as I went to college. She insisted I get a job and get an apartment over the summer. I'm not going to get any handouts from my mom."

She smiled at me. "Can you, with full honesty, say that she wouldn't take time to introduce her architect daughter to her friends and colleagues who are also all big-shot executives and may be looking to hire some new architects? She isn't giving you any direct financial assistance, and you do have to prove yourself if you are going to keep your job, but it gets you something the rest of us crave, your hoof in the door and your name in their head. Most of us don't even get a chance to prove ourselves to those big-shots. Isn't that how your mother got her foot in the door? Yinyu drew Wild Growth's attention to some down-on-their-luck nobody on the streets who had never been given a chance?"

My fur unpoofed. "I think you're right. Everybody needs a friend to help give them a leg up sometimes. We don't make it very far in life without friends, and having friends with influence helps even more. I want to help give as many people a friend as I can, and maybe I'll be a little influential. I know I can't be there for everyone who needs it, but I can do what I can to make a difference." I looked up at her sitting on the bed. "But I'm not sure I could give you that foot in the door that you want so much."

She swung her legs around and sat on the side of the bed. "Why? Because I called you out on your privilege?"

I gave a sad shake of my head. "No, you are right about my privilege, and it has given me major advantages you never got, and I may continue to get those– I probably will, and maybe they are unfair advantages. I can't be mad at you for telling the truth."

She scowled deeper at me. "So why? Do you just not like me?"

I shook my head. "Because you don't have faith in yourself. You're the one who called yourself mediocre. I don't know if that is true or not. I haven't seen your work, but I know how you feel about it. You don't need a friend to help you get your foot in the door. Getting your foot in the door when you have no confidence in yourself is only setting you up to fail. You need a friend who can help you feel good about being you, and what you can do. If you can get that together, maybe I can help with getting you those connections you desire."

"Seriously?! You won't help me out because I'm not confident enough for you?" Yolanda demanded.

I sadly shook my head.."You aren't, but that doesn't mean you can't get there. Blanche is your friend, and she just went through a life-changing experience…um, did she tell you about her life-changing experience?"

Yolanda crossed her arms. "No, yesterday she said she gave up on being a candidate, that she was tired, and she would talk to me later today after she was done talking to the register and another school about transferring."

That caught me off guard. "She's transferring? Where? Why?"

Yolanda waved a hand. "Don't worry; she isn't going far. She's trying to transfer to SBBPSU– that's like two miles away, and I don't know why. She said she wants a different career and it would be a better school for her."

I blinked. "What does SBBPSU stand for?"

"I don't know," she answered with a shrug. "They specialize in criminal justice, political science, international law, all kinds of legal stuff."

The door opened behind me and Blanche glanced at me before entering and shutting the door. "Hello, Rebecca. Is this a social visit?"

"What does SBBPSU stand for?" I asked.

"Sunset Blessing Blessingist Political Science University, and, no, Sunset Blessing doesn't have anything to do with the school or its policies, other than having her name used as a marketing ploy. They pay her some sort of annual fee to be able to use her name. I think it would be easier if they just changed the name to Blessingist University and save themselves the money, but apparently, there is already a place called Blessingist University in Orlando," Blanche answered.

I tilted my head. "You're a Blessingist now?"

"I have Blessingist sympathies, but I don't claim to be one," Blanche answered. "I felt it would be better for my chosen path to brush up on international law and politics. It seemed like something you and Sunflower were dreadfully lacking knowledge about and could use some extra support with. You haven't answered my question."

I looked back and forth. "Oh, I told Maggie I was going to hang out with her after she was done with class and figured I'd hang out with you two while I waited for her. So how did it go with the transfer thing that Yolanda was talking about?"

She walked over to a chair and sat down. "I still have to go through an application process. I was going to see if Phobia Remedy could give me a recommendation. Her recommendation goes a long way in this city, and even further with the Blessingists who associate her more with being her mother's daughter rather than a Dreamwarden."

"Powerful people, opening doors for others," Yolanda muttered.

"Hmm? What was that?" Blanche asked, looking over at her.

"I think you and Yolanda need to sit down and have a heart-to-heart. She's having a crisis of confidence," I informed her. "Her hopes and dreams just went up in a puff of smoke, so it is kinda understandable why she's suddenly being so hard on herself and doubting her capabilities. People do that when their major plans get derailed, but it isn't healthy. She needs a good friend."

Blanche gave a half-chuckle. "You may not have the least bit of sense when it comes to a lot of things, but you seem to get people. I figure I need to get used to you instructing me to help cheer up a friend. I can see both you and Sunflower pulling that a lot. Luckily, Yolanda is my friend, and I know you've read the situation right. She and I will work this out, and I wanted to tell her about my adventures anyway. I don't want you loafing around on your fat flank giving helpful commentary or asking me tons of annoying questions while she and I talk, so go bugger off."

"How are you going to help us if you are going to be going to another school?" I pouted.

She laughed. "I'm still going to be attending classes here till the end of the semester, even if my application is accepted. After that, I'm still nearby. Maybe we can all get an apartment or small house nearby, rather than staying in dorms. At least one of you will be getting a living wage from the OMMR, and the personal bodyguard gets a lot more than that. We should be able to afford something."

Yolanda let off a loud sigh.

"Maybe, don't talk about your large upcoming income around her," I suggested.

Blanche looked sideways at Yolanda again. "She might see a turn of fortunes soon, but I won't ruin the surprise."

Yolanda stood up. "What do you mean? What surprise?"

"You know you ruin surprises by even mentioning there is a surprise, right?" I asked. "Nobody can be surprised after you tell them they're about to be surprised. That's why you keep your mouth shut. Um, what surprises are we talking about?"

She chuckled again. "You'll find out soon enough. There are things in motion. Why don't you wait in the lobby for Maggie, and give the two of us privacy."

Urgh! Why did she have to tease me with the mention of a surprise and then leave me hanging? This was surely some form of torture. Oh well, I wasn't going to butt into a conversation they wanted to be private. I decided to do as she asked, and wait in the lobby.

Chapter 114: Marriage And Parenting

Maggie slammed her fist against her steering wheel, making me jump in my seat.

"What the hell were you thinking?!" she demanded.

"That I wanted to hang out with my best friend," I helpfully responded.

Maggie turned the car. "One of the people who hold your future in their hooves asked you to show up at your earliest convenience. Why didn't you head straight over there?"

"She said the earliest convenience, it wasn't convenient."

"I'm not going to be the reason you don't win this thing. That is not going on my conscience," Maggie said fiercely.

"You're speeding. You might want to slow down," I said as I watched the scenery whip by.

"You're already running extremely late!"

"Um, she didn't set a time, so I can't be late. Slow down, you might get in an accident. Plus the people in the old town are strict about following rules, so they'd ticket you for sure," I replied worriedly.

"There's no police in Riverview Old Town to give me a ticket. They police themselves," Maggie said, but she did decrease the car's speed. Maybe the self-policing citizens were enough to give her pause. It was early evening, and the night ponies were out.

"I thought you didn't like Dreamwardens and don't like Phobia Remedy in particular," I said as we entered the old neighborhoods. All the houses here predated the Cataclysm, and many predated ETS.

She grunted. "I don't like them, but you could be a nicer one, and this is something that should be important to you. You're my friend, my best and oldest friend, and I'm looking out for you."

"Aww! That's sweet of you, but this isn't necessary. She said at my earliest convenience, and Phobia Remedy never lies. She wasn't telling me to rush over to her. I've got a whole week before they make a decision."

I lurched forward as she suddenly tapped the brakes, but she didn't come to a full stop. She took a deep breath.

"What do you mean a week?" she asked. "I thought this was being decided in November. That's still weeks away."

"Psychic Calm is moving up his retirement. He just suffered a major loss and it made him more eager to leave," I explained.

"Why didn't you mention that first when you were telling me about your trip?" Maggie asked in exasperation.

I shrugged, or at least tried to, I hated seat harnesses. "It didn't seem that important compared to everything else. I mean, I had an adventure with two big monsters, a chaos god, a manticore, ancient ruins, dark magic, and me getting injured. That seemed way more interesting."

"That was interesting, but this is more important," she stressed. "Anyway, we're almost there. I'll wait in the car while you go in. I don't want to go in there again, and it's probably stuff I'm not allowed to hear anyway."

My ears folded. "I don't know how long this is going to take. For all we know, you could be sitting out in the car for hours."

"I can catch up on writing my fanfics while I wait. I have that one where Riker and Worf are fighting over Dianna, but end up hooking up instead that has been on hiatus since I started classes."

"That plot is so overdone," I said. "You should focus on that one with La Forge and O'Brien. That one is more creative. Nobody does that ship."

"Maybe," Maggie said as she pulled up in front of Phobia Remedy's house. "Anyway, we're-"

CRASH!!

Phobia Remedy's son, Nightmare Moon, landed right on the hood of Maggie's car engine. Not really landed; more like got hurtled down and smashed into it on his side.

"What the fuck!!" Maggie yelled.

Moon wasn't on the hood for long, he rolled off and took to the air as if he hadn't just crashed hard into a huge hunk of plastic. There was a dent in Maggie's engine hood. He wasn't fully grown, but he was a big colt– as tall as me despite not being full grown and the bowling ball to my beach ball. It was like a shetland pony had hit the car.

"Someone is going to pay for-" Maggie started to yell, but Arachne went hurtling straight in front of the window, barely missing the car, as if she'd been flung by some giant. A second later, her sister followed in the same fashion. Both managed to right themselves in the air before they could crash into the road and started gaining rapid altitude.

"I don't think this is a good time to visit," I said as I waited for yet another night pony to be used as a projectile in our direction.

"Pause the match!" I heard Tempest yell.

Maggie looked livid as she stared at the damage to her vehicle. "Somebody is paying for that! I hope it can still drive!"

Tempest Shadow walked up next to Maggie's window as Maggie lowered it. "My apologies," Tempest said. "The foals and I were having our weekly sparring session, the three of them at once against me. Most regular visitors know to avoid coming at this hour on this day since the sessions can get a bit intense. I still should have been paying more attention to bystanders. The fault is mine, I will pay for any damages."

"Is Moonie okay?" I asked worriedly as I looked at the dent. "He crashed pretty hard."

Tempest glanced backward for a moment before returning her gaze to me. "Moon, like you, knows how to crash without seriously injuring himself, but I will still be giving him an examination. I'm sure he was as caught off guard about the car being here as I was."

"That was a sparring session?!" Maggie asked in disbelief. "They're teens! You can't be doing that to them!"

Tempest frowned down at Maggie. "They may be teens, but they are among the most accomplished and dangerous fighters of their tribe, perhaps already the most dangerous. I should know, I trained them. At this point, keeping them at bay during a session involves me having to devote my entire focus to them and fighting with my full capability. I may soon have to start fighting them one-on-one. They have become too formidable as a team for me to pull my punches or kicks, and these night pony mares make inadequate sparring partners for any of the three."

"You hear that? Tempest can't take us all on!" a filly shouted.

"We're too much for her!" a different filly cackled. It was hard to tell which was Charlotte and which was Arachne.

Tempest turned to look at the source of the voices. "Where is your brother? Was he injured?"

The pair flew over and landed on the front of Maggie's car, much to my friend's dismay, but they ignored Maggie shaking her fist angrily at them.

"Little brother got a boo-boo, and he has all the mares fighting to kiss it and make it all better," Arachne said with a giggle.

Charlotte nodded with a big grin on her face. "Moonie has them bandaging up his side, telling him how brave he was, and feeding him strawberries by hoof. Oh, poor pathetic little Moonie got an ouchie! He needs to be doted on by all the prettiest mares!"

Tempest sighed. "I guess it is a minor injury. Good." She then looked at me. "You're expected. I will be making calls for the others to come now. Phobia anticipated that you would drag your hooves getting here and that we would set this meeting by your schedule."

"See! What I tell you!" Maggie shouted in triumph. She then went back to scowling and pointed to the front of her car. "And what about that?"

"Get off there, fillies. You know better," Tempest said, shooing them away. The twins hopped off the car onto the ground. "Crystal is normally the mechanic around here, but she is indisposed. I think there is at least one mechanic among the other mares. I will have them look at it and they can determine the costs to repair it and whether it will give you any trouble driving home. I expect that it is only cosmetic damage, but I don't know much about cars. I get paid a large salary but have few costs of living, I can afford to pay whatever the cost of repair is, or buy you a new car if it comes down to that. I could offer that now if it would make it easier to resolve this."

Maggie blinked. "A new car? As in, new-new car, not a used one?"

"Yes, I would not have you getting a car that could come with potential problems," Tempest said.

"You can afford that? Just buy a new car straight off the lot in full? How much money do you have laying around?" Maggie asked in bewilderment.

Tempest rubbed her chin. "I'm not sure of the exact figure. A few million dollars, but I couldn't say the total. I rarely check it or do much spending."

Maggie leaned back in her seat. "I'm in school for the wrong thing."

"Um…I don't think you can do Tempest's job. I don't think you'd want to," I said. "Crystal just came back in a wheelchair, and Psychic Calm's bodyguard came back in a coffin. Heck, Tempest was just fighting the three most dangerous night ponies at once. Her job is paid well because it is dangerous."

"I believe the term the OMMR uses is hazard pay," Tempest confirmed.

"I wasn't serious, I was just surprised," Maggie said. "Go to your meeting thing. Tall dark and loaded and I are going to talk cars"

I pulled at my harness. "Um, can you help me with this?"

Maggie sighed and helped unfasten me. "You and car harnesses."

"They aren't made for ponies who like food," I said as I was released.

I got out of the car and walked towards the house. The twins were in a shoving and name-calling match on the ground beside Tempest's feet, but laughing as they did it. I wondered if I would do that if I had a sibling. Jordan and Jackie seemed to do that on a lesser scale. I wasn't sure whether Jess and Robby did the same thing. The Dreamwardens certainly did it to each other, constantly, and they considered themselves siblings, even though there was no blood relation. I was pretty sure I could throw down with them.

Moon was on the porch, and he was surrounded by older mares who were practically crooning to him. That was kinda creepy. He was thirteen. Sure, he was as big as a full-grown stallion, but anyone looking at him could tell he was still a colt. His proportions were all coltish, even if they were bigger than normal. He had a bandage on his side and they really were feeding him strawberries. I wondered what his mother thought about this.

Robby was standing at the door, giving Moon the stink eye. At least one person in the family didn't think well about the thirteen-year-old getting treated with such open affection by a bunch of grown mares.

"Go on in. I made a call to Nightscape and she's taking care of the rest," Robby said, as he stepped away from the door. He turned towards the mares and spread his wings wide before hissing. They all gave him a dirty look as he lowered his wings. "Can any of you spell pedophile? I can, and I'm willing to write it out to a nice police officer if they ask me to, along with some names."

The group of them backed away from Moon, but they seemed reluctant. Moon didn't seem happy about his admirers leaving him. I guess this was the life of a celebrity kid. He didn't have tons of money, but he had looks and a famous mom, grandma, and aunt. If I ever had foals, they'd at least be spared the celebrity status if I became Dreamwarden and kept my identity secret. They probably wouldn't need the brutal self-defense classes either.

Phobia Remedy was laying on one of the couches. "Good, you're here." She lifted her head and called out the open door. "Robby, chase everyone off the porch and keep them away, and tell my son he and I are going to talk later. Inform Tempest which ones you observed with my son."

Robby chuckled. "With pleasure." Well, at least Phobia Remedy wasn't ignoring what went on with her son.

I glanced around the room as he shut the door. Everything was pretty much the same as the last time I was here, except for the glass case. It was still there, but the only thing in it was a raggedy dress, not the full doll.

"I gave the doll to Moses, as promised. Arachne was the one who knitted the new dress. I'm not that skilled with a needle and thread. Ponies born as Ponies tend to be so much more dexterous with their hooves, and my daughter is almost as good a seamstress as a fighter," Phobia Remedy explained. "Moses is quite the special foal. I have my eye on him, much as Yinyu did you. We can't help scouting our potential replacements years in advance."

That took me by surprise. "He's going to be your replacement?"

"He's a candidate, just like you were a candidate," Phobia clarified "He has an early preference from me, as he has abilities that can coincide with what I stand for, understanding fear. He is still young, and there is no telling how he will develop. Maybe he will remain a viable candidate, or maybe he won't, but it doesn't hurt to monitor his progress in the coming years. If I can ever get him out of the prison they call a medical installation."

"Oh," I replied. "So, what's up? Declaring me the winner?"

"No," Phobia Remedy replied. "Make yourself comfortable. We're waiting on Jonathan, Ashley, Yolanda, and Sunflower. I know they will come as soon as possible when I make the request, but you would take your time. This wasn't urgent, so I decided to see how long it would take. I honestly didn't think you would come until at least Sunday. This was much more prompt than I expected."

"You were testing me on how fast I would respond?" I asked. "Um, you should know, I was going to wait a few more hours, but Maggie found out you asked me to come over, and she practically shoved me in her car."

"Still faster than I expected, and honesty has value," she said. "Make yourself comfortable. I expect them to be quick."

"Okay," I replied. I made my way over to another couch across from her and climbed onto it. "I have a question."

"What is it?"

"How did a thin pony like you give birth to a giant like Moon?" I asked with full sincerity.

She stared at me for a few seconds before answering. "He was a bit of a runt when he was younger. Both his sisters were larger than him, and he was very timid. His growth spurt started a little over a year ago when he got his mark. I think you heard, but it has been very hard keeping the mares away from him. I have made it clear none of them are to make any sexual advances on him, at least until he is of age, but it is hard to stop them from fawning all over him. Even if he wasn't my son and all that entails, he is going to be a very attractive stallion. His sisters and his godbrother keep extra eyes on him for me. If I end up a grandmother before he reaches eighteen, I won't be shocked– angry, yes, but not shocked. I try to explain to him this attention is not healthy, and I don't have the same issues with his sisters, but it is hard to get him to listen when he feels like he is getting nothing but positive attention from mares. If it weren't for the fact it would put my family in additional danger and gravely insult much of the night pony tribe, I would banish all these mares from the house."

I looked around. "Where's your wife? Shouldn't she be helping give talks to your foals?"

Phobia sighed. "She is currently attending a charity event in my place. She frequently does that since I tend to avoid public spaces, but ignoring all these people requesting me as a guest would insult a lot of people, so she steps in for me. She devotes more of her time to my son and daughters than me. However, she and I have some disagreements about Moon. While she will certainly chase those mares off, she is not so keen to chase off the fillies. She feels very strongly about trying to ensure the future of the night pony tribe. A big part of that future revolves around our numbers. In particular, she feels stallions have a duty and obligation to mate, and she favors them mating with multiple mares. That means she is pleased when multiple fillies are fawning over my son. It is a point of contention between us, but our marriage agreement said that she has the ultimate authority involving family and household matters. I rule the dream realm and she rules the roost."

I blinked. "I thought they all just did what you ordered. You walk into a room, and everybody just freezes. You said you were going to talk to your son."

Phobia nodded. "I am still the Warden of Fear, and even my family takes note of that when I come into the room. Rosetta may be able to overrule anything I say or do with our foals, but that doesn't mean I'm uninvolved. She can't be expected to give every lecture and deal with every issue. Parenting is a team effort, even if one parent gets to make the final decisions. In regards to most issues involving our foals, we agree, and Rosetta will be displeased just as much about what was going on the porch as I was. Those are grown mares. My son is barely a teen."

"Well, I'm glad you two agree about that. I hope there aren't too many fights," I said.

She shrugged. "We argue about some things in private, but it rarely becomes too heated. She does listen to my concerns if we disagree, and typically we resolve a compromise. When no compromise can be reached, our roles in the family are defined, and I accept her decisions. I know you are dating now. If anything were to advance to marriage, I recommend that you take the time before you get married to discuss parenting, household budget, how work impacts the family, and decide who gets the final say if there is a disagreement you can't come to a compromise on. When such disagreements happen, and they will, even in the best marriages, someone has to make a final choice on what to do and the other has to accept it. Define those roles before you get married. If you do get this job, know that any future spouse has to make a lot of sacrifices for your sake. They need the freedom to define boundaries and feel like they have active control over something, otherwise, they will feel like a prisoner to your job and become unhappy. No matter how much you love each other, a marriage can't survive if your spouse feels helpless and trapped."

Before I could sit and consider how that would go with me and Russell, should we advance that far, the front door opened, and Robby let in a huffing and puffing Sunflower.

"Ah! Miss Smiles, you are as prompt as I expected," Phobia said. She smiled at me. "See? I tell you to do something, and you take your time. I tell her to do something, and she flies so hard to get here she is out of breath. Please, take a seat, Sunflower. Take time to relax and catch your breath. I assume the others will be joining us shortly."

Sunflower practically crawled across the floor to the same couch I was on and climbed up beside me.

"Ashley and Yolanda are coming," Sunflower said between breaths. "Yolanda is giving Ashley a ride. I wanted to get here as fast as possible, so I flew ahead."

Phobia nodded. "So we see. I appreciate your zeal, but it was unwarranted. We must still wait for the others. Getting here faster served no benefit if we still have to wait, and it wore you out. I advise you to consider such details in the future. Those who rush make mistakes, and they tend to be more stressed and exhausted."

My ears perked up. "Wait, so I was right to take my time getting over here?"

Phobia raised an eyebrow at me. "If you had taken as long as I expected you would, I would have considered that slothful. There is a middle ground to everything. Take time to consider your actions, but don't drag your hooves. I have a rough guess of how long our three remaining guests should take. Can I get either of you something to drink, perhaps a snack?"

"Cake, please!" I shouted right away.

"Just some water, thank you," Sunflower replied.

Phobia chuckled. "As predicted. Rebecca, would you do me a favor in assisting me in bringing in the snacks? I have prepared a little something for everyone…and please don't eat everyone else's food."

Chapter 115: See Saw of Emotions

"About damn time," Yolanda muttered as Jonathan came into the living room. He was the last of the guests Phobia Remedy had said were coming, and the one that had the furthest to travel.

Sunflower and I were on one couch. Phobia Remedy was on a couch by herself, as no one was eager to get close to the Warden of Fear, and she in turn wasn't eager to have anyone close to her. Yoland was standing in one corner, a cup of coffee in hand. Ashley was in another corner, levitating her own cup of coffee in front of her. There was a half-eaten chocolate cake with cream icing on the coffee table in front of me and Sunflower, along with a mostly empty glass of water. I'd offered to share, but no one had taken me up on the offer. I'd finish it later.

Jonathan closed the door behind him. "Sorry, I was making some arrangements, and speaking to my parents about my immediate change in career path and dropping out of college. They were a little shocked."

Ashley set her coffee down on the floor. "Who is this guy and why do I care if he just dropped out of college?"

Phobia smiled and gestured at an open overstuffed chair. "Please, sit, Jonathan. Forgive Miss Santos for her rudeness. Ghadab is the one who recommended her services, and you have met my brother." She turned and looked at Ashley. "Miss Santos, this is Jonathan Dexter. You should get to know him better. If Sunflower does not end up becoming Dreamwarden, then you may have an option of alternative employment guarding Mister Dexter. The pay grade will be very high for being his bodyguard, higher than even Tempest's salary. We understand Jonathan's current bodyguard and Nightscape intend to withdraw from the bodyguard lifestyle once the selection has been made. We are offering the opportunity to guard Mister Dexter to those remaining bodyguards who might not have anyone to bodyguard anymore."

I waved both my forehooves. "Quick question that you are probably about to answer but I can't stand the suspense– why are they guarding Jonathan and why are they getting paid so much to do it?"

Sunflower's ears partially sagged. "Did you convince him not to quit and you're choosing him instead of one of us to be the heir?"

Phobia Remedy shook her head. "Jonathan, would you be so kind to inform the others of the job you were offered and accepted?"

Jonathan nodded. "I am to be the new head director of the OMMR."

We all gasped, aside from Phobia and Jonathan, and there were a few seconds of stunned silence.

"But he's only eighteen and has no experience!" Yolanda said, gesturing at him.

"I spent about a year on another world, even if it didn't seem to be much time at all for the rest of you. I am more technically nineteen. I also gained some skills directing forces on that other world," Jonathan replied.

"He's still young and has never worked for the OMMR. Why are you giving him the director's seat?" Yolanda pressed.

"Because he is the first line of defense for whoever our new Dreamwarden is," Phobia Remedy explained, but not very clearly. I was still confused.

Ashley sighed. "He's a red herring."

Sunflower gasped. "I get it. Psychic Calm is retiring, and when he retires, you suddenly appoint this person that seems like they have no business being in charge of the Dreamwardens' law enforcement division to the top seat. Everyone will assume he is the new Dreamwarden because that is the only thing that makes sense."

I raised a wing. "I was just about to say that– once I figured it out. I would have, in a second or two."

"I'm sure you would have, but Sunflower did beat you to it," Phobia Remedy said.

"Point to me?" Sunflower said hopefully.

"Oh, I don't do points. That is Ghadab and Yinyu's thing. Those two like to make everything a game, but it has no bearing on the final selection. I suppose it passes the time for them," Phobia said while rolling her eyes.

"Well, there goes my understanding of how this selection process goes," I said dejectedly.

Yolanda seemed to be considering. "So, mister serial killer here-"

"I'm not a serial killer," Jonathan said.

She waved a hand at his face. "You look like a serial killer, and have you ever seen that old show called Dexter, Mister Dexter?"

Jonathan did a slight tilt of his head and shrugged.

"I apologize for Yolanda's crass attitude," Phobia said.

Jonathan shrugged again. "I dealt with Blanche and Ulysses for a year. I'm used to it. I think I would feel like something was missing if I wasn't hearing insults tossed back and forth before bed. Last night was a struggle to fall asleep. I think she and I can get along, in time."

Yolanda clicked her tongue. "As I was saying, Dexter here is expected to run the OMMR despite not having any experience with the organization. Even if it is a big plan to make him look like the most poorly hidden secret Dreamwarden ever, won't it be bad for the OMMR to have some inexperienced prick who doesn't know what he's doing in charge?"

Ashley took a sip of her coffee and sat it down. "Because he won't be in charge. He'll be a figurehead. Somebody else will be in charge. The Dreamwardens aren't dumb enough to actually put him in charge."

"You are partially right," Phobia Remedy replied. "He will be a figurehead, to begin with. My brother, the Warden of Order, will be running things, as he has been. However, my brother will also be training Jonathan here on how to run things so he can eventually run them in truth. My brother has better things to do than to forever push papers. He has transformed the OMMR into an effective enforcement division that dictates how mind magic cases are handled in most nations from a ragtag group of agents who had to practically beg local law enforcement to allow them to assist with cases. Krik may have done most of the foundation, but the Warden of Order has greatly refined it. Jonathan simply needs to keep that ticking until the next Warden in that line comes along and evolves the OMMR to its next stage."

I frowned. "The next stage? That sounds kinda ominous. What's the next stage? Why does there need to be a next stage?"

Phobia climbed down from her couch and walked over to the glass case holding the old doll's dress, and she stared at it like it held all the answers in the world.

"I tell you this not to scare you away, but to give you a grim reality. The Dreamwardens exist in a state of constant distress. It isn't active, more something that gnaws at the back of our minds, an unease we are never able to completely shake. We see into the minds of others, and we see danger. We see chaos that is always on the brink of breaking free and striking down this world or leaving it too fragmented and broken to defend itself against outside threats. We see these things, and we are powerless and helpless, for the Oaths confine us, and we can't warn of the dangers lurking in the shadows. In truth, dreams can lie, so we can never be sure of the true level of danger. We must be able to recognize the truth from fantasy. We must have a way of alerting others of the perils that are true. We need an accurate vision of the world, not merely shadows."

"You need a worldwide spy network that can put all other intelligence networks to shame," Jonathan concluded.

Sunflower frowned, and I did too. I knew we were both thinking the same thing. Being a Drramwarden was invasive as it was. Dreamwardens watched everyone in their dreams, but at least the Oaths protected everyone from them using that information. Information learned in the physical world was not protected by those Oaths. Sure, governments did the same thing, but they were, well, governments, and people questioned the morality of that. The Dreamwardens could say, we're the good guys– we're only doing this to help people, but didn't every government say the same thing?

Phobia glanced at us and sighed. "I see you both have misgivings about the direction we wish to take this. You are not alone. This is something that the Dreamwardens are divided on as well, and considering the fact that it seems we are replacing one Dreamwarden with misgivings with another, we shall continue to be divided with what will assuredly be a split vote when it comes time to vote to go forward with it or not. We are not yet prepared to start looking into expanding our spy operations, and we won't be for many years yet. Jonathan's job will be to simply maintain and strengthen the OMMR's current enforcement operations and goodwill with law enforcement and military agencies. He will not be in charge of trying to advance a spy ring. All such decisions are settled by vote, and whoever gains Psychic Calm's position shall have their vote, and all six Dreamwardens will have their time to voice their opinions and arguments. We had previously employed the night ponies in a pseudo spy network, but as time goes on, their de facto allegiance to us wanes, particularly since every Dreamwarden that has been raised to replace another has come from outside the night pony tribe. They question our commitment to them, and so give less commitment to us. This has complicated what intelligence gathering we currently have. Not choosing night ponies helps build goodwill with the nations since night ponies are viewed as more likely to be authoritarian in their enforcement– a biased and unfair assessment, but every choice we make has consequences, and the slow loss of night pony devotion weakens us in our mission. You would not believe the number of severe mind magic abuses that went unreported to Princess Luna during her banishment to her moon because no one gave her any devotion."

"They aren't wrong about your habit of monologuing. I think I almost fell asleep there. So, if you're done assaulting us with words, can you tell me if guarding Dexter pays well?" Yolanda asked.

"I prefer you just call me Jonathan," Jonathan said.

"If I'm well paid, I'll call you whatever you want," Yolanda replied. "Except Daddy or any other innuendo. I do have some standards."

"I don't understand," Sunflower said, looking baffled by Yolanda's comment.

I gave her my most dejected look– eyes downcast, wings dragging the ground (that takes work with my physique), tail limp between my legs. "I thought we did a better job corrupting you with college life. How did we fail so badly?"

Ashley shook her head "It's hard to believe there can be anyone who can withstand the corrupting influence of dorm life. We should get her drunk."

"Hey! I've never been drunk," I said defensively.

Ashley raised an eyebrow at me. "Seriously? I would have thought you could drink the way you eat. Hold on…that's your secret; you can down all that alcohol and just keep finding room for more, just like cake. But, out of honest curiosity, are you both alcohol virgins?"

"What's that mean?" Sunflower asked. "I've never had sex if you mean that. I didn't think you had either."

"I've had alcohol. I just don't care for it," I answered.

Sunflower looks away shyly. "Um, I've been drunk, once. There was this big party back home and somebody spiked the punch. I had a lot of punch. My family thought it was hilarious. Oh no! Am I going to lose points for that?"

"Phobia said she doesn't do points," I reminded her.

"You two are about equal in the innocent department," Ashley chuckled. "One of you has never been drunk and the other doesn't have a dirty vocabulary past the elementary school level. Actually, Sunflower is much more innocent. Meadow wanted to be nice and wash both your beddings while you two were gone, and we found something special in Rebecca's pillowcase. Meadow about had a heart attack when she picked it up. Sunflower didn't have anything like that in her pillow. Rebecca is more corrupt."

Sunflower gasped. "It wasn't drugs, was it?"

Ashley gave her a flat look. "No, it was something she sticks in her marehood to imitate a hyperactive male appendage. It was big."

I turned pink. "Who all saw it?"

She gave me an evil look. "We all saw it. Nightscape was very impressed. Julie wondered how much of a workout it gave you and started looking up how many calories ponies can burn riding a-"

I sank off the couch to the floor between it and the coffee table and covered my head with my wings like I was a night pony. Well, I did briefly. I took a second to reach up and grab the remainder of the cake and began chowing down.

I heard Phobia Remedy sigh. "On that note, Yolanda, to answer your question, it pays very well, better than what Tempest or Crystal are paid. You can discuss the exact figure with Crystal; Tempest doesn't pay attention to money. I doubt she knows exactly what she's paid. I don't know how much they're paid, only that it is considerably more than me. I believe it is a high six-figure yearly salary with full medical coverage. Unfortunately, there is no paid vacation time, no maternity leave, and no personal time. You work any leaves out with Jonathan. You also have to go through six months of training with Tempest as your instructor. The offer is the same for you, Ashley."

I heard the front door suddenly slam open and I peeked out from behind my wings. It was Tempest, and she looked distressed. She was holding a cell phone.

"Phobia, you will want to take this call. There has been an incident with Moses, and he could be in trouble, but there are bigger issues than that."

"Close the door, put it on speaker. They may hear what is happening as long as they keep quiet," Phobia instructed as I fully lifted my head and exchanged a worried look with Sunflower.

Tempest hit a button on the phone. "You're on speaker and she's here." I could hear What a Wonderful World playing loudly in the background over the speaker.

"Dreamwarden, you need to get down here right now," the voice on the other line said, sounding near panic. "There's been an incident, an incident-on-top of an incident, and worse on top of that. We didn't know who else to call. This is so far beyond what any of us know how to handle."

Phobia's brow furrowed. "Has Moses's magic escalated? Has his range increased? What is going on, Falon?"

"His range is the same, I think," Falon said, highly agitated. "It is hard to tell, we know it gets worse when he is distressed. Our orderlies and a doctor got caught up in it, and one of the orderlies ended up having a fatal heart attack from what he must have seen. They knew the risks of getting too close to him, even more so when he is upset, but Ulga had fallen and injured herself, and someone had to go up to their floor to give her medical attention."

Phobia's ears sagged, as did mine and Sunflower's. Poor Moses. He didn't mean to hurt anyone. He was just a kid who had virtually no control over his powers. It was understandable he was upset if his mother was injured. He was so young even a minor injury could freak him out.

"That is unfortunate news. You have my condolences for your loss. I'm assuming you are calling me now to try to contain him, since he is likely even more upset than he was to begin with, knowing he may have indirectly killed someone," Phobia said calmly, but then her face hardened. "You should have called asking for my assistance before sending anyone up there. I could have helped calm him or gotten him out of there so you could safely attend to Ulga."

"THAT DOESN'T MATTER RIGHT NOW!" Falon screamed over the line. "What matters is that the rumors of his other reported magic are true! The orderly, who was dead, and still definitely dead, got back up and the body immediately requested to speak to you, in person, using a voice and accent that did not belong to that orderly. That thing is in there with Moses and Ulga now. My choices were to either call you or call the army. I'm calling you! I might still call the army!"

Phobia jumped down from the couch, flaring her wings. "I'm coming. Keep calm and attend to your other patients, and don't you dare get the military involved with this! I'm invoking my right as Dreamwarden to take care of a case where mind magic has been harmfully used and investigation of related crimes. He has also hijacked the mind of another individual. That the individual was deceased does not negate my jurisdiction. Expect me in ten minutes! Tempest, hang up."

Tempest hung up the phone. "One of these two young humans will have to give you a ride. Crystal is in no shape to drive."

Phobia looked back and forth between Jonathan and Yolanda. "Yolanda, want to make a quick thousand dollars?"

The girl pulled her keys out of her pocket, tossed them in the air, and caught them. "You speak my language. Call me Miss Uber!"

Phobia turned and looked at the rest of us. "All the rest of you are coming too. Jonathan, Ashley, and Yolanda can consider this an introduction to exotic OMMR cases, and the other two of you are still being tested. Do not make me delay getting there."

Time to go face a very sad and upset necromancer. It was probably safer than a bug monster or a shadow monster, and much more preferable to people discussing finding my toy. It was one thing if I'd been there to mitigate and laugh it off, but not being there for it somehow made it worse.

"Move it, Miss Riddle!" Tempest yelled when I hadn't already started heading to the car.

Chapter 116: The Most Terrifying Pony Not Alive

We arrived at the facility where Moses was housed and found everyone, and I mean everyone, except for Moses and Ulga, gathered together in the lobby. Many of them were crying, others were huddled in corners, staring with open terror at nothing in particular. Some brave souls were trying to comfort the children and foals, and one pair of foals was making a valiant attempt to calm a nurse who was in near hysterics. The fear was so strong in the air that it made my fur bristle. It was infectious, and it was difficult to keep from shaking my wings. What a Wonderful World played on a loop as background to the crying and misery, making it seem something perverse and sinister.

"Are his powers stretching this far?" Sunflower asked, looking ready to cry as she looked at the room filled with misery. I knew how she felt.

Phobia Remedy shook her head. "No, but some may have been exposed before they got out of range. I think the majority of this is due to the death of the orderly, and his seeming resurrection as someone else. Let's see if I can find Doctor Falon in this mess."

Jonathan, Ashley, and Yolanda kept silent as they followed us. They had never met Moses and only heard of him for the first time today. They'd been briefed about what Moses's powers were and how they worked on the trip over and given instructions on how to combat the effects. Phobia Remedy had given them the opportunity to wait this out in the car. Moses when he was calm was one thing, but his powers were much more intense when he was in distress as the unfortunate orderly had found out. The three non-candidates had agreed to come to face the terrible toddler. This was what the OMMR was meant to do. Still, this was a trial by fire; not the case any of them would have wanted to get their feet or hooves wet with. Only Tempest stayed outside. This was not the type of fight that she could fight.

There was some whispering as we walked by people. Most were staring at Phobia Remedy. Some eyes looked upon her with terror. Some eyes looked upon her with a glimmer of hope that the Dreamwarden was here to face Moses. Others just stared at her with dead eyes, as if they couldn't process any feeling at all.

"All of this because of some visions?" Yolanda asked. She didn't seem snide in asking. She was watching crying nurses as she spoke, and she was walking like someone who knew they were entering a bear cave.

"You would be surprised what being bombarded with terrors can do to a person," Phobia Remedy answered. "Many of the visions get incredibly graphic, and it isn't like watching a movie. This is something you could swear was happening right in front of you. Remind yourself it isn't real. Keep your eyes on Moses at all times when we reach him. If you have to, close your eyes– although, I am unsure if that last will be an effective tactic if he is distressed. If all else fails, remind yourself you stand behind the Warden of Fear, and no mind magic can triumph over me."

"But there's a zombie up there with him. Zombies aren't just in your head, at least, this one isn't," I reminded her. "Shouldn't Tempest have come to fight that? You can't fight something physical. It will eat your brains."

"If it had the intention of feasting on brains, I assume it would be down here right now. If it has enough intelligence to ask for Falon to summon me, it has enough intelligence to operate an elevator, go down the stairs, or open a door," Phobia Remedy answered.

We found the director crouched down behind the receptionist's desk with the receptionist. Both stared dumbly at us all for a second as we came up before focusing on Phobia Remedy.

"You have to take him away. He can't stay h-h-here; not after this," Director Falon said. He looked ready to weep. "I tried to get the staff away, but that colt's powers, they caught me…"

The Dreamwarden set her jaw. "Are you releasing him into my custody?"

"Y-yes! G-get him out of here!" Falon practically whimpered.

She nodded to him. "Very well. My lawyers will be coming with the paperwork. You have made a verbal agreement with a Dreamwarden. That holds up in court. Please, hit the button to unlock the door to the main facility. We will take it from here."

Falon's eyes drifted over us. "They can't go up there. I can't be responsible for a bunch of kids getting exposed to-"

"You are already responsible for exposing kids to that magic, Director, and I intend to see that your work here is thoroughly reviewed by people with the power to dismiss you. What did you think was going to happen when you locked that colt up with virtually no contact with the outside world?" Phobia Remedy practically hissed. "These are deputized agents of the OMMR. They know what they are walking into. They are going to help a scared foal who is terrified because his primary source of love and affection was hurt and he ended up having his worst nightmares with his powers come true. These agents know damn well what's up there. They will accompany me."

Falon cried as he nodded and hit the button under the desk. There was a clicking sound, and the entire horde in the lobby practically jumped at the sound, and crying intensified. Phobia led us to the door and pushed it open. I think we all took a deep breath before we followed her through.

The first thing we noticed upon entering the courtyard was the huge charred spot of grass and melted remains of a white plastic table. There was white foam all around it and a discarded fire extinguisher close by. It seemed like the fire had been quickly contained, but no one had stuck around to clean up. Everything else looked untouched. There was no sound, except for-

"-I watch them grow. They'll learn so much more than I'll ever know-" the speaker played on.

It takes a special set of circumstances for it to be dead quiet when there is music playing. It's something you have to experience to understand and there is no way to accurately convey the sense of dread that comes with music that somehow doesn't break the silence and the stillness of a place. There was music playing, it could be said to be playing loudly, but it seemed like a breath would do more to break the silence. The music was part of the scenery, much like the grass, and it was still, even though it continued its endless loop.

"What a wonderful world-"

Yolanda scratched nervously at her shoulders. "What's with that music? It's creeping me out."

"Use your head. It probably is for calming Moses," Ashley snapped. "You want the little necromancer to be calm, right? We already have one dead person and one zombie to deal with up there. Do you want him to have another outburst? He's a kid, a small one. Small kids aren't the most reasonable when they have decided to throw a temper tantrum."

"Is anyone reasonable when they've decided to throw a temper tantrum?" I asked, eager to just hear more talking, even my own.

Phobia stopped walking and held up a hoof to draw our attention. "When we exit this courtyard into the next hall, we may be close enough that his powers can touch you, even with him being several floors up. I want you to keep your eyes focused on me. Don't look to the side. If you think you see something out of the corner of your vision, don't look. If you see something while keeping your eyes focused on me, close your eyes and alert us. That goes double for the two of you who met him before. Don't think because you were able to stand some of his visions last time that this will be the same. He was calm at that point, this is going to be much worse. We have one man dead already. Don't disobey me."

"Maybe you shouldn't be bringing your candidates into such a dangerous situation?" Ashley spoke up.

"If they can't face this, they don't deserve the mantle. I said the tests were going to get more intense," Phobia said before resuming her walk.

Well, sink or swim, or live or die in this case. Phobia Remedy had a way of making people feel real special. Hey! If you die you aren't good enough. It makes me feel like family. Okay, I was being a little snide. I knew things were going to get rough the last week of this thing. I didn't expect to be put in a potentially life-threatening situation, but Phobia Remedy probably hadn't planned on it happening. She was also right. Dreamwardens were supposed to go off and deal with dangerous mind magic users, and when they were people that couldn't help what they were doing, then the Dreamwardens should go in and try to help them. That last one might have been a more recent innovation, but despite being seemingly evil by telling me I wasn't good enough if I died, she was marching in here to help Moses out. Positive vibes! I needed a cookie! Two cookies! Plus cake, a big one!

",-red roses, too."

I kept my eyes on Phobia and assumed everyone else did too as we left the courtyard. It was a really strange building. You walked into the building, then had to walk outside to get to the rest of the building. I wondered why it was that way. It was like everyone had to be funneled into this big open…oh dear. That was so not cool! I understood why Phobia Remedy hated this place so much.

Sunflower started humming. It was that same song she sang whenever she was scared. I suppose we all had our coping mechanisms. What were Phobia Remedy's coping mechanisms? She was leading the charge right now. Phobia Remedy never led the charge– she was more scared of things than the rest of us. She was leading the charge straight toward a zombie that had asked for her by name. That was odd. It was something to think about. Since I didn't have any cake, I needed something to distract me from the fact I was charging into danger for the third time in a month. I was a lovable puffball, not an action hero. If I were in an action movie, I would be Jar Jar Binks or an ewok.

Something occurred to me. "I'm not noticing anything on the edge of my vision like last time. No drips of blood, no flickers of light, no scary shadows," I said, still following orders.

"Me neither," Sunflower said.

Phobia Remedy stopped in her tracks and looked up at something. "That's a good sign. However, we won't be going upstairs after all. The elevator is coming down. Either Ulga is back on her hooves, or the zombie knows how to operate an elevator. Both options are possible. Either way, Moses is on that elevator, I can feel his magic now. Be ready to focus your attention on him. Do not pay attention to the zombie if it is with him."

"Don't pay attention to the zombie she says," Yolanda groaned.

"The zombie and I are going to have a talk," Phobia Remedy said and left it at that.

If Moses was coming down too, he must be feeling better. That was a good thing.

I continued listening to the music and the ding of the elevator as it went down floor by floor. Then there was one final ding. It was time to look up and find Moses. I looked towards the elevator doors, just as they were opening.

The first thing I saw was a man, maybe in his early fifties. He was wearing an orderly uniform and seemed fine enough, yet something seemed off about him. He was supporting Ulga, who had one of her legs heavily bandaged and lifted. She was just barely touching the man's leg, partially using it for support and partially using it as a guide. She had that same dead-eyed glassy stare as the last time and a slightly pained expression. I could just barely see Moses hidden behind the pair.

The man looked at us. "Do not worry. Our powers to induce visions are under control, at least while we are awake. We convinced our younger incarnation to cede control of the powers to a part that could manage them until Ulga is taken care of and we have spoken with you. Parts of us normally sleeping have to actively choose to use the powers to induce visions, it's not a passive ability like with Moses. We prefer to sleep, and this body needs to be returned to those who cared for its owner. We recognize two of these youngsters you have with you, Phobia, from one of your previous visits, and we know they're not doctors. Is one of these other youngsters medically trained? We treated Ulga's injury as best we could, but she needs better care. None of our incarnations is trained in medical treatment for ponies." The voice sounded slightly feminine, and the accent was British-Indian English.

Phobia Remedy frowned. "Unfortunately, the doctors are all hiding out in the lobby. Yolanda, would you be so kind as to help Ulga back to the lobby? She would normally be able to make it on her own, despite being blind, but she looks like she needs some support. I believe most of the staff are familiar with her, but still, give them a warning before bringing her through the door. The kids who rarely see her might be spooked by her eyes. What is wrong with her leg? How did the injury occur?"

"Our fault," Moses whimpered from behind Ulga. "We left one of our toys out and she tripped and fell. She fell down hard and there was blood."

"It's a bad break, the bone is fully snapped," the not-orderly zombie answered. "We bandaged it to stop the bleeding, but could not find anything to serve as a proper splint." The man looked down at Moses. "We should not worry, accidents happen. We know we are upset and feel guilty. Ulga will be taken care of and feel better soon. What have we learned?"

"Don't leave our toys out. Mom can't see them," Moses whimpered.

The zombie nodded and looked back at us. "We're sorry about what happened to this orderly. You know our younger incarnation has little control, and once it happened, his fear was enough that we were summoned by our magic to protect ourselves. This hadn't happened before because people understandably don't leave dead bodies laying around in the range of our magic. We don't like being awake, but we would be remiss if we didn't ensure the situation was explained better than our youngest and newest incarnation can verbalize or understand. The young should not be punished for such mishaps. We never punished them during our life, and we will ensure we protect them now."

"Sha'am," Phobia Remedy said in a near whisper.

The zombie smiled at her. "You know us in any form, sister, although we no longer have the right to call you that. Don't worry, we bear you no ill will. We've spent endless lifetimes in the Story, being tempered, learning to reembrace kindness and compassion, and gaining many incarnations before the Story decided to expel us into a true new incarnation in the form of an earth pony foal whose story had not yet been written– it could have been more considerate about where that incarnation was born, but perhaps it was just a random chance. However, we think the Story has some sick desire to see conflict and hardship. After all, what is a story without conflict? Now, we are merely protecting a foal, even if that foal is us, and trying to help a loved one. Ulga knows us by another name."

"Ayedonno," Ulga said in a pained voice, but she was smiling. "It is so good to hear you again, and even better to understand you this time around. It pains me more than this leg that I lost my vision and can't gaze upon your face."

Sha'am ran his…her…its hand gently across Ulga's face. This was not what I was expecting out of a zombie or the dreaded Sha'am Maut.

"That we were able to get you to safety brings us joy. We are saddened by those who did not make it. We shall always remember them. However, our time is short, for now, and we must talk with our other once comrade-in-arms. She holds our future in her hooves, and we know she has many questions," Sha'am gently said, before withdrawing the hand and looking at us again. "Whichever one of you is Yolanda, be about your business and assist Ulga. In our day, when a Dreamwarden instructed someone to do something, they rushed to do it or faced the consequences. It seems Phobia and the others have not kept up with maintaining discipline since our exile."

Okay, that last bit sounded a bit more like the tyrannical Dreamwarden I expected.

Yolanda gulped and hurried over to the elevator. She gave Sha'am a long look and then bent down, holding a hand out to Ulga.

"I'm right here, holding my hand out. I know walking on three legs can be hard, but can you take a few steps toward me? I don't want to get any closer than this to your big friend," Yolanda said. "I can pick you up and carry you to the doctor if you don't have any objection to that."

"Highly undignified, but it would be for the best if you allowed her to carry you, Ulga," Sha'am softly said. The zombie then turned her eyes to Yolanda. "Be gentle with her, human, or I'll teach you some manners."

"Sha'am," Phobia said in warning.

"Nothing so severe as what we'd have done before. Believe it or not, our time in the Story has mellowed us," Sha'am said. "More like a literal spanking. This body is strong enough to put her over its knee."

"No spank! No hurt!" Moses yelled.

Sha'am rolled its eyes. "Very well. No spanking."

Ulga slowly limped over to Yolanda until she touched Yolanda's hand then stopped. Yolanda carefully picked her up and put her over her shoulder. "Okay, don't move around too much. I'll go slow so I don't shake you and bother your leg. We'll get you fixed up and back to your terror toddler in no time."

"Thank you, but, please, be kind to my son. He's a good colt and kind. He can't help what his powers do," Ulga said.

"Okay," Yolanda agreed, and then she began walking away, careful to not shake her pony cargo much.

"Sunflower, Rebecca, if Moses's powers are under control, I think you two should occupy him and try to cheer him up while Sha'am and I talk. He needs friends to play with him," Phobia said. "How far away from you can the colt get before his powers can no longer keep you animated?"

"We are not sure," Sha'am confessed. "We should be fine anywhere in this building. We got up to a kilometer away when we were last animated back in that warzone, but never further. We can only assume we can go that far still, perhaps farther."

"They can take him to the courtyard then," Phobia said with a nod. "One last question before they go; you said there were incarnations, plural. Are there more people Moses can animate into corpses? Any others I should speak with?"

Sha'am chuckled. "We are legion, as your holy book says. There are millions of us, but most should probably best never be awakened. Most of us would panic at suddenly being awake. There are a select number, a few dozen, that would like to be awake, we think. Out of those few dozen, perhaps six are worth waking up at various times, and seven that we advise never to wake. We have lived many lives, some of them were good and some of them were vile. We think that multiple can be awake at once, but each would need a separate body to be awake at the same time. Moses has to wake us, we cannot wake on our own, although we think we can refuse to be awoken and choose to go back to sleep at will. Once we're done with this talk, we're going back to sleep, with or without Moses's say-so. Old Sha'am Maut longs to sleep when not needed. We know what transpires with Moses as we sleep. We are always in the back of our mind, even if we're not aware of ourselves or independent."

Phobia nodded. "Give me a warning before you do that. I assume Moses's passive powers come back online when you leave, and I would rather not subject our current candidates to be Psychic Calm's heir to that."

Sha'am frowned at me and Sunflower. "Standards really have gone down the drain in our absence." Sha'am then sighed. "But that is not our concern. We are no longer a Dreamwarden, and Dreamwardens' business is not ours. We shall warn you and give them time to get to safety before we leave."

"Sha'am, I wanted to thank you!" Ashley blurted out.

The zombie raised an eyebrow at her. "We don't believe Moses has ever met you before. Our memory is not what it was when we were Dreamwarden. Who are you and what did we do?"

"I'm Ashley Santos. When I was a filly, my brother and I, along with many other foals, were foalnapped by a madpony. He hurt us, mutilated us, killed us, and for a long time the only kind face we saw was you in our dreams. I wanted to thank you for helping…helping me say goodbye to my brother when he c-couldn't-"

Moses darted out from behind Sha'am and grabbed onto Ashley to hug her. Ashley stood there in shock for a moment. I knew she didn't like to be touched, but she ended up bending down and embracing the colt, before breaking down crying.

"We remember now," Sha'am said quietly, looking away. "You are welcome, but we wish we didn't have to be there. We wish you had not drawn our attention back then. We were drawn by suffering and death. Foals should not have to suffer so."

The former Dreamwarden whose very name invoked terror in those who knew it looked again at me and Sunflower. "All Dreamwardens inherit things from their forebears. If you inherit anything from us, we hope it's how we were with foals, and not how we treated their elders. There are things for which we now feel shame that we did not feel back when we were living, but there are things for which we remain unashamed. We're not ashamed we gave those without hope one last kindness. Try to remember us for that, and not the rest. Begone, your elder has much to ask, and we wish to lose ourselves within Moses once more. May this incarnation be one of the good ones."

"What a wonderful world-"

Chapter 117: The Night Isn't Over Yet

It was late when we all got back to Phobia Remedy's house. Maggie had been waiting the entire time for me, so I figured I'd let her drive me back to the dorms so she didn't waste her time. Sunflower and Ashley joined us. I wasn't sure where Yolanda and Jonathan took off to, but Yolanda had told Maggie she'd be back late and to tell Blanche not to worry.

"Moses is a little sweetie," Sunflower said as she continued to stare out the window.

I nodded. He'd been thrilled to have the attention and ponies playing games with him. "Yeah, he is. I wonder who Phobia is going to get to watch him."

"Isn't Ulga going to watch him, out on that farm Phobia was talking about?" Sunflower asked.

"But Ulga is blind, somebody else has to be there, in case something happens with Ulga again. Plus, Ulga can't run a farm, even a small farm, by herself," I replied.

"For a kid you can't tell me anything about, you guys sure like to talk about him a lot," Maggie said.

Sunflower and I both looked down. "Sorry," we said in chorus.

"He's a scary kid with powerful mind magic. That's all you need to know," Ashley said to her, then looked back and forth between me and Sunflower. "He's the type of kid that OMMR agents are scared to get near. I don't think you could send anyone but a Dreamwarden to deal with him. I have no idea who Phobia is going to put to foalsit him and his mother. You saw how those doctors and nurses reacted to his outburst."

"I didn't see!" Maggie fussed.

"They were all hiding out in the entrance lobby together, all the staff and all the patients. Most of them were crying. They were all terrified. The guy in charge of the place was threatening to call the army," Sunflower said.

"I don't know why they didn't all just leave if they were that scared. Why hunker down in the entrance lobby?" Ashley asked.

I frowned. "Because that place is essentially a prison and they couldn't let the patients leave. They think they're too dangerous. That little courtyard we had to go through is there so they can have people gun them down if they try to get out. Then if any make it through, there's only one way in or out to the outside world."

Sunflower whipped her head around and stared wide-eyed at me. "What?! You can't be serious! Who told you that!"

"Think about it. The architecture has a very clear and practical design. They all have to go through there to get out. There are no obstructions, nothing to take cover behind, it's a place designed for guards on the roof to get a clear shot at anyone in the courtyard or going out the lobby entrance. It is just like a prison yard with a gate system," I said grimly. "I'm guessing the guards got trapped on the roof when everything happened."

Ashley blinked. "I hadn't thought about it until you just explained it, but you're right. I guess you have to think like an architect to notice it if you aren't looking for it…or think like a prison guard. I don't think I give the fact you are in school for architecture enough credit. I bet Nightscape would have noticed too and rubbed it in my face that I didn't. What kind of freaky magic do those patients have?"

"We know at least two of the unicorns spontaneously combust like kirin when they get angry or scared," Sunflower said.

"Huh, that explains the remains of that fire in the courtyard," Ashley said with a grunt. "I hope they're okay."

"I'm sure they would have mentioned it if anyone else but the one guy died," Sunflower replied.

"Wait, this kid killed someone!?" Maggie asked in shock.

"Not on purpose!" I yelled in his defense.

"We aren't supposed to talk about what he does," Ashley reminded us.

"Kills people with his mind, apparently!" Maggie yelled. "And you just walked in there and spent time with him? What were you thinking!"

"Dreamwardens are supposed to deal with people who have dangerous mind magic," I said.

"Dreamwardens are immune to mind magic. You aren't a Dreamwarden yet. You could have died!" Maggie fussed.

"We were fine. We've met him before. He just had a little accident," I assured her.

"A little accident that left someone dead and them wanting to call in the army, is that all?" Maggie questioned critically. "You don't even seem horrified that he killed someone."

"We are, but, like Rebecca said, it was an accident, and certain circumstances involved make it harder for us to have it sink in that person died," Sunflower asserted. "I mean, we were talking to-"

Ashley let off a loud whinney. "You two are the worst at keeping secrets! You know what, I'm just going to blab everything so neither of you can. That way you two can't get in trouble; it will be on me. Maggie, if some OMMR guys haul you off to force you to sign some non-disclosure agreement that requires you to do a contract with a Dreamwarden to ensure it holds, don't go fussing at me. You were digging for this!"

"I honestly can't-" Maggie started, but Ashley launched straight into her explanation.

"The kid's a necromancer. He literally takes some dead person's mind, shoves it into a body, and reanimates the body, and he's the reincarnation of Sha'am Maut or something– I wasn't really clear on that part. He also creates graphically violent images of you dying when you're around him and if he gets upset you don't even have to be in the same room with him for them to affect you. They get so bad people can die of fright. That's how he accidentally killed somebody. His mom got hurt, the kid got upset, visions got bad, orderly who had a bad heart or whatever got caught up in the visions, and bing, bang, boom, the orderly is dead. Then that upsets the kid more, and his magic goes even more cuckoo, and next thing you know, that dead orderly is a zombie Sha'am Maut. Hospital staff sees the kid accidentally killed an orderly and then made a zombie out of him, so who they gonna call? Since there's no ghostbusters, they call Miss Queen of Nightmares to come deal with it. She then packs us all up and tells us, hey, this is what OMMR agents and Dreamwardens are supposed to do. Do you want this job? What are we gonna say to that, huh? I mean, she's not wrong. We get over there and, turns out, zombie Sha'am can keep the little terror's visions in check, so the kid's harmless while she's walking around in a fifty-year-old man who had a bad heart suit. Sunflower and Rebecca are told to keep the kid busy while Phobia Remedy talks with her ex-sister who is like triple-dead at this point. They work something out to help manage him away from the facility, and we all go home. The hospital slash prison is going to release the kid to Phobia, and she's going to move him to some farm outside of town where he can't hurt anybody but can at least spend time with animals, run around, play, do farm chores, and be something that resembles a normal kid living on a farm while he works on learning to control his freaky powers. Actually, I just figured out who is going to watch him and help out on the farm, since they were talking about procuring a corpse– a zombie. A zombie is going to do it. That makes it all nice and tidy. I guess everybody's happy, except for anyone who was related to or friends with the orderly who died and we didn't even learn the name of."

We all watched as Ashley took several deep breaths. That'd been a lot of talking, and she said it very fast.

"I think his name was Steve. That was the name on his uniform," Sunflower said quietly.

"I think that covers everything," Ashley concluded a second later. She was huffing.

"Do you need a drink of water?" I asked her.

She waved a hoof at me. "I'll be okay. Let's just get home and get to bed. Meadow and Julie are probably freaking out, Blanche too."

"I already called everybody when you got back to Phobia's house, so they know you're okay. Why don't any of you ever wear your phones?" Maggie asked.

"Security, people can be listening. We really shouldn't be talking around you if you have your phone," I answered.

"Why does nobody ever tell me these things!?" Maggie asked in exasperation.

"Because you aren't even supposed to be involved in any of this and are only here because Rebecca throws caution to the wind and tells any goddamn person everything like an open book," Ashley answered snidely.

"She's my best friend! And Russell-"

Ashley glared at me. "Your boy toy knows too? Do you even know the definition of secret?"

"How serious are you two?" Sunflower asked. "Are you close to…you know…?"

"Yeah, Beck, dish on that," Maggie said. "How close are you to turning in your virgin card?"

I blushed "I don't know. We've talked indirectly about it. We've talked enough about it that we've had dinner with both sets of parents. I don't want to do anything yet, not until this is all over. Maybe not after, I don't know. I mean, if I come out as the heir, and I get weird stuff in my head because of that, I don't know if it is going to work out or not."

Sunflowers frowned. "I hadn't spent much time thinking about that. Phobia Remedy doesn't like being touched."

"Yinyu has a ton of libido," I reminded her. "Not to stereotype too much, but with us being horny college mares, I think we're more likely to get that extra libido than Phobia's rape survivor fear. I'm more worried about things like being super authoritarian, which might put some strain on a relationship. There's a lot of manipulation in there too. Can you think of one Dreamwarden who isn't manipulative?"

"Luna?" Sunflower speculated weakly.

I shook my head. "I doubt it. She's over a thousand years old, so she's probably that much better at hiding what she's doing. You want to introduce that manipulative streak into a relationship?"

"Yet you're still dating the guy," Maggie said.

I shrugged. "I want to hope it will work out, it works for Phobia, and if I don't get the job, no fear of anything weird going on with my head. I'm not dropping out of this, the job is bigger than any relationship."

"Same," Sunflower said.

I smiled at her. "And what about you? Does our favorite country filly have her eyes on anyone? Have you been dating and not letting the rest of us know because you're too shy?"

She blushed. "I haven't seen anypony…anybody, but there is this cute earth pony in my intro to print media class that I think likes me. He stops to talk to me a lot. We've eaten dinner at the same table in the cafeteria a few times when the rest of you were busy with other stuff. He came from a no-name farming community too, so it is easy for us to get stuff the other is saying that you city people just wouldn't get. It isn't anything serious, just talk. He doesn't even know about my episodes where I blank out and draw things."

Ashley gave me a smirk. "See, that's how you keep secrets. You should take notes from Sunflower." She turned to face the Sunflower. She must be getting whiplash, having us on either side of her in the back seat. "And you're way more sneaky than I gave you credit for. I'm your bodyguard. I'm supposed to be watching you, but you somehow kept me from finding out about this guy."

"Maybe you just suck at your job," Maggie said.

"Hey! Be nice to Ashley, Mags. She had a big night too," I chided.

Ashley turned and glared at me. "Rebecca, I'm going to say this nicely. You can spill your secrets however you wish, but don't spill mine."

Sunflower raised a wing. "I think she was going to talk about how you got to talk to one of your foalhood heroes and thank them. I thought it was sweet."

I used one of my wings to my a shushing motion at Sunflower. "On'tday alktay aboutyay a'amshay inyay ontfray ofyay aggiemay."

Sunflower gave me a baffled look. "Huh? What language is that?"

"Pig Latin," Maggie said darkly. "And Rebecca is lucky that was way too much for me to follow other than don't talk and her saying my name."

Judging by her tone, she totally knew what I had said, but was going to let it slide. Talking about how the pony who had tortured Maggie's family member as being Ashley's hero seemed like nothing but an excuse to start a bitter argument. It was best to steer clear of that and maintain the peace.

Maggie pulled into a parking spot next to the dorms and shut off the car. "Anyway, we're back, and we can-"

There was a knock on Maggie's car window, making us all jump. It was a pegasus stallion who didn't look like a student. Several other stallions were behind him, along with a human man in a business suit, all standing near a large limo. Maggie rolled down her window. Which I thought was a very bad idea.

"We are from the OMMR international relations division. We require Sunflower Smiles and Rebecca Riddle to come with us."

"Um, can we see some ID to prove that?" Maggie said timidly. Her hand was reaching to put the key back in the ignition. Ashley's horn was glowing, spell at the ready.

The human came forward and pulled something from his jacket. He held it up to the window. Maggie stared at it.

"That looks official," Maggie said. "What do you want to do?" Her hand was still poised to put the key in the ignition.

"I recognize one of them from before. I think they're really OMMR," Sunflower said.

"I guess we go with them then," I said.

The three of us in the backseat got up and got ready to exit the car.

"You, in the middle, you aren't coming, only the two winged fillies," the pegasus snapped.

Ashley grit her teeth. "Where Sunflower goes, I go. Especially when a bunch of strange ponies are trying to take her somewhere. I've been foalnapped before so I'm letting it happen to her!"

The stallion withdrew and spoke to someone in their limo. They spoke for a moment then the pegasus turned and nodded to us.

"I guess we're doing this thing. Maggie, if we aren't back by morning, you might want to call the police," I said.

"I give it till two in the morning. I'm going to wait in the lobby till you're back," Maggie replied, not taking her eyes off the group of agents. Maybe she was memorizing their faces.

They said this was going to be an intense week. They weren't kidding around when they said that. What was this? The third or fourth thing in the last five hours, and this was just a day into the week. Who or what were we going to be facing now? At least it couldn't be any worse than any of the previous stuff.

I opened the car door and exited, ready to confront the next challenge.

Chapter 118: How to Make a Marshmallow Boil

We all got into the limo. It was spacious, and there wasn't anybody with us. That was weird because that pegasus had looked back here when he conferred with someone. There were plush seats, wine, and fancy-looking cheese and crackers. This might still be a foalnapping, but at least they were hospitable foalnappers.

"Ah! The candidates have arrived, plus one."

I looked at the source of the voice. There was a monitor, and on that monitor were three ponies– an earth pony mare who was so old and grayed I couldn't tell what colors her fur and mane were supposed to be, a large muscular earth pony stallion with a patch over one eye, and between them, a unicorn stallion with deep red fur and a purple mane. The unicorn reminded me of that Shu pony that was Sunset Blessing's son. Behind them was a flag, straight red, except in one corner was a sickle and hammer over a Shimmerist sun, the flag of China.

"Make yourselves comfortable. Have some snacks and drinks. I wish only to speak with you for a few minutes. There's no need for this limo to leave its parking spot," the unicorn said, sounding welcoming and gracious. He had a hint of an accent, but overall, his English was good.

"Who are you?" Sunflower asked as she took a seat.

"That's Qiánchéng De Érzi," Ashley practically spat.

The unicorn on screen nodded. "Very good. You Americans are notorious for knowing little of what goes on beyond your borders. I am pleased at least one of you can recognize me."

My eyes widened. Oh no, I think I would rather go back to fighting shadow monsters, changeling queens, and zombies. That felt infinitely safer right now.

Sunflower's ears drooped.."Ashley, can you please tell me who that is? I know I should know and I'm probably insulting people by not knowing, but please tell me."

"He's the pony responsible for Miss Seapiny's death," I said grimly.

"A slanderous accusation!" Qiánchéng De Érzi growled. "I am not responsible for what the courtesan did to herself. Is it so much to ask that a pony be loyal to their homeland? Is it so much to ask that a pony be loyal to ponies? Yinyu died by her own hoof as an ultimate act of disloyalty and defiance. Don't throw such accusations at me!"

Ashley leaned next to me and whispered. "Don't say things like that directly, no matter how true. You can say something as close to it as possible, but you can't outright say it."

"I still don't know who he is," Sunflower quietly said.

"He's the head of the Communist Party in China, and their President," Ashley said in answer to Sunflower's question. Never turning her hateful glare away from the screen. "Rumor has it he's also responsible for a lot of…other things. It's also hearsay that he has a very short temper. It's best to watch what you say. He is a very dangerous pony with a very long reach."

The large earth pony chuckled, saying something in Mandarin. The other two ponies on screen chuckled in turn at whatever was said. The ancient mare pulled out a wooden cup and shook it, before spilling out its contents. Were those bones? The mare examined the things I was pretty sure were bones for a few seconds then said a few things in Mandarin. Qiánchéng De Érzi nodded and then faced us again.

"Soothsayer's oracle bones say you had a terrible ordeal with a certain Uighur piece of trash, Ashley Santos. An unfortunate happenstance. You have our sympathies. Some people are so vile that not even becoming a pony can cleanse them of their perversion. It's a shame he never managed to end Sunset Blessing. The fact he leveled your little town using her work shows how much she shouldn't have been allowed to live. Sadly, it seems one perversion is not enough to end another sometimes," Qiánchéng De Érzi said. He didn't sound very sympathetic.

I raised an eyebrow at them. "You got all that out of looking at some old bones you rolled like dice?"

"You pegasi aren't the only ones with gifts," the old crone cackled. "I can read much of the past, and see the threads of future paths. You Americans don't have a monopoly on Storytellers."

The big earth pony stallion muttered something in Mandarin. It must have been an insult about the old pony because Soothsayer started practically hissing and spitting back a response in the same language. I wish I knew what they were saying, and I doubted either Ashley or Sunflower knew the language either. Qiánchéng De Érzi allowed them to argue a moment before barking off a command. It probably meant silence or stop, because they did.

"Why's your name even Soothsayer? Shouldn't it be whatever the Mandarin word for that is?" I asked, still skeptical she got all that out of rolling bones.

Qiánchéng De Érzi answered for her, " Soothsayer is an immigrant. All ponies are welcome in China, free from human tyranny, and able to live as the dominant species that we are. Soothsayer is originally from Australia."

"New Zealand!" Soothsayer hissed.

"It matters not where she came from. She is in her rightful place now," Qiánchéng De Érzi finished, not batting an eye at his companion's correction. "There could be a place for you as well. It seems unbalanced that two-thirds of the living Dreamwardens will be living in the United States– perhaps all, since we never did identify the human or where he resides. It is still all the Dreamwarden ponies living in the United States, and that shows complete bias that Princess Luna specifically tried to avoid when she chose the originals. Wouldn't it be better if one of the pony Dreamwardens lived in the nation ruled by ponies?"

I glared at him. "I think I'll pass. You had a Dreamwarden, but she didn't feel like living in your country was the right fit, and gave your hospitality an absolutely terrible review. She liked the location, scenery, and history, but found the management and staff decidedly poor. I think I'll avoid visiting your country until there is a change in management."

He glared back. "The courtesan didn't seem to think living anywhere was a good fit, given how she left. She was clearly deranged, and I personally think the Dreamwardens should vote to expel her from their ranks, but I doubt she would abide by any vote. What sane pony sets themselves on fire, and right in front of her terrified foals no less? I believe she may have caught some venereal disease that distorted her thinking, and she became overly paranoid and distrustful, mad even. We have endured nothing but slander from her, and she sits protected by her position. Meanwhile, her foals have been spirited away to some foreign land where they receive fewer rights and privileges, and your government has illegally condoned this flagrant foalnapping. But I digress, the matter of the foals is between our governments, the Dreamwardens should have no involvement. As for her claims, I have tens of millions of other ponies who are very pleased to be living here to counter her baseless lies."

I don't get mad easily, but I wanted to scream at him. He might not know how long and close a friendship I had with Miss Seapony. If he did, he wouldn't bother making those accusations about her sanity. Why was the OMMR even giving him this time to speak with us? How did he even know who we were? I thought who the candidates were was a secret.

He turned his eyes to Sunflower. "And how about you? Even if you don't end up becoming the new Dreamwarden, wouldn't you desire the opportunity to work with an experienced Storyteller who can better help you understand your gift? I'm told you also wish to see new and interesting places. China has an abundance of sites to see. There is over six thousand years of cultural prehistory here. Enough to keep you occupied seeing for a lifetime. We'd be more than happy to provide you with all the luxuries and amenities you could desire."

"I don't need much in terms of stuff, just some items to do my art and maybe some books. I'm a simple farm pony," Sunflower answered. "And while I might want to visit China sometime, just to see it, I'm not sure I want to move there. Honestly, I don't want to have to stay anywhere for too long. I like seeing new things, and that requires me the freedom to be on the move. Being tied down in one place, no matter how grand, feels too restrictive for me. Just like my parents' farm–I love it, and I want to be able to visit it when I want to, but I don't want to stay there. Staying in Skytree for four years, even though it is amazing, is already going to be pushing my limits, and I'll be getting out of here as soon as I graduate. As for your offer of training, thank you, but I think I want to figure it out on my own. My ability seems very different in how it functions than other Storytellers I've heard about. We all seem to have our own ways of doing things, and I need to explore mine on my own, but I do thank you for all your kind offers."

Soothsayer said something to her companions in Mandarin. Qiánchéng De Érzi replied, again in Mandarin. The third one muttered something. I wish I knew what they were saying, but I knew what they were doing. They were judging us, just like the Dreamwardens.

"Why are we speaking to you and how do you know about us?" I asked, feeling like there was no harm in asking.

"We know about you because we have a much better spy network than your country does, and we were able to determine who the candidates are," Qiánchéng De Érzi answered. "There were more of you, but something changed recently. The Dreamwardens seem to be whittling down the ranks, although I have no idea why you two stood out. I would have thought that human girl had the edge. She seemed more versed in world events and politics and had a more level head. As for why we are speaking to you– if the Dreamwardens end up with a divided vote, the deciding vote goes to the UN security council, of which China is a member. Reports only go so far. I wanted to get a feel for both of you by speaking to you."

There were times for joking around and making light of a situation, then there were times you were staring into the eyes of the person who threatened and caused the death of one of your bestest friends. I narrowed my eyes. "And how did you convince the Dreamwardens to allow you this meeting? I'm sure every country would want the same opportunity. What makes you special?"

He raised an eyebrow. "I think the reports underestimated you, Miss Riddle. You are certainly confirming that there was value in speaking to you directly. I would never have known you had any sense at all if I was going by the reports alone. The answer to your question is simple. We cut a deal with the Dreamwardens. We gave them something they wanted, they gave us this opportunity. All agreements were sealed by a Dreamwarden contract, so no reneging of agreements was possible. If you want to know what the Dreamwardens got out of the deal, you'll have to ask them, or more likely become one, since I doubt they will disclose that information to anyone outside their order. We originally asked for more, and so did they. There were a lot of counteroffers with Arbiter speaking on behalf of the Dreamwardens, and I assume the others giving her constant feedback. Her disdain for us was clear, but I must compliment her for being professional in her arbitration. An agreement was able to be made in a relatively short time, with what must be record efficiency on how quickly it was implemented, and we were told you would be speaking to us. I will never say the Dreamwardens can't act quickly. I'm satisfied with the agreement."

"If you're satisfied, how about we end this?" Ashley asked. "They both had a long day and need to get some sleep."

"Yes, dealing with that abomination refugee, or so I heard," Qiánchéng De Érzi said darkly. "Why the Dreamwardens allow that thing to live is a mystery. It should be destroyed."

"He's just a foal!" I protested.

"It is an unnatural affront to all things living, and shouldn't be referred to as a pony," Qiánchéng De Érzi hissed. "It should have died in Turkmenistan, then in Uzbekistan, then in Kazakhstan, and the Russians should have executed it at their border. At least it is polluting your side of the world with its presence and not ours, although sharing a planet with it seems too much. It is out of our hooves, but we hope somepony over there has some sense and puts it down. Perhaps it is foul enough for even a human to realize what needs to be done. Mark me saying this, you'll come to regret letting that monster live."

"Okkkaaay….I think we're done here," I announced as I got up.

Sunflower stood up as well. "Yeah, I draw the line when we start discussing murdering sweet little kids."

"I might not be likable for saying that, but that doesn't make me wrong," Qiánchéng De Érzi called out to us as we headed for the door. "Better to stop a problem before it becomes too big to deal with. Look at what it can do now, imagine what it can do when fully grown!"

Ashley opened the door and the agents standing outside looking at us. "This meeting is over," she told them. They didn't stop us as we exited the vehicle.

Miss Seapony had it right to fear for her foals and try to escape China. That pony was the real monster, not Moses. Could Moses become dangerous? It was possible if he grew up to be hateful. Maybe if he had spent his life locked away in that facility, but Phobia Remedy was putting a stop to that. Even if he were grown, he hadn't done anything malicious. He just wanted friends, the ability to play and to see the outside. What pony wouldn't feel caged in and miserable under his circumstances? We were social creatures. To deny him all access to other ponies except his adopted mother was practically torture. Isolation had been used as a torture method against ponies before, and that hospital had been using it with him. The only danger of him being out on a farm was he was now out where Qiánchéng De Érzi could reach him more easily.

I hoofed my way back to Maggie's car and got in. She stared at me.

"You look pissed. I don't think I've ever seen you look this angry. What happened?" Maggie asked as she looked me up and down while I fought to get my harness on.

"I don't want to talk about it. We met a very nasty pony and I never want to speak to him again. I doubt any of us want to," I answered as I fought with the harness.

"Oh," she said, sounding unsure of what to say. "Did you want to go somewhere?"

"Back to the dorms so I can take a shower and go to sleep," I replied as I finally got the harness fastened.

She blinked. "Um, Bec, look out the window."

I did so. We were in the dorm parking lot. Sunflower and Ashley were standing at the entrance of the dorm building, watching me and Maggie curiously. The limo had already departed in that little time. I was still angry, but now I felt a little silly.

I gave Maggie a sheepish look. "Yeah…mind helping me get this harness back off…please?"

Chapter 119: Short Talks, Sore Legs

I leveled my fiercest glare on Miss Seapony who floated in the nothingness above me. "What did he give you guys to allow that meeting?"

She frowned. "I didn't want to negotiate with h-"

"What did he give you?" I repeated.

"No one is more upset to have dealt with him than-"

"Yinyu!" I shouted.

She blinked. "You used my name. I don't think I have heard you address me by name in years." I didn't stop glaring, and she sighed. "He agreed not to interfere or obstruct the actions of, coerce, try to capture, or harm, certain individuals. We had a long list. He wasn't willing to accept restrictions on all those individuals. He gave ground on what he wanted, we shortened the list. This went back and forth a few times, and we finally got a list of about twenty protected. There are some big names missing from that list, but there are some important ones we can feel easier about now. No, I will not tell you who is on the list of protected individuals. If you become my little sister, you'll learn it that way."

I let my glare drop. "You did it to protect your foals. You wanted assurances he wouldn't come after them."

Miss Seapony sighed and floated down in the nothingness, practically curling into a ball in front of me. "Oh, how I wish their names were included, but they aren't. They were on the first few drafts of the list, but he wouldn't budge on them, and they had to be removed. We had to focus on who…on who was truly important. My foals still aren't safe."

"Were Sunflower or I on that list?" I asked.

"Would that meeting have been possible if you were?" she asked. I guess that answered that. She uncurled slightly. "Just because you didn't make the list, doesn't mean we won't do all we can to protect you. I'm fairly certain he won't try to harm whoever becomes Dreamwarden. He knows that death only makes us that much more formidable."

"But he could try for whoever doesn't get the job," I said, filling in what she hadn't said.

She looked away. "That is true. There are others we are more concerned about who also didn't make the list. Important people when it comes to the future of Earth and life. We had to focus on those individuals. There are people more important than us or our loved ones. Him hurting us is not as important as keeping the people who truly matter safe. In the big picture, we are but bit players. We provide what assistance we can, but we aren't the ones who will fight the important fights."

"And you protected twenty out of how many you started off trying to protect?" I asked, dreading the answer.

"Six-hundred forty-two," she whispered.

Holy crap! "How are there so many?!"

She gave a sad laugh. "Not all of them were essential. My foals, Phobia's family, the families of all our the five original top candidates, some individuals important to my brothers and Arbiter, even Sha'am's estranged descendants who are still living in India. Those all had to be stripped from the list. As for the rest– there are pencil pushers, teachers, engineers, scientists, members of militaries, politicians, inspirational individuals, and a fair number of individuals most wouldn't give a second thought to, including themselves, who don't know their true worth or potential."

"And you got the twenty most important," I concluded.

"No, we got the twenty we were able to negotiate," she replied. "That is better than none."

"And what did he originally want?" I asked, afraid to hear.

"He wanted me and Arbiter to abstain from voting, and him to get a vote in our place," she answered.

I frowned. That was an odd pairing. "Why you two?"

She uncurled fully and sighed. "Probably petty reasons. He doesn't like us in particular, and we don't like him in particular. The others don't like him either, but Arbiter and I have a special kind of loathing for him. You understand mine. Arbiter has her reasons for it being personal as well. They are none of your business. It doesn't matter. There was no way we were giving him that much influence, no matter what he offered. He has too much potential influence as it stands."

I figured as much. It seemed pretty brazen that he would even request something like that.

Miss Seapony started doing a slow swim through the nothingness. "That monster of a pony truly believes in all that Shimmerist crap and sees himself as the true heir of Sunset Shimmer. He studied the early work and ideas of Sunset Blessing extensively and models his Shimmerism on that– with some modifications. I will give him this, he truly does embrace meritocracy with his governmental appointments. Any pony or human Shimmerist who shows they have talent and capability, even if they are an immigrant or poor, can rise quickly through his ranks. He also is very ruthless in stamping out any corruption among officials, going so far as to stage public executions of anyone who is found taking bribes or abusing their positions to enrich themselves. It makes his government very efficient, and that much more dangerous a foe, the most dangerous Earth has to offer."

"Considering how much you conceded, it seems like you got the raw end of the deal," I said. "Couldn't you have gotten a better deal?"

Miss Sewpony swam up in front of me and tilted her head. "Why do you think we got a bad deal?"

"You tried to protect so many, and ended up protecting only twenty," I answered.

"And how many were protected before we made this deal?" she asked, tilting her head further. It was almost upside down.

"Well…none, but he got–"

Miss Seapony turned her head back to level. "He got to display to you how horrid he is. None of us believed that he had any legitimate chance of recruiting either of you, and he didn't either. He just wanted to learn more about you than his reports could provide. I suppose he got that, but how much help will it really be to him?"

"He said he was part of the security council and they get to vote if the Dreamwardens are split on their vote," I reminded her.

"And if it comes to that, and he does result in being the deciding factor, he simply gives the three of us who voted the same a victory. It will still be one of our candidates. We gained something of value, protecting life, which is always valuable. He gained very little in comparison," she concluded.

"Wake up! It's workout time! Hut hut hut! Pega-sa! Pega-so! Pega-me! Pega-yo! Go pegasi!"

I blinked. Julie was standing on the foot of my bed, wings flexed. I think she had been dancing. This was a new and interesting way to wake up.

She smiled at me. "You're up! Come on! Time for our workout together!"

Well, I had promised her I would workout with her, and she seemed so excited. I'd never been good at gym, but maybe this wouldn't be so bad.

I struggled to raise my hoof to knock on Lántiān's door. Everything ached. My legs didn't want to work. My wings were a little better, and that was how I'd managed to fly over here. Even that had hurt.

The door opened before I could knock, and Lántiān looked me over. "What is wrong with you?"

"Julie…she put me on a treadmill. It had to be going a hundred miles an hour," I said breathlessly.

She raised an eyebrow at me. "Treadmills don't reach that speed, and neither can you. Pony running speed is around twelve miles an hour for the average pony, topping out at around twenty-five miles an hour for an Olympic-level athlete. I can't even run that fast. The most I've done is twenty, and that left me winded after a minute. If I had to guess, given your physique, she made you run about seven– a run for a human, but that should be a light jog for a pony. Honestly, you should be able to do nine or ten while carrying a heavy load, if you were in shape."

"I'm in wonderful shape. Round is a great shape!" I protested.

She frowned. "You dance, correct? Drizzle says you dance."

I nodded. "Yeah. I love dancing. Dancing is fun."

She nodded. "Perhaps Julie is using the wrong approach to burning your calories. You'll never be an athlete like her or me, no matter how she tries. Not because it is impossible to whip you into shape, but because your heart isn't in it. You'll give up after another time or two if you haven't already. Regular workouts take commitment that you don't have. I think dance classes might be a better option. It can burn a lot of calories and might be something you would actually commit to. I'll speak to Julie about it. She has done dance in the past, and probably knows a good instructor."

I blinked. "That's a good idea. I didn't expect you to give me any help."

"It's partly for Julie's sake. I don't want her getting discouraged trying to fix a lost cause," Lántiān replied. "Plus, if you're so out of shape you get winded on a jog, how can I expect you to keep up with Drizzle? Drizzle can manage seven miles an hour. If you can learn how to properly dance, instead of whatever foolish thing you're doing now, you can teach Drizzle. She needs something to burn off energy, and I don't have a treadmill for her."

"I still think she made me run a hundred miles an hour," I muttered.

She rolled her eyes. "Well, luckily you'll have additional assistance today, and not just Jordan."

My ears perked. "Who else is going to be watching Drizzle?"

A human stepped into sight behind Lántiān and smiled at me.

"Hello again, Miss Riddle. I've been looking forward to meeting you again."

Jordan came into view, grinning. "Hiya Rebecca. Guess what? Auntie's here for a visit. Maybe she'll teach me more magic!"

Crud, it was Sunset Blessing.

Chapter 120: The In's and Outs of Zombies and Stories

I stayed on the couch as Sunset Blessing dressed Drizzle in that Wonderbolts uniform that Drizzle loved. Jordan was reading something on her tablet, hopefully not clop. It might not be clop since she wasn't showing any signs of arousal, and it would be very inappropriate to be reading that while foalsitting. Plus, I'm pretty sure Sunset Blessing would throttle her if she was.

"There you go," Sunset Blessing said with a smile as she finished getting the flight suit on Drizzle. "You're getting so big. This suit isn't going to fit you for much longer. All of you are growing up so fast."

The human-pony didn't turn her head as she spoke. "And speaking of fillies who are growing up fast; Jordan, if you're reading something that isn't age-appropriate, you and I will have words."

Jordan looked up from her floating tablet and it dropped down onto the couch as her grip was suddenly released. "It's for school! I have a report on Of Mice and Men due next week!"

"Of Mice and Men? What grade are you in, again?" I asked.

"Eighth, but I'm mostly in the advanced classes," Jordan replied.

"Does it have cute mice, like Mickey and Minnie?" Drizzle asked, sounding hopeful.

Jordan levitated her tablet into her saddlebag and zipped the bag. "Um, no…I think you'd find the book boring. There are no mice or ponies characters."

Sunset Blessing pursed her lips. "Not what I meant by not age-appropriate, but still not something Drizzle should be exposed to. I was more concerned with your side reading that your father told me about."

Jordan lowered her head. "You talked to Dad? I thought you were ghosting him."

Sunset Blessing shrugged. "I had been, but some fillies decided to open their mouths and tell him I wasn't sick in bed. Next thing I know, I have my wife telling me that my ex-husband is demanding to speak to me in the dream realm about what I'm teaching his baby filly."

Jordan squared her shoulders. "I'm not a baby."

"We're all well aware. Believe it or not, I was once a teenager too, and one with a lot of libido. So I somewhat understand what you're going through," Sunset Blessing replied. "Just keep that stuff away from Drizzle, okay?"

"Okay," Jordan agreed.

"What do you mean, somewhat?" I asked, curious.

Sunset Blessing narrowed her eyes as she looked at me. "Being a lesbian teen in the nineties living in the south was not culturally acceptable. It got better in the decades after, but it was even moderately bad up until ETS, at least in this region. That level of stigma made it an extremely confusing time in my life. It's hard to sometimes reconcile what you know deep down about yourself with what society's expectations are, and it seems like it's easier to just deny the truth, even to yourself, in order to meet those expectations. I went through this whole, life is pain, goth phase, because my refusal to accept myself really made me sad and miserable, even if I couldn't admit to myself why."

My ears folded. "That's sad. Nobody should have to deny who they are." I then tilted my head in thought. "Unless who you are is a psychopathic killer or something like that. Even then, maybe it would be best to be open about it, that way people could get you some mental help before someone ends up getting murdered. I mean, that psychopath energy has to be able to be channeled into something, like politics, or car sales."

They all stared at me. "Rebecca, you have weird ideas," Jordan said.

Sunset Blessing sighed. "Discrimination is a form of keeping corrupt political control. Someone has to be the other and the bad guys so you can be the good guys. You, the politician, find some group, preferably a minority that already has stereotypes or distrust, and you make a culture war about fighting that group so you can rile the people up and have them pay no attention to what else you might be doing. It is an old tactic, going back millennia, but an effective one. I employed it against Equestrians. It got the US government on my side and had them turning a blind eye towards a lot of crap I did as the demagogue of the south."

"Would a guy from China theoretically do that with a group called…um… yougars?" I asked.

"Uigars," Sunset Blessing corrected in a grim tone. "Yes, they would. You wouldn't believe how long it took me to break Lántiān of that, and I'm sure there is still some lingering prejudice she harbors for them. She didn't say something critical about Uigars, did she?"

"Mama wouldn't do that!" Drizzle asserted.

"It was somebody else, somebody really powerful from China that tried to convince me and Sunflower to immigrate there. He was mean, nasty, and kinda scary," I explained. "He had your colors."

Sunset Blessing scowled. "Oh…him. I will keep my mouth shut about what I think about him. The words I would use are ones I don't want Drizzle learning."

"Is he a shǎ bī, Auntie?" Drizzle asked.

"Drizzle, don't say that, it's unladylike and rude," Sunset Blessing scolded. "Where did you learn that?"

"Mama says it when she's mad at you," Drizzle said innocently.

"Of course she does," Sunset Blessing muttered. "Jordan, can you help Drizzle feed Wrinkles? I want him fed before he goes out. Check his water too."

Drizzle bounced over to Jordan. "Come on! We need to feed wrinkly Mister Wrinkles! I can show you the cool rock I found!"

"Cool rock, got it," Jordan mumbled as she climbed down from the couch. The two of them exited to the back of the apartment. Hey, who knew? It could be a cool rock.

Sunset Blessing stepped over to me so she was now towering over me as she looked down. Why did humans have to be so tall? It made them that much more intimidating.

"So…you met that defecation on ponykind that leads China?" she asked me.

I backed up a few steps.."Um, yeah. He convinced the Dreamwardens to let him meet us with a videocall. They got something out of it, but I was told the details in a dream so I can't say what. He tried to convince us to come to China, but he didn't seem to be trying too hard, since he was rude and nasty. I don't know what he was trying to do."

"Trying to get a rise out of you to see how you react. That's what I'd do. You can find out a lot after making someone mad. Never underestimate the value of pissing someone off," Sunset Blessing explained before sitting down on the floor beside me. "He probably learned that tactic by studying me. I never met him, but he studied my methods extensively, and he was an excellent student. That's one of many things I need to seek repentance for. If I were to guess what he was seeking to learn, I would say he was trying to determine which of you was less competent when angry– which of you thinks with your heart more than your head when pushed. That person would be easier to outmaneuver and manipulate."

"Do you think like this all the time?" I asked. "It seems like a depressing way to view the world."

She shrugged. "I'm a cynic, I admit it. Idealist in power need cynics to give them a dose of reality. You'll never make your fantasies for what the world can be come true if you think the noose someone puts around your neck is a welcome necklace."

"Eh…you are such a Debbie Downer," I said, shaking my head at the thought of a noose around my neck. I think that was one of Moses's visions that I saw. Thinking about it gave me the shivers. "Are you in town just to visit? Where are your sons?"

"They are spending time with Phobia's brood. I am down here on business, which I have taken care of. Phobia wanted me to look at a foal and give her my opinions about their magic. She also wanted me to give her advice on how to procure some dead bodies discreetly."

"Why would you know how to get dead bodies?" I asked in confusion.

"Research requires test subjects. I used to do a lot more research of questionable nature than I do these days," she said with another shrug.

I shivered. "Should you be telling me this?"

"It's not Dreamwarden sealed, and a little birdie told me that you already had to deal with this foal and what he can do. I assume you can guess the rest."

I fluffed my feathers. "Do you guys have like the CIA and FBI working for you or something? How does everybody know what is going on so fast?"

She chuckled. "I have my own information network, it's part of my occupation, but I assume those agencies are watching too, along with others. Whoever is the next Dreamwarden might be a public secret, but that doesn't mean there won't be plenty who know."

That was not comforting to hear at all. Sunset Blessing was no Dreamwarden, so she could be lying, but she had no reason to lie, and what she said was the only reasonable explanation for what had been happening.

"So…what did you learn about Moses? Did you visit him in that facility?" I asked.

She sighed. "Actually, he has already been moved to a farm. It seems the OMMR had been anticipating gaining possession of him for some time and were ready for it. It's several acres of land about fifteen miles past the military base. I arrived in town before dawn and was out to that farm by first light. They are currently conducting tests to see which animals can be safely kept on the farm. We don't want him panicking animals with his powers. Thankfully, being capable of complex abstract thought seems to be a requirement for his powers to work. Most animals can barely manage any abstract thought."

I smiled. "That's good. He can have pets then!"

"If the pets don't get freaked out by the zombies. I'm not sure how that will go. I guess it depends on how fresh the bodies are when they are reanimated. They seem to stop decaying while reanimated, at least based on Ulga's story of her benevolent protector, Ayedonno. He lasted months with no signs of decay, and ponies didn't realize they were dealing with a corpse during all that time. You'd think they'd have smelled something wrong if there was any decay. He only stopped moving after the body became too damaged to function," Sunset Blessing replied. "As for my analysis, I've never seen anything quite like Moses's powers. If I had to hazard a guess, his powers are some highly warped version of Storyteller powers, but I'm no expert on Storytellers, and I don't know anyone who is. Even Storytellers themselves seem to know little about how their powers work. Maybe the Dreamwardens can have a sit down with the Narrative, but that requires dealing with someone who doesn't care much for Dreamwardens, so that might not work out."

"So…you weren't much help," I concluded.

She stood up. "No, I wasn't. I don't have all the answers. I doubt I told them anything they didn't already know. I should have stayed home and spared them the cost to get me down here so quickly. At least my sons get to spend a little more time with the family. They don't get out enough."

I wondered what Sunflower would think of the fact Moses was some weird Storyteller. Would it make her feel better or worse about her own powers? They might be confusing for her, but they didn't hurt people or reanimate the dead. Was that what those visions were, possible storylines? Did that make Moses's zombies characters he picked out of the Story? I didn't understand this stuff, but it seemed like drawing pictures was a whole lot less stressful than what Moses did. What useful information could you get from Moses's powers? You could get useful information from Sunflower's.

"Is it a nice farm?" I asked.

"It's in good shape, plenty of room for him to move around in, over five hundred acres. It will seem very normal once they bring all the livestock in, but it is still a prison," she said with a shake of her head. "The entire perimeter is fenced, and there is another fence within that one, with the area between the two fences filled with snares, tripwires, bear traps, and more. It keeps people out and him in. Pegasi could fly in, but why would they want to visit some random farm where they aren't sure of the owner's temperament? They assured me they'd be taking classes of schoolkids out there for field trips once they were confident he has control of his powers and will let him take day trips off the farm when that time comes as well. I guess that is manageable if he has a zombie following him around."

"He needs to go to school, like a normal kid. Go to playgrounds. Make friends," I said mournfully.

She shook her head. "I'm not sure how school would work when he needs to keep a zombie close by. Perhaps Phobia has a plan. My daughter does have a heart, and she wants the best for him. Trust her."

"Maybe Drizzle could play with him?" I tentatively suggested.

The human pony looked leary about that. "She's twice his age, and I'm pretty sure her mother would object to Drizzle associating with a necromancer. Not to stereotype, but Chinese culture has very strong feelings about the dead, and she is very Chinese. She would consider him unlucky to be around. He also is another abnormality while she is trying to create a normal-ish life for Drizzle."

"Unlucky?" I asked in confusion.

"Dead bodies, even depictions of dead bodies, are considered unlucky," Sunset Blessing explained. "Don't ask me, it isn't my superstition. I just know her and try to respect her feelings. She won't even let Drizzle watch The Lion King because it shows Mufasa's dead body and all those bones in the elephant graveyard are what goes too far for her."

I blinked. "I learned something new today. I knew she didn't want me showing Drizzle anything with those elements, but I thought it was because she thought it would scare Drizzle and give her nightmares. I didn't know it was this whole cultural superstition thing. That must make dealing with Miss Seapony extra weird for her."

"Not really. Yinyu has no body. It's all about dead bodies," Sunset Blessing clarified.

Drizzle came bounding out of the back. "Auntie! Auntie! Wrinkles peepee'd on Jordan!

"I'm going to have a shower!" Jordan yelled from the other room.

"Hey, Jordan! Can you say he drizzled on you?" I called out to her, trying not to laugh.

"Not funny!" Jordan yelled back.

Wrinkles walked out of the back. Looked at us, then promptly raised his leg next to the couch.

I am never getting a dog.

Chapter 121: Those Who Decide

I closed the door to my dorm room, feeling worn out. My legs still hurt from the workout in the morning, and chasing Drizzle and her dog around did not help one bit. Sunset Blessing and Jordan had even sat there and watched! Jordan could have grabbed either of them with her magic, and Sunset Blessing had longer legs than me and had hands. Putting all that work on me was just cruel and unusual punishment.

"How are you feeling?" Julie asked as she looked at me from her bed. It looked like she was doing schoolwork on her laptop (why are they called laptops if ponies don't have laps? Why not just call them computers without the extra word?).

I flopped on the floor. "Sore. My legs might fall off. If my legs fall off, I want super fancy cyber legs put on– with lasers! Not lasers for shooting people. I want laser pointers so I can point at stuff and distract small animals."

"I don't think they make those, Bec," Julie replied.

I raised a wing in protest. "I know a cyberpony, I call him Locutus of Bear. He has a robot hand and leg. He's cool! He and his wife bodyguard my parents. I should go visit them sometime, but I've been so busy. Like right now; I just got back and I need to work on the visual aids for my presentation Monday. I really should do my math homework too. I'll put that off till tomorrow. Oh, and there's a book I'm supposed to be reading for English Lit, and I have a project due at the end of the week in Astronomy and I've been out of class for all the recent lectures so I really need to study a lot."

"And you've probably got other things you have to deal with this week too. With that whole job interview thing," Julie said.

I groaned. "I think they've run out of things they can throw at me. They've thrown everything but the kitchen sink at me and Sunflower. I guess that will be the next test. We will go to Phobia's house and ponies will hurl sinks at us to see who can dodge better. That will be a point for Sunflower unless they are seeing who can take a hit better. You never know what they actually want you to do."

Julie snorted. "Sounds like something our coach might try if we had a bad meet. Guy can be harsh when we underperform. It doesn't matter if we win or lose, but if we don't do what we're capable of, he loses it."

"Ouch, glad I'm not on the flight team," I said. "Then again, low capability, so low expectations. Maybe I'd get off easy."

One of Julie's ears flicked and then sagged slightly. "Hey, about the workouts…Lántiān talked to me today, during our practice. She said she didn't think they were a good idea for you, and suggested dance instead."

Now it was my turn for my ears to wilt. I didn't want to disappoint Julie. She'd been so happy about working out together.

"She did mention she thought that after seeing me, and said she was going to talk to you. I didn't think she meant that fast, but I suppose I should have known that considering she was leaving for flight team practice," I replied. "I hadn't even thought about it yet."

She shook her head and smiled at me. "Don't feel bad. I want you to enjoy working out, and dance is its own kind of workout. Believe it or not, I like dance. I used to do dance and aerobics before I did flight team, and I loved it. I just love flight team more."

My head picked up. "Really? I pictured you as always being this super athlete."

She blew a raspberry at me. "To be good at dance and aerobics takes athleticism, and don't let anyone say it doesn't. I want you to be able to workout and enjoy it, and if that means getting you into dance, then that's what we'll do. Yeah, I'm disappointed I won't have you as a workout buddy, but that's me being selfish. I want you to be healthy and happy, and fly a little better so you don't get hurt with those crashes. That means finding something that helps you burn calories and boosts your agility. Dance is a good option. I know the person who runs the dance team. I don't think you're dance team worthy right now, but they do host classes. I can introduce you."

Sunflower walked into the bathroom and knocked on our doorway with a hoof. She looked sad. "Hi, Rebecca, can I talk to you?"

I tilted my head. "Do you mean a private conversation? You're talking to me now."

She didn't look just sad. She looked exhausted. She was practically leaning against the doorframe.

Julie left her bed before Sunflower could answer me. "I'm going to see if Ashley and Meadow want to go take a walk."

Sunflower held up a wing. "Ashley can stay. Can you and Meadow fly down to Walgreens? You can pick up some snacks, maybe ice cream and those Little Debbie cakes?"

Julie gave her a sideways look. "Are you about to stress Rebecca out? It sounds like you're anticipating stressing her out. Maybe not Little Debbie cakes if that's the case. I've seen her with those things. I always worry she's going to forget they have a wrapper and choke on the plastic."

"Or just cookies would be fine too," Sunflower said tiredly.

Julie looked around. "I'm sure she's got some of those around already."

I gave her a sheepish smile. "I may have eaten them all last night. I was an itty-bitty bit stressed."

She gaped at me. "You had like five packages of those chewy ones. You ate all of them!?"

"Maybe…" I said quietly.

Julie let out a long groan. "Urghhhhhh! This is going to take a lot of dancing. Meadow! We need to go to Walgreens and restock Rebecca's stress relief. Oatmeal cream pies this time, so at least she's getting some oats!"

Meadow stuck her head past Sunflower. "You ate all that junk you had laying around already?? Rebecca! You're going to make yourself sick! I'm not paying for more. I'm not going to be the one responsible for you having a heart attack."

Sunflower flapped her wings, clipping Meadow across the snout. Sunflower gave her roommate an apologetic look. "Girls, I'll pay you back, but can you do this for me, please?"

Ashley shouldered into the room. "Gosh darn it. Come on you two. I know what's about to go down, and neither of you need to be listening. I'll buy Rebecca some artery-clogging food, and some ice cream for Sunflower. If I'm going we'll have to walk, which will take longer, which gives them more time to talk."

I looked around. "Where's Nightscape?"

Julie rolled her eyes. "It's a weekend evening, where do you think?"

"Oh…you know…Nightscape isn't a very good bodyguard," I said, feeling legitimately annoyed, but trying not to show it. "She always leaves me fending for myself. If Sunflower was intending on murdering me, I'd be defenseless."

"She is trying to kill you. She's about to stuff you with more sweets," Meadow lamented.

"How about we get her trail mix? That's got some healthy stuff in it," Julie suggested. "We can still get ice cream for Sunflower. She rarely treats herself."

Ashley headbutted Meadow out of the bathroom and used her horn to open my door, just missing my tail. I really should get up. Julie got the idea that Ashley was impatient and followed the pair out the door. Ashley closed it firmly behind them leaving me laying on the floor and Sunflower standing in the bathroom doorway.

Time to stand up. I did so and then promptly sat down. My legs were still sore and chasing Drizzle and Wrinkles had left them cramping.

"Sorry, my legs feel like weights. I know that might sound funny, coming from me, but they feel extra heavy today between Julie's workout and chasing a filly and her dog around," I explained. "By the way, I ran into SB again, while foalsitting. She told me about how she thinks Moses's powers come from him being some weird Storyteller."

She sat down, still in the bathroom doorway. "I ran into her too. I think before you. I went to Phobia Remedy's house early this morning. SB came back and gave her report on Moses while I was there. It was like nine this morning when she arrived. I heard about the Storyteller thing."

I blinked. "What were you doing over there so early? What were you doing there? Did you get a summons so they could tell you the news about Moses?"

She shook her head. "No, I went over there because I had questions. After last night, I wanted to do some digging for information. I spent a lot of time in a library back home; I'm good with research."

My ears perked. "About that Chinese guy? Or that Soothsayer mare?"

"Not exactly," she replied and walked fully into the room, and sat down beside me. "They knew so much about us. That means he has spies. I went to Phobia Remedy's because I wanted the phone numbers for the bodyguards watching my family back home."

That wasn't adding up in my head. "Why them?"

She sighed. "I talked to my parents in the dream realm last night. I asked them if anyone new had moved into the area recently, other than the bodyguards. They said yeah. Didn't know much about them– unusually private ponies. I couldn't do anything with that. It was information learned in the dream realm about others. I had already planned on calling the bodyguards, but what my parents said worried me. I don't know why I even asked, knowing it could only upset me and not be used."

I shivered. It wasn't as easy to watch for random new people in Skytree. There were always new people, but in a community like Sunflower's every new face was a piece of gossip. That was the way it was with rural areas. People moved away more than they moved in. Most new people came from births.

"Did she give you the phone numbers?" I asked.

Sunflower bit her lip and nodded. A tear leaked from her eyes.

My ears folded back. "The bodyguards confirmed your fears. It's spies."

"They can't confirm who's spies, but they definitely are watching my family. The bodyguards have been on high alert," Sunflower whispered.

I looked away. "I should probably talk to Melissa and Locutus of Bear, my parents too. Do you think he's watching all our friends too?"

"I expect so. It's hard to tell in a place like this It's a city of bodyguards and spies. Everyone's being watched all the time. That makes it harder to pick out who is watching who for who. I wouldn't be surprised if the OMMR has extra bodyguards watching our friends. I'm sure the Dreamwardens thought of it. The thing is, these bodyguards are mostly volunteers, like Ashley and Nightscape, and while Ashley might take the job very seriously, you're right about Nightscape. I hate saying this about a friend, but Nightscape deserves to be fired She doesn't do her job the majority of the time. She's too busy rolling in the grass with her future husband. How many of the bodyguards watching the people who matter to us are like that? How many of those has China identified?"

I couldn't deny she was right. The Dreamwardens had built a network over the last fourteen years, but it was still rather amateur. I could see now another reason why they wanted to increase the range and scope of their spy network. It wasn't just trying to interfere with world events. They were scared. There were people they wanted to protect but they were outmatched. The Dreamwardens knew more than anyone, but because of the Oaths that didn't give them any advantage. It was a liability because it meant they were even more terrified due to their knowledge.

"We knew this was a risk when we were made candidates. We both decided we wouldn't give into demands if something happened. The job is bigger than that," I reminded her.

"And I stand by that. If I were Dreamwarden, and somepony…someone…sorry…tried to threaten my family to pressure me into giving them information or looking the other way when they were going to do something bad, I wouldn't give in, no matter how much it hurt. The thing is, the newest Dreamwarden's identity was supposed to be secret to protect them and their family, but the same people who pulled this stuff with Yinyu know about us and have agents here."

I turned my head to look at her and she looked at me with tear filled eyes.

"I talked to Phobia Remedy," Sunflower continued. "We both have powers the Dreamwardens desire. Mine is they want the foresight of prophecy. Luna has it to a small extent– I guess that makes her a Storyteller too, even if a weaker one. They have no one among their number who has that ability. The thing is, mine is hardly reliable. I have no control over what I draw when it happens or have any way of triggering it. My drawings are also about as cryptic as they come. Even if you can identify who, what, where, and even when the thing I drew is supposed to be, nothing tells you what's important about it. The why is always an unanswered question. Your ability is at least useful all the time."

She closed her eyes. "Add to that me feeling the threat to my loved ones and the fact I feel like I might be more vulnerable traveling because of all those enemies watching– one of the things I want for myself, and it becomes too much."

My ears were plastered back. My chest felt tight. It felt hard to breathe. My stomach felt ready to rebel, but I still desperately wanted some cake.

"What are you saying?" I asked in a whisper.

She gave me a weak smile and held up her hoof for me to clap mine to.

"I've made my decision. I'm done. Congratulations, you win," she whispered.

And so the months' long trials had suddenly and abruptly come to an end. I had thought it would end with us facing the Dreamwardens in some final trial that would leave us gasping, maybe barely alive, and then they would cast their votes one by one in front of us. Maybe there would be a tie, and we would go through another round of trials and tests for the UN. None of that was going to happen. Perhaps it had been their plan to never have to vote unless they were forced, only wait until there was but one candidate left standing. They were happy with any outcome out of their top five. It was us, not them, who made the call in the end.

The five of us had spoken. I was going to be the new Dreamwarden.

Chapter 122: Decision Time

How did I sit down and do my schoolwork when I just got the news that I was going to be the new Dreamwarden? I didn't. There was just no way that was happening right now. Still, I took the news in as calm and composed a manner as any reasonable person could take the news.

"It wasn't supposed to be like this!" I cried squeezing Sunflower like a teddy bear. "Why aren't you crying more!"

"I'm trying to concede with dignity," she mumbled into my fur.

"Screw dignity! This was your dream!" I cried, hugging her tighter.

She struggled to get free. "It was a dream of mine. It might have been one of the bigger ones, maybe the biggest, but it wasn't the only one." She got loose and sighed. "My other dreams are more possible now that I've let this one go. I can focus on them– travel, love, and experiencing new things. Let me feel good about my decision. It was mine, not theirs. It feels…liberating."

I let off a weak chuckle. "You're propagating stereotypes by talking like that."

"Everyone wants some freedom, not just pegasi," she replied.

I grinned "Still sounds stereotypical when we say it."

That got a laugh out of her. "That's so tribalist, but you're right. People would call me a typical pegasus for that, dumb as that is. So, do we tell the others that you won? We could have a little party."

I frowned. "I don't know about a party. It seems kinda cruel to you. I mean, celebrating my success when you're-"

She put one of her wings on my back. "It's fine. I'm the one who put you in place. It's my celebration too. How many ponies can say they picked the next Dreamwarden?"

I walked towards my bed, slowly– my legs still hurt. "If the Dreamwardens don't decide make me do something else to prove myself."

Sunflower followed me. "So do your projection thing so you can ask them. You don't have to wait till you fall asleep to find out for sure. Do your thing and find out for sure."

I blinked. "That's a good idea." I had a thought. "However, I want to wait for a little. Can you call up Blanche, Jonathan, and Roger? I want to go somewhere private with all of you to do this. If this is the end of the selection process, let's all be there."

"Where do you want to meet them?" Sunflower asked. "We can't have guys here, and most of the places we can go are too public. We could go to Phobia Remedy's house, but that defeats the need to do your projecting."

That was a good question. I'd have liked to do it out by the monument since that was a place that inspired me, but that was way way too public. Even at night, that place would be crawling with people. I didn't want to go by Phobia Remedy's house because I did want to do this with the projecting and wanted Miss Seapony to be the one to tell me if it was over. It felt appropriate that she'd be the one to tell me.

Flapped my wings and flew onto my bed. My phone was still in my pillow, next to my toy. I put my phone on and made a quick call. It picked up quickly.

"Hey, sweetie, I didn't expect to be hearing from you so soon. Did you need anything? You didn't get another fine, did you? I can't keep paying those for you. It's a bad look," Mom said.

I smiled. "Hi, Mom. There's no new fines, don't worry. I know this is last minute, but can I come by the house and bring some friends? We need somewhere private."

"I'm not hosting any parties, if that's what this is," Mom replied skeptically. "How many friends are we talking about?"

"At least five, but maybe as many as…give me a second while I count…um… nine…no… fourteen."

"Fourteen! And this isn't a party?!" Mom shouted in disbelief.

"I'm also confused about how you got fourteen," Sunflower interjected.

"It probably won't be that many. Please, Mom. This is important. I don't have a lot of options," I pleaded.

She was silent for a few seconds before answering, "Ten, at most. There will be no alcohol, no drugs, no sex, no roughhousing, no loud music, and everyone is to be out by midnight."

I hopped on my bed, despite my sore legs. "You're the best, Mom!"

"Uh-huh," she replied. "If anything gets damaged, you aren't going to have guests over here ever again. When should I be expecting you?"

"An hour from now, if everyone can move fast. I'll see you then. I love you, and thank you!" I said gratefully.

"I love you too. Don't make a habit of this," Mom replied. "See you soon." She then hung up.

Sunflower raised an eyebrow at me. "You'll need to give me your address. I don't think any of us have ever been to your parents' house, and who else do you want coming?"

I wasn't done with my phone. "I guess Meadow, Ashley, Julie, Russell, and Maggie. I was going to include Nightscape, Yolanda, and whoever the bodyguards were for Roger and Jonathan, but my mom cut the numbers. Calling Nightscape would alert Phobia, and I want when I project to be when the Dreamwardens find out you conceded, so not calling her. I don't know Roger or Jonathan's bodyguards. Yolanda doesn't seem to like me. That makes the cuts easier. I'll send you the address and you can pass it on while making calls."

It took longer than an hour. It took nearly two to get everyone to my parents' house. The last ones to reach my parents were Jonathan and Roger, a full half hour after everyone else.

Maggie was sitting at the kitchen table. "Well, we're all here. What's up? Why did you call us all here?"

Meadow looked around. "I don't even know half of these people. It's a nice house."

I looked at my stepdad. "Can you turn the wifi off? We need full privacy with no one listening in."

He went wide-eyed. "Oh…I see. Give me a minute." He walked over to the broadband router and pulled the plug.

Sunflower looked around at the others. "Phones off, please."

There was shuffling as Maggie, my parents, and Russell pulled theirs out and turned them off. Meadow and Julie took a second turning their legbands off. Those of us who had been candidates hadn't brought ours, nor had Ashley.

"So secretive," Russell remarked. "Who is everyone here? I know your roommates, Maggie, and your parents, but who are the rest? What's the occasion?"

I took a deep breath. "Until recently, Blanche, Roger, and Jonathan had been candidates for the Dreamwarden job. Roger got disqualified-"

"You didn't need to mention that," Roger muttered.

"Sorry," I said, giving him a sympathetic look. "Blanche and Jonathan dropped out of the running, and today-" I looked at Sunflower.

She raised her head high and spread her wings. "Today, I decided to concede."

There was a collective gasp from the other former candidates. It took a few more seconds for the implications to set in for the others, and you could tell who realized it in what order by who gasped and covered their mouth in what order.

"D-does this mean?" Mom sputtered

I got up and slowly walked toward my old room. "Give me a moment. I know you said no loud music, but I wanted to give everyone a song. Mainly everyone who had been in this process. Today, everything changes for the five of us, even more so than when we went off to college. I think we need to mark the event."

I went into my room and turned on my computer. There was no wifi right now, but I had songs saved. There was one I had in mind. I listened to this one around the time this had all started, and it felt like the right one to listen to now. I turned it on, put it on a loop, and cranked up the volume before returning to the living room.

https://youtu.be/mwnoNVOj1Fs

Giving the former candidates all a big smile, I said what I had been putting together in my head over the last hour. "We've been through a lot. We aren't the same as when we began this. I don't think any of us knew what we were getting into when we signed up for this. We've all experienced so much, experienced many tests and tribulations, and grown. We're going to all be starting new chapters in our lives now. Even if you didn't become Dreamwarden, you're still going to make a big impact on the world. We're a small generation, born after ETS but too young to remember the world before it. We're a bridge between what was and the world that is rising. Let's do our part to make the new world great for those who will follow after us. Out of all of us, I think I might have grown the least, but hey, with as round as I am, I could stand to shrink a little. Seriously though, I know the hardships you have all faced, and how gut-wrenching it must have been to know you weren't going to be the one– whether or not that was your choice. We're only as strong as our bonds to others. I've learned I'm bonded with some very special people, and I'm glad you're all my friends."

Roger smirked at me. "Are you sure you haven't already become a Dreamwarden? It sounds like you are channeling some serious Phobia Remedy there. You never talk like that."

"She's got music going too. Arbiter, Warden of Song, anyone?" Jonathan chuckled.

"As long as she doesn't start channeling Yinyu and ask us all to start an orgy," Ashley muttered.

"Her mom told her no sex," Sunflower said.

I blushed a little. "Sorry. This might be my big moment, and just because I normally just make quick quips, it doesn't mean I don't have a lot to say."

"Good," Blanche said. "I knew the Dreamwardens wouldn't put an idiot in their ranks, but it's nice to hear you not act like a fool for once and actually say something thoughtful."

Sunflower smiled. "I think it's sweet that it's your moment and you're thinking of us– even if you are just waiting to have us all revel in your glory."

Ashley laughed. "She got it right about the rest of them growing more. No way the Sunflower Smiles that showed up at the dorm two months ago would have said that. A little adventure can make a pony much more confident in themselves."

"Hey! Let my marefriend have her moment!" Russell fumed.

I gave him a grateful smile and sat down in the middle of the living room, surrounded by friends and family. "Now, if you give me a minute or so of quiet. I'm going to project and find out from the Dreamwardens themselves if this is it, and I'm going to be the next Dreamwarden, or if I gathered you all here just to find out I've still got hoops to jump through. I might feel embarrassed if that's the case, but it's worth it to be here with all of you when I find out. I don't think anyone should ever be afraid of a little embarrassment."

"We won't laugh at you," Blanche said. She then wiped her eye.

Jonathan looked at her. "Is Rebecca's music getting to you?"

"It's pollen," Blanche replied quickly.

Jonathan gave her a flat look. "It's late October and we're indoors."

"Just let her do her thing so we can get this over with. Time to find out if I'm going to be watching the butterball's back for the next few decades," Blanche snapped as she absently wiped her eye again.

That seemed to be my signal to get on with it. I hoped Blanche was crying because she was happy and not because she was dreading spending years as my bodyguard. Then again, she really could be having an allergic reaction to something.

The music was still playing, and I swayed with it as I listened. This wasn't a dancing beat, but with this many people packed into a little space, my body needed to stay more or less where it was. If it went off dancing it would step on some feet, hooves, and tails. Still, the music was soothing, and it wasn't long till I was staring at myself, visible to all.

"That never gets less creepy," Maggie said.

Russell blinked. "I've never seen her do it. She's mentioned it, but this is the first time she's done it in front of me." Was that true? I must have done it in front of my boyfriend at least once. Maybe not.

"You have quite the gathering, Rebecca."

I turned and looked at Miss Seapony, who looked over others that were gathered as they came into my view.

"A big gathering," Miss Seapony observed.

"Give me a second, I think I can make you able to be heard by everyone. Actually, let me do the full mirror thing," I said as I shifted into the mirror form.

Miss Seapony swam through the air and looked into the mirror. However, she was quickly joined by a burning bush.

"I get my time too!" Ghadab yelled as the two struggled with each other to get as much mirror coverage. Arbiter then appeared in her partial angel form and started shouting at the pair in frustration– while conspicuously looking like she was trying to get into the reflection as well.

"Guess everyone can see the glories of the rulers of the dream realm as we have gotten to see them," Blanche said snidely. "Look how majestically they punch, kick, slap, and bite each other."

Another warden appeared, this one looked like a plague doctor. I suppose that was the Warden of Order doing a new form.

"Can you please show some dignity for our station?" Avtandil, the Warden of Order hissed.

Miss Seapony stuck her tongue out at him but retreated from trying to headlock the burning bush– quite a challenging task considering bushes don't have heads. "You get to be seen in the physical world all the time, brother. You don't know how much we crave to be seen and to experience some echo of living here."

"I agree with what our whore sister said," Ghadab grumbled.

Arbiter gripped her staff and tried to rap it on the ground, but it passed straight through. She looked down and gave my parents' carpet an offended look for not being compliant with her effort to draw attention to herself, but only did for a second or two before spreading her wings wide instead.

"Rebecca, what is the meaning of this?" Arbiter demanded. She then gave the other Dreamwardens a dirty look. "Can we all just back away from the reflection so we can all be in it? Blanche is right; this is embarrassing."

The others shuffled back from me, careful to keep themselves in view of my surface. They had to squeeze together to do it.

"Hi! I know I don't have a mouth or a face right now, so…um…you can address my body, I guess. You must have read my mind, but I haven't given any permissions yet, so I'll just say it-"

"I conceded!" Sunflower shouted.

The Dreamwardens stared blankly at me.

"Um…Sunflower, do you think you could maybe, possibly, stand in my view so they can see you," I suggested.

She walked over in front of me.

"A bit over, you're blocking the view of the Dreamwardens," I said. She took a step or two over. "That's great! Stay right there."

Sunflower raised an eyebrow at me and looked at the Dreamwardens in my reflection. "I concede. I no longer want to be a Dreamwarden."

"That's disappointing," Ghadab muttered.

Miss Seapony hugged him, which looked not too different from trying to put him into a headlock. "Oh! You'll love our new sister!"

He did some incoherent grumbling before answering. "I love the sycophant, so, of course, I'll love the glutton, but I still would have preferred the wanderlusting farm pony."

"Does this mean Becky has the job or not?!" Stepdad asked. The Dreamwardens looked around. My stepdad wasn't in my view. He sighed and walked into my view. "Has she got the job?"

They all looked at him, then at me. It was Arbiter who answered, "We're waiting on Phobia and Psychic Calm to answer that question. There still needs to be a formal vote, the Oathtaking, and the binding. They should be here shortly."

My entire mirror surface rippled. "Wait! We're doing this here? Now??"

Avtandil shook his head. "No, we have to have a formal vote, the Oathtaking, and the binding, in that order. That takes at least an hour. You'll need to be properly asleep as well."

Was he making a joke? I couldn't tell. He said it with such a straight face. Of course, he said everything with a straight face. It was always covered with a mask.

The stag and the shadow came into view. They looked me over, looked at the other four Dreamwardens, and then looked at the other people who were in my field of vision.

"You know, the mirror might work better if we all shrank down a little. We aren't restricted in size," Psychic Calm said.

"Are they like this all the time?" Maggie asked in disbelief.

"Yes," Blanche, Jonathan, Roger, and Sunflower all said in chorus.

"They get worse," Roger added. "When you have absolute power over a realm you stop caring about acting with decorum."

The five of them shrank to half the size they'd been and now all easily fit in the reflection together.

"We care, we just can't seem to manage it when we all have our avatars gathered together," Arbiter said as she crossed her arms.

"Anyway, I think it is time to vote," Avtandil said. "I'm ready to no longer be the rookie."

Miss Seapony hugged him. "Baby brother is going to be a big brother!"

He disappeared and reappeared just outside her grasp. He then brushed himself off. "Please don't touch me."

The Stag sighed. "I am Psychic Calm, Warden of Peace, still living first of my line, preparing for retirement and exile in Equestria, and I vote yes to Rebecca Riddle succeeding me as second in my line."

The shadow stepped forward. "I am Phobia Remedy, Warden of Fear, still living first in my line, and I vote yes to Rebecca Riddle getting the mantle of Dreamwarden."

Arbiter stepped forward. "I am Arbiter, Warden of Song, deceased by Devourer core, heir of Sha'am Maut, the Warden of Death, who committed herself to the Eternal Dream, second in her line. I vote yes to Rebecca Riddle becoming a Dreamwarden."

The plague doctor stepped forward. "I am Avtandil, Warden of Order, still living heir of Tikhiy Krik, Warden of Silence, who retired to exile in Equestria, second in his line. I vote for Alexandros Toskany as the next Dreamwarden."

Wait…who the heck was Alexandros Toskany??

Ghadab said flaring and unflaring. "Toskany, huh? Interesting. I am Ghadab, Warden of Anger, deceased by having a piece of shit bedouin using a hammer to crack open my head on a stone like he would a coconut while I slept– may his descendants have painful boils for ten generations, first of my line, and I vote for Alexandros Toskany to be the next Dreamwarden."

What was happening??

Miss Seapony sighed. "Seriously? We're bringing in the number six candidate this late in the game? Yeah, I like his violin playing, but no. I am Yinyu Wu Yan, Warden of Lust and Passion, deceased by self-immolation, first of my line, and I vote for Rebecca Riddle to be my little sister as the new Dreamwarden. The vote is four to two, Rebecca Riddle is the selected candidate."

Avtandil crossed his arms. "You can't blame me for voting for a human candidate. My favorite pick removed herself from the race, along with my second. Toskany was my third."

"I just wanted the glutton to squirm. I didn't think there was any chance the whore wasn't voting for her," Ghadab chuckled.

He got his wish. I was ready to poop my non-existent astral pants. I don't know who Alexandros Toskany was, but I was not eager to suddenly have to be matched up against some mystery candidate out of nowhere.

"Let's move this along," Arbiter said. "We need Miss Riddle to be properly asleep for these next two portions. It might be best if the others stay by her side. Just in case any complications need to be attended to. We don't need any more undead among our number."

Okay…that was ominous.

"I can die doing this?" I asked in a whimper.

Arbiter nodded. "The binding process can get intense, and you are not in the best physical health. It nearly killed me, though I was already injured due to a fresh gunshot wound at the time, which complicated matters, and it was rough on my siblings. We have to ask, do you accept us going forward? Even at this stage, you can withdraw, but once we start the binding, you are committed."

"I told you that you needed to stop eating so much and stick to your diet!" Maggie yelled.

"Becky, you don't have to do this," Mom said, sounding very worried.

"Nobody is going to think less of you if you pull out now," Russell said.

"I know this is important to you, but I don't want you to die," Julie said. "Is this worth risking your life for?"

Death was scary, and right now, I was regretting my failure to stick to a healthy diet. Who could guess that food would come back to bite me? Everyone but me guessed that. If I survived this, I was signing up for those dance classes and getting in better shape.

"I'm still doing this," I said firmly. "The job is bigger than me…and I'm pretty big."

Arbiter smiled. "Still quipping at this stage? I can appreciate that. I went out on a similar note. Very well."

"Ashley Santos!" Ghadab growled. "I regret you refused to be a candidate at the start of this, but I call upon you now to aid us. Have you mastered the spell?"

Ashley stepped forward and nodded. "I have mastered the sleep spell. I can put Rebecca to sleep with her permission. She should probably stop projecting before I do that. I'd hate to see what my spell would do to her when she's already half-a-sleep. That means all of you will no longer be present. Do you have any further instructions before I do my duty?"

"Just see to it that the others are instructed in what to do during Miss Riddle's ordeal," Psychic Calm gently answered "Miss Riddle, you may drop your projection. We will see you again when Miss Santos has properly put you to sleep."

I didn't need to be told twice. I released my projection and opened my eyes to see Ashley standing in front of me, looking grim. She was my friend, but she was also a very scary unicorn, and she suddenly seemed much scarier.

"You were a potential candidate?" I asked her.

She nodded. "I was Ghadab's first pick. I told him no. I didn't want the job. I've seen enough misery dreamed up by a madpony. I don't want to get into people's heads and see what else that ponies can imagine in their darkest dreams."

"You never said anything. Do you have some special magic?" I asked, feeling like she had been keeping deep dark secrets.

She gave me a grim look. "Poly Glot conducted a lot of experiments on us when we were his prisoners. I survived, despite having worse done to me than many of the other foals because one of his early experiments on me was successful. I can survive things that can kill almost any other pony. The perfect pony to experiment on. The Dreamwardens liked the idea of one of their number who was more likely to survive the worst. I wasn't having it."

"Makes for a great bodyguard," I mused.

She grinned and nodded. "It does indeed. Are you ready? I need your permission to cast this spell. Sleep spells are mind magic."

I gulped. "Give me one moment." I turned and looked around the room. "Thank you again for all coming. Don't try to convince me not to do this. I've been waiting most of my life for today. If something happens, and I don't make it through, I want to let you know that I loved all my time spent with every one of you, and I wouldn't trade those moments for a million more breaths of life. I wish I had time to say a proper goodbye to each of you individually, just in case, but I have the Dreamwardens waiting on me. I also prefer to be an optimist. I'm going to make it through this and spend a lot more time with all of you. More time than most of you want, since I'll be able to get into your heads while you sleep…except for Maggie and Russell, you two have to deal with plain old me, not grand Dreamwarden me. I hope you won't be too disappointed."

"There is nothing plain old about you," Russell said. I could see him tearing up.

I smiled peacefully. "There's nothing plain old about any of you. I love every one of you, and I'll see you when I wake up." I turned back towards Ashley. "I'm ready. Do the spell."

Ashley lit her horn, and the world faded black as I lost consciousness in preparation for the final two stages of my trials. For better or for worse. This was all going to be over before the night was through.

Chapter 123:The Binding of Rebecca Riddle

The weight of the Oaths had seemed crippling at first, and it still hung on me like chains, but it was bearable now. I looked up again at the Dreamwardens, and they looked back at me with sympathy and compassion. I wasn't one of their number just yet, but the first part was done.

Miss Seapony swam forward and touched a fin to me. "I know that was hard, and I'm sorry it hurt. Now you have to endure the worst part. You have to let our forebearers' experiences and memories become your own. We all experience their lives, but we all focus on different things. I cannot tell you what you will see in your focus compared to what is in the background, as you are your own individual. Just know that you are still you, no matter what you may see and experience. I look forward to seeing you at the end, and greeting you as a sister."

Arbiter then stepped forward. "I may have taken no part in your Oaths, but I will be helping with your binding. I will do all I can so it doesn't overwhelm you. The binding is dangerous, and it can kill you. I was forced to do mine with no one attending to my body, and I was lucky to have survived it. Your parents and friends are standing by in the waking world, and they will ensure your safety on their end. I would tell you to prepare yourself, but there is nothing you can do to prepare yourself. This is your final chance to back out and decline; there is no going back from here. Do you wish to continue?"

That was ominous, and no one had said a thing to me before today about this could kill me. "Has it happened before? Has anyone died doing this?"

She frowned. "It has been a very long time, long before any human or pony lived, but it has happened. It is unlikely, but a warning should be given. You'd still be Dreamwarden, but you'd be trapped here with us."

I gulped. "I trust all of you and my family and friends. I'll do it."

"So it begins," Phobia Remedy said with a nod, and the six surrounded me.

There was no warning. There was just pain. Millions of images flooded my brain. Some of them were vivid; some could not be called images at all, but rather fragments of concepts. Soundless words, songs, emotions, and more passed into me from the dreams and nightmares of every magically gifted mind that now slumbered. I wished I could say what even a tenth of it all was, but it was so much, and all so different, and it just kept coming.

I screamed.

Then abruptly, I was someone else.

I was in darkness and became aware of the lights. Their flickering and chaos repulsed me for some reason. I ended them, and so ended myself.

It shifted. I was aware of the gases around me. Through those gases, I altered the temperature around me, and so communicated and spoke with others like myself. I briefly marveled that my body was a contained group of gases in an almost liquid membrane, floating among plasma. Then that passing thought excited my awareness and memory, a strange idea.

I sent out a streak of heat into the plasma and was greeted by another familiar one, my mate. We came towards one another, guided by the currents and the remembrance of our touch, and we touched. We came together, and my mate's touch committed me. Joined together, yet still individuals, I let my awareness drift, and I dreamed.

It was time, it was the time that the old watcher of dreams would pass its mantle to me, and I would become the new. In a time long before the watchers had slain many, or so the ancient watcher so communicated with me, in ways that I had never experienced before. It said that it should happen no longer, it would bind to me for the first time an assurance to the dreamers, and life would grow and flourish in ways beyond what could be conceived. It would be given a chance.

I stood among the ruins of Jeg'galla'gamp'i, staring up at the stars above. If I looked hard enough, I could see the darkness between the stars. What would it be like to go out and visit them? I'd never know. I was born in the shadow of the ruins. I would die in the shadow of the ruins—if I were not taken by the ghosts of the Old Ones first.

"Stop staring at the sky, Joss! Come play with me!"

I stopped looking up and smiled at my soul-friend. "You always want to play. We are supposed to be scavenging for junk."

Triss came up to me and rubbed up against me, giggling. "We can play and scavenge at the same time." She suddenly scampered off down one of the empty streets of the ancient city. "Come on! I bet you can't catch me!"

I wiggled my rump and dashed off after Triss, laughing the whole way. I didn't need the stars; I only needed her. As long as we were together, the universe was right.

I was Ter'ronel the Dreamwarden, and I was not tired, but my time was nearly upon me.

Within the dream realm, my people slept and dreamed beautiful dreams, utterly unaware that this would be the last time they would ever sleep.

"Dreamwarden, I would speak to you one last time."

I turned my attention to her. The ancient enemy of Dreamwardens, but the only other being that knew what was coming, she had seen it so many times before.

"I take it that you were unsuccessful," I said, actually feeling sad that my enemy failed. "There will be no one who ascends, no one who survives."

She shook her head. She was weeping. "It is like every time before. There is just not enough time. My students and I have made some preparations to help whoever might come next. It is a bold plan, and it will be many ages before we find out if it will work. None of my students will live to see if their work shows positive results."

"I am sorry," I replied, and I meant it. I wished that someone, anyone, would somehow live, but it was not to be. "How much time do we have left?"

"Not long," she whispered. "Your people will not get to wake."

"I thought as much," I said. "I wish we could have been more, that magic could have waited to come to us so we would have had time to make some defense. It isn't fair. In times long gone, your people were able to see other worlds. Mine have yet to even see the lands beyond the sea, never flown through the air, and never mastered sailing beyond the horizon. They will never get that chance, and it is through no fault of ours."

"You all had such potential," she wept. "I know that in moments it won't matter anymore, but thank you for letting me try, Dreamwarden."

"What else could I do with the end coming?" I asked ruefully. "It was the only chance to save anything. I should hate you more for failing, but I know you made every effort."

She looked away from me. "I will be going now. I know you may want to wake… while there's a chance."

"Yes, that is wise," I replied. "I wish you good fortune on your next attempt. I hope you bring an end to all this. Keep the hope, Triss."

"Keep the hope, Ter'ronel. May the songs of your people be sung again by others," she replied and was gone.

I awoke. The evening air ran through the windows of my house, and the smell of vegetation outside was sweet; the beasts of the farm made the same grumbles they always did in their sleep. There was nothing to indicate morning would never come.

I got out from under the furs that covered my mat and walked silently over to where my daughter lay. Tri'bel looked so peaceful. I knew she was dreaming of that stonecutter's son from across town, the one she thought I didn't know about. I knew she found opportunities to seclude herself with him. He was a gentle mind and would have been good to her. They could have made a great household and had many offspring. They could have…

I bent down and gently laid a hand on her covers. "I treasure you, and you've brought me joy. Your mother would be so proud of you. We shall see her soon."

My tears escaped, and my body shook; it could not be helped. What could anyone do in this situation but weep?

She stirred from her covers and looked up at me and sat up quickly as she saw my distress. "Father? What's wrong, Father? Have one of the beasts taken ill?"

"No… I am just overcome with emotion," I replied weakly.

She embraced me. "You are a good and gentle one, Father. I treasure you. Are you certain nothing is wrong?"

The truth was not something I could tell her. I didn't want her to live her last moments in helpless fear. "I only am thinking of how much I treasure you. Will you stay awake with me until I am in control of myself?"

"Yes, Father."

She kept ahold of me as the moments passed, and then there was no more.

I was Luna, and I was yelling.

"Weeee! Faster, Tia, faster!"

My sister galloped through the snow, laughing and pulling me along on our sled. The snow was knocked back onto my face as Celestia ran, but I didn't care. The trees whooshed by us, and I spread my wings and imagined I was flying. Surely this was what it felt like to fly.

Tia made a turn and abruptly tried to stop. She was able to stop, but the sled and I weren't stopping just because the unicorn pulling it had. We collided with her, and suddenly I was no longer the only passenger. The reason my sister intended to stop became obvious a second later as the sled hit a steep slope down. Celestia and I gripped one another tightly and let out a louder combined yell as the speed of the sled accelerated.

Down the slope, we sped. I instinctively shifted my weight from side to side to help us dodge obstacles while my sister tried to clear branches out of the way with her magic. The trek down the mountain was dangerous, but we were a team. Neither of our tribes may have entirely accepted us. They saw us as polluted. Still, I would say we were the best unicorn and pegasus fillies in the world, and no mountain was going to stop the unstoppable team of Luna and Tia!

We zipped down the mountain, going faster and faster. Then both of us screamed as we saw a new cliff approaching. There was no way to stop; we were going to go over.

The sled went over the cliff, and we were airborne. I beat my wings savagely, trying to get a lift. I was too little to fly, but maybe I could help, at least a little. My sister lit her horn and tried to help as well. It seemed an eternity that we were in the air, and then, suddenly, we hit the ground and were zooming forward again.

We survived! I knew no mountain could stop us! I laughed with relief and joy, and so did Tia as we sped towards town. Our laughter stopped as we saw a new obstacle, a great mound of snow that had been piled just on the edge of town. I closed my eyes as I braced for the inevitable collision.

The sled hit the mound, knocking snow everywhere, and flipped. Both my sister and I fell and landed on our backs in the snow. We both stared upward for a moment before we broke out into a new round of giggling and laughter.

Tia pumped her legs upward. "Take that mountain!"

I imitated her action. "Yeah, you aren't so tough!"

We continued to laugh and giggle for a moment more before we realized we were being surrounded by other ponies, ponies that looked angry. Uh-oh.

"You little half-breeds, look at the mess you made!"

"Don't know why that crazy unicorn keeps them around, should have let the little abominations just freeze and starve!"

"I worked all day clearing that snow from the road, and they undo all my work in an instant!"

"They'll never be worth anything! Just trouble for the rest of us!"

Tia pulled me into a hug, and we both shivered as one insult after another was hurled at us. Why did they have to hate us so much? We were just having some fun, and it wasn't our fault we had different tribes of parents. It shouldn't matter; Tia was just as good a unicorn as any other unicorn, and I was just as good a pegasus.

The shouting died down as a shadow fell over us, and we looked up at the source. Star Swirl had arrived, looking down at us with a raised eyebrow. He must have been eating because he still had gruel caught up in his tiny black beard and mustache.

"Are you two uninjured?" he asked us.

"We're good," Tia responded; I nodded in agreement.

He nodded and lit his horn, levitating our sled over to us. "I think we should go home then."

"Yes, Mister Star Swirl," the two of us replied together.

We got back to our hooves. Tia grabbed the reins of the sled, and we started walking.

As we passed by all the huts, I noticed ponies whispering worriedly to one another and looking at the sky. They barely paid us any attention at all. Usually, they'd be glaring at us, but today, aside from when we made a mess with the snow, they barely even cared. Starswirl was quiet too, and he usually lectured us.

"Is something wrong, Mister Star Swirl?" I asked as we walked.

He seemed to be startled that someone had spoken to him. He must have been deep in thought. "It's a sad day, little fillies. Clover the Clever has burnt himself out trying to raise the sun."

"Oh, no! Not Mister Clover!" Tia gasped.

Star Swirl nodded. "It is sad but true. He is being taken care of but will never be able to use his horn again. It's the unfortunate reality that raising the sun is too much for unicorns to do over and over, even participating in teams, even if they are as great and powerful as Clover. I fear that our tribe may not survive this. It is our penance for breaking the sun."

"You won't burn yourself out, will you, Mister Star Swirl?" I asked worriedly. I'd seen burnt-out unicorns before; they looked so sad and broken.

He gave me a small smile. "No unicorn intends for it to happen, but I won't stop assisting in raising the sun. We all depend on it rising each day, and that's more important than any one unicorn, even me. All tribes depend on this…all life depends on this."

My sister and I looked at one another and met each other's eyes. We didn't have to speak; we knew what one another was thinking by our eyes.

"But let's not think of that now," Starswirl said. "You two are going to be having a special lesson today. You're going home and taking a nap."

"A nap? What kind of lesson is a nap?" I asked in confusion.

He chuckled. "Your grandsire on your father's side was one of those leathery-winged mountain ponies. They have special magic that works with dreams. I am trying to see if either of you inherited this."

I frowned—more magic stuff. Magic stuff was typically Tia. Mister Star Swirl thought we might be stronger than normal ponies because we had mixed heritage. All the other ponies thought he was crazy. Other ponies said we could only be weaker because of it. I was sure I wasn't weak, and I was just as good as any other pegasus—maybe better, but I wasn't confident I would be able to ever do unicorn stuff or earth pony stuff. We were just normal fillies, not anything special.

"Maybe this will be your thing," Tia said hopefully.

"I doubt it," I muttered.

"I wouldn't be so sure," Star Swirl said. "I know that neither of you has been able to demonstrate earth pony traits, but you, in particular, are very much like the mountain ponies. They tend to have darker colorations and are nocturnal. You wouldn't happen to know a filly that absolutely refuses to go to bed at a decent hour, would you?"

I blushed. "But the stars are so pretty, and you can't see them during the day!"

"I agree," Star Swirl answered. "I just wish you wouldn't keep me up because you are so eager to see them." We reached our hut, and he pulled the curtain aside. "Now, if you can't manage it, don't feel bad. I think that ponies are stronger if our tribes intermingle, which is why I spend so much time trying to see if you can do anything outside your normal tribal abilities. However, even if I turn out to be wrong, you are still just as good a pegasus, Luna, and you are just as good a unicorn, Celestia, as any other pony, and I won't stop loving and caring for you both. The other ponies are fools for thinking we all need to be purebred, and it may lead to our destruction. It almost has already. I'll be casting a spell to try to help you two break through to the dream realm. If you can do it at least once with my help, you should be able to do it on your own after."

"We'll show them, Mister Starswirl," Celestia declared. "I bet I'll raise the sun all by myself someday, then they'll see."

Star Swirl blinked and laughed. "That would be quite a feat, but, please, don't try anything so foolhardy. I don't want you burning yourself out trying to do the impossible."

I wanted to cry thinking about it. "Yeah, Tia. Don't hurt yourself!"

Tia didn't relent. "It's only impossible until somepony does it. I feel it, a connection when I look at the sun. It's like it's part of me."

I wanted to tell her she was being silly, that the sun couldn't be part of her. She'd burn up! But whenever I looked at the night sky, I felt the same thing, so I understood. We'd show all these stuck-up ponies. We would do great things.

I was Lakshmi Dhar, and I was happy.

I sat in the servants' quarters, sewing the buttons onto a doll to make its eyes. I paused and touched a hand to my belly and smiled.

"Why are you sewing a doll? You don't know yet if it is a boy or girl," my friend Ananya said from where she sat, mending her clothes.

I giggled. "It will be a girl, I know it. I have already picked out her name. Her name shall be Chaaya."

"You would have been better served spending your money on food than materials for that doll," Ananya said in a tired voice. "Major Salisbury had me toiling all day in the kitchens to fix him a meal, yet they claim we have to keep sending our crops back to Europe for the war. Soon there will be nothing left to eat."

I looked over at her and frowned. "You exaggerate. No war so far away could take all our food. The major won't let us starve, even if food were to get harder to find."

"You're blind if you think that," Ananya said bitterly. "These British, they only consume and care nothing for us."

I looked around hurriedly before turning to whisper. "Don't say such things! Do you wish to be put out!"

She bit her lip and shook her head. "You should watch yourself too. You think yourself privileged because that's the major's child, but he won't claim it."

I went wide-eyed and made a shushing gesture to her. "Keep silent. If the madame knew…"

She laughed. "She already does and doesn't care. I don't think you understand; you aren't a person to her. Therefore his sleeping with you was not a betrayal. You are a thing to be used and thrown away. All of us are. These British are not humans; they are beasts."

I wanted to yell at her, but getting agitated would hurt the baby. "You are wrong, and I will not discuss it further."

I settled back into sewing the doll. I may never be rich or have much power, but I didn't need it. As long as I had my daughter, everything would be right in the world, and that I would ever need. Love would sustain us.

I was Yinyu Wu Yan, and it was just days after the end of ETS, and I was filled with dread.

When I had the vision, I was one of the few night ponies in my area who refused to spread it. It seemed a beautiful world, but also a dull one, far too mundane. There was no adventure to it, no going out and trying new things, just having your job assigned by what tribe you were. There was no room for a wide variety of passions. The world needed passion.

Now my fellow ponies were making me wish they were not so passionate.

I stared down from my perch atop a building as soldiers gathered earth ponies into vans. I'd warned them this would happen. They couldn't go digging up the land without government permission. It could only end in sorrow. They hadn't listened, and now they were being taken away, perhaps never to be seen again.

"We should fly down and save them," one of my fellow night ponies said from close by. We were gathered together, five of us on the roof, all watching the arrests happen.

Part of me agreed. In fact, all my instincts screamed at me that I needed to defend my fellow ponies, but I held myself back. "No, we must stay here. We can't save them. We will only make things worse."

"They are being arrested. You know what that could mean. How could it be worse?" my comrade demanded.

I shook my head, nearly crying. "They have guns and numbers; we can't fight them. We'd be shot and killed. We'd also raise their anger at all the ponies here. Right now, they are only arresting the earth ponies that destroyed property. They are leaving the rest of us alone. What happens if they think that all the ponies are their enemy? It won't be just us and those few earth ponies suffering; it will be everypony. We must stay put, and not obey instincts that will lead us into ruin."

"The prostitute speaks the truth. Sadly, she has wisdom and the rest of you do not," another of the night ponies said.

I didn't feel any shame at being called a prostitute, it was what I had been, and my mark said that I still very much continued to be. I was also a night pony, and as a night pony, it was my job to defend my fellow ponies. Sometimes defending my fellow ponies meant speaking out against them when they were going to do something that could hurt us all.

The vans were loaded, and the soldiers dispersed, at least all the extra ones who had shown up.

"The sun is high. We should be going to sleep," another night pony mumbled.

I stood up and spread my wings. "I'll join you soon. I need to check on my daughter. If anypony is still awake when I join you, maybe we can have some fun."

Stiff laughter greeted that declaration, but no objections. I almost let myself smile, but my heart was too heavy for that.

I flew down into the camps and to where I knew my daughter was waiting for me. It didn't take long for me to find her, and the little blue pegasus filly looked at me with adoring eyes.

"Mama! You were gone so long. I was afraid," she exclaimed as she grabbed into my legs.

I wrapped a wing around her in a hug. She was so tiny now. "I must sleep soon, but I wanted to be sure you were safe."

Disappointment immediately came to her face. I felt bad that I couldn't spend as much time with her since our transformations, my nocturnal nature was a serious hindrance. Luckily, there were others who were willing to help her. I was with foal now, it was recent, since ETS. I didn't know how I knew, given it could only have been a few days, but I knew. Would they be another day pony I could not properly watch grow? My cutie mark had come earlier than most other ponies, and I knew in my heart that it meant I could never go back to being human and would forever be bound to the night.

"You will stay with the Chu family, and wait for me?" I asked.

She gave me a sad nod, then her face brightened. "Mama! I practiced flying earlier, and I can almost do it. Watch me and see."

She began rapidly flapping her tiny wings, and she did manage to get a little bit of lift, rising perhaps a half-meter off the ground before she let herself drop, panting to the ground. Her wings were still too small and her magic still too weak for her to properly fly, but she put her heart into trying. She would grow, and grow stronger, I wished I would be able to see every moment of that, but it might not be possible.

"That's excellent progress," I praised. "Soon you'll be flying beside me, and eventually you'll be better in the air than me."

"Is that true?" she asked excitedly.

I nuzzled her. "Yes. I'm sure you'll be the best flyer there ever was. Just keep trying."

"Yes, Mama."

I regretted again that I couldn't spend time with her, but every pony needed to sleep, and my body demanded that I do it during the day. I'd tried to fight that, but my body refused to cooperate. I flew over to where the other night ponies slept and found them all already asleep. That meant there would be no final bits of fun, but today was not a day that my heart was truly in it anyway. I cuddled up with them and draped a wing over my head

It didn't take long to find myself in a dream. My dreams had become so much more vivid since becoming a pony, and I was aware they were merely dreams. It was expected by this point. What wasn't expected was seeing that I had a visitor, one that I had met once before in a dream.

Luna smiled at me. "Hello, Yinyu Wu Yan. I am sorry to intrude into your dream, but I wanted to discuss a possible job position with you. An important position that will let you help ponies everywhere."

I was myself again, but I was not where I expected. Colors swirled and glowed around me. I could not feel any dreams—or more accurately, I felt like they were there, but beyond a curtain.

"Hello?" I called out, or more accurately, projected out my thoughts. "What's happening? I don't remember this happening to anyone else."

"Hello, Rebecca Riddle—that is your name, is it not? Moses knows you, therefore so do I."

I knew the voice, but couldn't place it. It was like the knowledge of it was also behind that curtain.

"Who is there?" I called out again. "I don't see you."

An image of a woman materialized in front of me, and I felt shock as I recognized her.

"Lakshmi?" I asked in confusion.

She tilted her head. "Lakshmi? Yes, that was one of my names once. It feels like an eternity ago, and I've had so many names since, and so many times that I had no name. So much pain, so much death, but also so much hope and joy. There have been innumerable people that I have lived as, and not just humans and ponies. I have lived as species long extinct and alien to your understanding of life– though you have undergone the binding, so you may understand some. How long has it been since I last was in the dream realm?"

I gulped. "Eight years. It has been eight years since you were bound in an Eternal Dream. You shouldn't be here. Are you a memory, a figment of my imagination, or something Moses is doing??

She looked surprised. "Only eight years? I have endured so much. But I must assume that it is true. I am no figment, and to call me a memory would be inaccurate. Calling me a soul might be best, or at least a portion of one. I am fully aware, at least for now, soon I'll be lost again, and back to sleep within Moses."

"How are you here? It shouldn't be possible?"

She looked around herself. "And do you know where here is? You're somewhere you may never be again, or at least hope never to be. You are on the border between realms where the dream meets the story. Dreamwardens can only touch this place twice, once when they are bound, and again when they have nowhere else to go."

"Yet you're here a third time," I replied.

She smiled. "Well, I'm a Dreamwarden no longer, so that makes me a special exception."

I shook my head. "I don't understand what's going on. How are you here? Why are you here?"

"It is best not to try to understand the workings of the Story. It is much like Equestria's Harmony. However, Equestria's Harmony seeks to maintain order. The Story isn't interested in order. The Story is just interested in not getting bored. You only need to know I'm interceding," she said with a smug grin. "The Story is allowing it. I wish you to give a new Oath. One that the others have not taken."

I gave her a suspicious stare. "What Oath do you want me to give? You don't have the best reputation."

She nodded. "Understandable. I do not fault you for being wary, but I was a different person with a different name the last I was here. Hear my Oath and make your own decision. I wish that if you ever have severe doubt about your worthiness, enough that you're confident you were a mistake, that you either retire or banish yourself to the eternal dream."

"Is it wrong to doubt myself?" I asked, uncertain of why she was asking for this. "It seems like I should be better off questioning myself. Everyone should question their actions and take feedback."

"A little doubt can be good, but a lot of doubt can be poison," she replied. "The universe cannot abide such a poison festering in one granted such power and responsibility. We have seen it before, and no good ever came of it. Take this Oath, and help guard the universe against any who are unworthy of the mantle– as I was and as Joss was."

I sat and considered, weighing whether this was a bad or good thing. Adding an Oath was no small thing. It would carry over to the generations that followed me. My decision impacted every Dreamwarden to come.

"I swear it."

Author's Note

This chapter was mostly written very early in the story's development. I think I found all the little changes I needed to make to it to make it line up with some of the things that changed in development, but there might be a hanging thread here and there. Please point out any inconsistencies you might see.

Chapter 124: Sing the Songs of Our People

I could tell I was still alive, breathing heavily, but alive. I was aware of many things– dreams, more than I could count. Some of them stood out more, ponies who were lonely, misfits, and lots and lots of foals. I wanted to reach out to each of them. It was a powerful drive, and hard to resist. I needed to resist, I wasn't public yet

"Welcome, little sister," Miss Seapony lovingly said.

There was no avatar. There was nothing in the void, but I was aware of each of the others. They were all here with me. They were more than here with me; they were part of me. Not in any figurative sense, no, we were one being in multiple parts. Christian theology suddenly made a lot more sense in this context, not that I was converting.

"You aren't suddenly feeling the desire to have a wild sex party with your friends, are you, glutton?" Ghadab asked sardonically.

I normally would have objected right away to that, but considering what I'd just gone through, I needed to consider what I was feeling. I inherited stuff from the others, right? How did I feel about that suggestion?

"No," I answered after thinking about it. "I don't think I have any desire for orgies or wild sex with strangers. I actually think that is kinda gross. You could get some sort of disease doing that."

"Well, poo," Miss Seapony said with disappointment. "And it seems you got at least a little something from our human brother."

"Good. Someone else needs to care about sexually-transmitted diseases. My skin crawls just thinking about them," Avtandil said. His voice sounded like he said it with a shiver.

"She didn't get the libido. You owe me a song, Ghadab," Arbiter said smugly. "You know the one."

Ghadab sighed. "Right now? We didn't say when I would have to-"

"Do it, you flaming bush!" Arbiter commanded

"Fine," Ghadab snapped. "I'm a little teapot-"

"With appropriate av-at-ar," Arbiter hummed happily.

"You didn't seriously bet on whether she would inherit Yinyu's full libido, did you?" Psychic Calm asked tiredly.

"You bet we did!" Arbiter cackled. "If I lost, I would have to sing one of his silly prayers to Allah, but I won, and now he has to be a nice little teapot."

"I do have a much stronger desire to do nasty things in bed with my boyfriend than I did before. Does that count?" I asked, hoping to spare at least some of Ghadab's dignity. I wasn't lying, not that I could. Part of my mind was going through a series of very x-rated fantasies about what Russell and I could do. There was a lot of chocolate and licking involved. That was certainly new and not entirely unwelcome.

"That has to count for something," Ghadab pleaded.

Arbiter grumbled. "You get out of the avatar, but I still want the song. You aren't getting out of this without a song. I crave music."

"Does it count as music coming from Ghadab?" Phobia asked in a bored tone.

"Close enough," Arbiter answered.

"Alright, let's get this over with," Ghadab lamented. "I'm a little teapot, short and stout. Here is my handle, here is my spout. When I get all steamed up, hear me shout. Tip me over and pour me out!"

This was not how I pictured my first few moments as a Dreamwarden. I honestly couldn't say this was in any of my fantasies about how this would play out. If anyone was going to be singing, it would have been me.

"That was beautiful, brother. If I had eyes, that would have brought tears to them," Miss Seapony said.

"Tears of pain, maybe. That was horribly off-key," Avtandil said. "Did you need to punish us all with that, sister?"

"It was soooo worth it!" Arbiter giggled. "But he's right, Ghadab; never sing again."

I felt a dark disturbance in the dream realm.

"Oh! Where's there's a whip, there's a way! Where there's a whip, there's a way! Where-"

"Don't you dare, Ghadab!" Arbiter hissed. Of course, Ghadab would sing something Lord of the Rings related. He had an obsession with that story.

I couldn't leave my new brother hanging.

"We don't want to go to war today! But the lord of the lash says nay nay nay!"

Miss Seapony joined in. "A crack on the back says, we're going to fight. We're going to march all day and night and more-"

"See what you started!" Avtandil shouted. "Was it worth it, Arbiter?! And now there's three of them who will indulge in this nonsense!"

"I'd rather be singing a good old hobbit song, but what's a pony to do?" I innocently asked.

"Hahaha!" Ghadab cackled. "The glutton is growing on me!"

"Perhaps you should consider getting that removed if true," Phobia said.

"Et tu, Phobia?" Arbiter asked sorrowfully. "They are destroying music!"

"I think that song is meant to be sung terribly, and on a loop. My mother once told me she and her sisters sang it during the car ride through Kansas when leaving Colorado," Phobia said.

"Sunset Blessing's villainy is greater than I realized," Avtandil cried.

"If you are all done blowing off the stress that had built up while worrying about my replacement's ability to keep breathing through the binding, perhaps we should get down to some serious business," Psychic Calm said.

"Was it that bad?" I asked.

"We were afraid you were going to have a heart attack. Diet, Rebecca, starting today," Miss Seapony said firmly.

"I'm not making promises I can't hold to, but I will be calling someone about dance classes. I was told they are excellent workouts," I replied. My friends and family must have been extremely worried, maybe still worried. I felt out in the dream realm. I didn't need any explanation on how to do it; it was instinctual. I felt none of my friends' minds. Nobody had fainted I suppose. Well, Russell or Maggie could have. Since they had no magic I would have no way of knowing until I woke up. My parents were a possibility too. Living Dreamwardens had a hard time finding dreams outside their species.

"Exercise is better than nothing," Avtandil conceded.

"Getting to business," Psychic Calm said. "I have had a plane waiting ready to leave for New York for the last few days. Weather permitting, I can leave within the next hour and be through the portal by noon. News crews can be alerted. The government has already made a list of select press passes to issue to cover my departure."

"If you don't run into any charity cases before then like Krik did," Arbiter said with annoyance. "His decision to take pity on that filly caused it to be almost a week where there were seven of us. I'm shocked that the government didn't take issue with us."

"The Saudis didn't like it. They made quite a lengthy speech about it, bordering on calling a jihad," Avtandil said disparagingly. "It's the first time I ever heard them and the Iranis make a joint statement in agreement on something."

"Who cares?" Ghadab asked dismissively. "Those countries are already practically in jihad against ponies. The entire Muslim world shames Allah."

"We want to make some headway in trying to undo that hate and that incident didn't help," Avtandil said crossly.

"They were just looking for an excuse to complain. You didn't speak up at the time, germaphobe," Ghadab growled.

"I was freshly raised! I didn't want to overstep myself," Avtandil angrily fired back.

"Let's just try to avoid another such incident," Arbiter said.

"If I trip over any half-feral fillies on my way out, I will have someone wash them up and send them after me when they've been thoroughly disinfected, I promise," Psychic Calm said.

"Was that a joke, Psychy Wikie?" Miss Seapony purred.

"I mean what I say," Psychic Calm said in a calm monotone.

"Ooohhh, I'm going to miss your emotion-filled voice," Miss Seapony said mournfully.

"He speaks in a monotone," Ghadab muttered.

"It's a calm emotion, and I'm going to miss it!" Miss Seapony cried.

"Do you want me to make an avatar for you to hug?" Psychic Calm asked, still very monotone.

Miss Seapony appeared within the void, not as a seadragon, but as a regular night pony with fur the color of an overripe orange. "Yes, please," she whimpered.

Psychic Calm appeared, again, as a night pony, this one with fur like burnt toast. Miss Seapony immediately threw herself against him, hugging him with her wings and forelegs. They were not by themselves for long. Phobia and Ghadab's night pony forms immediately joined in the hug. A moment later, Arbiter's pony form appeared and wrapped her feathery wings around the rest.

"Oh, alright," Avtandil said.

A man appeared, I knew it was him, but for the first time, he was not wearing any mask, goggles, or gloves. He had a rather plain, chubby face, with a small scar on his chin that was barely noticeable, short dark hair, and brown eyes. He walked through the void to them and gently, almost hesitantly laid a hand on the group. Was his fear of germs so strong that even gently touching others in a dream takes a great force of will?

Phobia Remedy looked up at me. "I know you are a new member of the family, but you are welcome to join us. Psychic Calm is your brother too. There's a chance this is your last opportunity to see him."

"Don't worry about intruding, I cried for Sha'am when she departed and joined in the lament for her. I had hated her up until I became a Dreamwarden, but losing one of us, even having been a Dreamwarden for only hours, felt like losing part of myself," Arbiter said.

"I had thought they were exaggerating, but Krik's departure to Equestria felt like part of my soul suddenly went missing," Avtandil softly said. "If you look at my memories, you'll know how I felt. I hated him, but I cried."

I remembered. Avtandil had been a hacker, living in Tbilisi. There had been a human with mind magic that had used his magic to seduce women, including his younger sister. The men of the city had realized what this human had been doing, and vigilante groups had been raised to seek the seducer out and enact their own justice. Avtandil had been the ringleader of one of these groups, organizing and directing from his computer. They captured their prey and brought him before Avtandil, but as Avtandil was about to enact his justice, the OMMR raided their base, seized the human that had seduced and raped Avtandil's sister (along with many other women and girls).

Avtandil tried to stop them. He didn't trust the justice of the OMMR, and he turned the vigilante efforts towards the OMMR, directing raids from his room to retake the villain and punish him. This went on for days, and the vigilantes enacted a lot of damage to the OMMR and their efforts. However, the OMMR eventually located where he was operating from, and decided to cut off the head of the band.

He was dragged into a warehouse and put down on his knees before Krik. Avtandil had shouted obscenities at the Dreamwarden, and Krik sat in silence, not flinching, not batting an eye as Avtandil exhausted himself. When Avtandil had shouted so much that he was gasping for breath, the seducer was then dragged into the room.

Before Avtandil could react, the seducer pulled a jagged piece of tile from his sleeve and charge Krik. Krik sat impassively as the seducer came close, then at the last minute, Krik jumped into the air, bucked the villain in the face, and came down hard on the human, ramming a hoof into the seducer's neck so hard he shattered the man's windpipe. Avtandil watched as the man died on the floor and Krik wretched and vomited in a corner. Krik could never handle violence well, but when called upon, he was among the most brutal there was.

Avtandil was merely fifteen at the time, and teenagers have complex and often complex and contradictory emotions. The seducer was dead, but Avtandil had been denied being able to carry out his vengeance himself. He detested Krik for stealing what he felt was his right, and found the breath to shout obscenities at that night pony as Krik continued to empty his stomach in a corner, adding to Avtandil's contempt. He had been a germaphobe even then, a side effect of having lived in fear of ETS, and then catching ETS on the last day of the pandemic. The warehouse was filthy and the night pony was vomiting, add that to his anger at his lost vengeance and the teenage mind twisted that into hate for Krik.

A guard walked in front of the yelling Avtandil and tossed a manilla folder at him. He instructed him to read. Curiosity overriding obstence, he did. It detailed a series of strange emotional attacks that had been occurring in Krakow, Poland– many young girls had been hurt. The guard smirked and asked him what he was going to do about it.

And so Avtandil was conscripted into the OMMR. He hated Krik, but he did the night pony's bidding, helping track down dangerous mind magic users, and organizing teams to capture them. There was none more shocked than he when years later he was told he was among the candidates to replace Krik when the aging once-KGB agent retired.

All of this memory I recalled in a mere fraction of a second, as vivid as if it had happened to me. I could do the same with the important life events of all the other Dreamwardens as well, and through a thousand little memories and moments my sense of love for Psychic Calm, my brother, grew, and so did that love grow for all the others too. I had not been there for these events, but my memories of them were vivid, and what they had endured over the years, both joyous events and tragedies, I endured as well.

Overcome with emotion, I created an avatar of myself and through myself into the group hug. Then the crying began. I don't know who started the crying, but it spread rapidly, and before long, we were all crying. Our brother was leaving!

We hugged for some time, feeling sorrowful feelings, but also love for one another. It was kind of cozy, even if none of this was physically happening.

"We don't hug enough. Why don't we hug more?" Ghadab said with contentment.

"You're in a pleasant mood," Arbiter observed.

"Very pleasant, very happy," Ghadab hummed.

I remembered something important. "You know, I've got a funny story to tell."

"I like funny stories," Ghadab said, still seeming very content.

"While I was being bound, I ran into Sha'am Maut," I said, sounding as casual as I could about it.

Ghadab shifted seemingly starting to get uncomfortable. "I don't remember any particularly funny stories from our bitch sister's life."

"This is more funny-weird than funny-haha," I clarified.

He tried to settle back into the hug. "We all experience past moments and memories from each other and Dreamwardens who are long gone. It is not weird to experience some memories of hers. I recall much of her life. Don't make me think of it; it ruins the vibe."

"Yeeeaahh," I replied, trying to figure out how to lay this down gently. "I did experience a memory of hers during my focus, a surprisingly happy one for her, but then a few parts of the focus later I had an actual chat with her very aware and very aware of my soul– you know, the part of her tucked away in Moses's head?"

"Glutton, is this where I start to dislike you again?" Ghadab growled.

"I hope not. We're going to be spending a lot of time together," I answered.

Everyone broke from the hug but kept our avatars going, still in the same forms. We didn't have anyone to impress here.

Arbiter gave me a concerned look. "I guess our happy moment is spoiled. Let's cut to the chase. Rebecca, what did you do?"

"Um, well…" I had an idea. I was a Dreamwarden, I could just give them a full view of the memory. I willed it into existence against the void and everyone watched it like they'd watch a movie.

When it ended. Psychic Calm rubbed his chin with a wing. "That could have been much worse. I don't like that an Oath has been added without thorough debate, but this is for the rest of you to determine how to deal with. I will not have any bearing on such decisions."

Phobia nodded. "We understand. I don't see any immediate harm to the Oath. I had considered proposing a much more severe Oath, but was unsure of proper wording."

"It adds a vulnerability to us," Arbiter said. "There is another way for mortals to defeat any Dreamwarden Rebecca passes that Oath onto, doubt."

"Is another way to defeat us a bad thing to have around?" Phobia asked.

"And you shouldn't refer to them as mortals. I'm mortal and very much intend on staying that way. Even you have a lifespan, sister," Avtandil reminded her.

"Yinyu and Ghadab don't, and mine is self-imposed, but point taken," Arbiter conceded. She fluffed her wings absently. "We still need time to consider whether Rebecca should be allowed to pass on this Oath or if it should begin and end with her. Luckily, we have time. I don't think you are retiring within the next few years, Phobia."

Avtandil coughed, a completely unnecessary gesture for a dream avatar, and everyone looked at him. "I might be next in line…not very soon, but I might go before Phobia. The thought of dying and ending up in your state frankly terrifies me, and there are so many diseases and viruses out there. I intend to fulfill the mission entrusted to me first, and that will take years yet, but I might go before Phobia, depending on how soon she feels like going."

"I want to meet my grandfoals before I go and see them develop their unique personalities. My foals are barely teens, so it won't be soon. You all know my current preferred replacement is still but a toddler," Phobia replied. "I don't mind you skipping me in place, brother. I understand your fear."

"This Oath only impacts Rebecca for now, so let's table discussion of it until we are closer to needing to talk about the next Dreamwarden to be raised," Miss Seapony said.

"Agreed," Phobia said with a nod. "Moving on to the next business, we won't have time to gather the world leaders we agreed to inform about the identity of our new sister, but my sister-in-law has a stage set up and we can do a video introduction of Rebecca with a secure government channel. If Psychic Calm is leaving by noon New York time, I propose doing Rebecca's introduction an hour later."

"Can we push that back another hour?" I asked. "I don't want to rush to finish my lunch."

Phobia curled an eyebrow at me. "How about I ask Wild Growth to have lunch prepared for your arrival and you arrive early?"

"That works," I replied. Wild Growth's food had to be better than cafeteria food.

"That's settled. So only three points remain that need to be addressed, and only you can address them, Rebecca," Arbiter said.

Yea for pressure. "Okay, what are those?"

Phobia answered for her. "First, we need you to decide if you are staying in college for your full four years or not. We had anticipated that would be your intent, but we need confirmation from you that this is so. We don't know if your mind changed on the matter after the binding. It means some extra work for me for the next four years, but nothing I can't deal with."

"I'd like to finish my degree if that's alright," I answered. "I can help out if you need me to. My duties are more important than my degree."

Phobia waved it off. "Finish your degree. You can do your regular Dreamwarden duties while asleep without interfering with that, but be ready for me to run you ragged after you graduate."

Well, that was something to look forward to.

"Don't get it in your head that Miss Nightmares can boss you around," Miss Seapony said briskly. "She is not the boss of you. We're all equals here. You can object to or refuse any request she or any of the rest of us makes, or make your own requests of us– which we can agree to or refuse. The only thing you absolutely have to do against your will is anything that we all voted on since votes are binding, but I don't see us having many votes like that. Despite how some of us try to dictate how the rest of us will do things, there is no leader here."

I smiled at her. "I'll keep that in mind." I looked at Arbiter and Phobia. "What're the next two things?"

"We'll need you to come up with a speech for the leaders," Arbiter answered. "Nothing fancy. You just need to introduce yourself, give your title, tell what you generally intend to do as Dreamwarden, that sort of thing. It's a courtesy. You'll need that for your introduction tomorrow. What is your title?"

I raised my head proudly. "I am The Marshmallow, Warden of Creativity!"

"You're really going with Marshmallow, glutton?" Ghadab asked.

"The Marshmallow," I answered, stressing the first word. I turned into a big puffy marshmallow version of myself.

Ghadab rolled his eyes. "Is that going to be your go-to avatar? It's accurate at least. You do know you are supposed to look different than your physical form, right?"

I giggled but kept the avatar as it was. "I can come up with something. I'll see if Blanche can help me write it so it sounds formal enough. What else?"

Miss Seapony looked away. "Last, but not least, you might want to wake up. My agents tell me that there is a standoff going on around your sleeping body. They've had to step in."

My eyes widened. "Why wasn't that the first thing to mention!" I didn't wait for a response; I willed myself awake.

Chapter 125: Did I or Didn't I? That's a Question

Being a Dreamwarden who wills oneself to wake up does not make it so you wake up fully aware of your surroundings or without nasty little eye-crusts. The first thing I noticed was something long and metal in front of my face. The second thing I noticed was a painful tightness in my barrel. The third was the shouting.

"Don't think you've stopped me because you destroyed my phone! I'm adding destruction of property to my charges with the police!" Mom shouted.

"Please calm down," Blanche pleaded. "We're doing what we were ordered to do. We knew that she could suffer some complications."

"My baby could be dying and you won't let me call an ambulance!"

I finally realized what the metal thing in front of my face was. It was a leg.

"Hey, Locutus of Bear, you're about to step on my head," I said as loud as I could manage.

"Rebecca's awake!" Meadow shouted. "Can we please stop this? I can check her breathing and make sure she's okay."

"Check her," Ashley instructed.

I was getting an idea who the parties were in this. There was Blanche, Ashley, Jonathan, and Locutus of Bear on one side, all surrounding me. On the other were my parents, Russell, and Maggie. Meadow, Julie, Sunflower, and Roger were all bystanders unsure what to do. I didn't know where Melissa was if Locutus of Bear was here; maybe back home, asleep. Someone had to go to sleep to alert Miss Seapony. I could put together what happened fairly easily, so I didn't need an explanation. I'd had a rough go at it when the Oaths and binding were being done. My parents, Russell, and Maggie had panicked and tried to call 911. Blanche, Ashley, and Jonathan had been under orders to keep anyone from doing that if this came up. Some fighting broke out, and Melissa and Locutus of Near noticed since they were monitoring the house on Miss Seapony's orders. One of those two went to sleep to alert us, and the other rushed over here to help guard me. I figured this all out quickly after having just woken up and dealing with a big pain in my lungs. Maybe the binding had made me smarter.

"Please, no fighting, and no ambulances," I said. "I feel like I've been on a treadmill for an hour, but I'll be okay. Meadow can check me out, but I think I'm just out of breath."

Meadow rushed over to me and put a hoof on my side. I could hear her counting silently under her breath, checking my heart rate and breathing. She was keeping her face neutral, but I could see the worry in her eyes.

"Meadow, you're a good friend. It's okay that you were scared, but I promise I'll lay off the cookies…for tonight. Dreamwarden's honor," I said with a smile.

The others heard me, and I heard a gasp or two. Why the shock? They knew why I had just gone through what I just went through. I suppose emotions had been running high and some may have forgotten during all that.

"It's finished? You're a Dreamwarden?" Sunflower asked.

"I'm a Dreamwarden. My chubs are twenty percent more glorious," I said. I giggled, but that hurt. Wow, it must have been rough.

Meadow removed her hoof. "Well, Miss Chubby Dreamwarden, your heart rate is still a little high and your breathing is still a little rough. You don't want any ambulance, but can I convince you to let someone take you to an ER? I'd feel better about it if you did, most of us would. I'm still convinced you had a heart attack."

"Okay, if it will make everyone feel better. Just for a doctor to check me out. I'm not going to spend the night there," I conceded. "I don't want people to be unhappy. This is a happy day." I looked at the group that had been guarding me. "Thank you for your service. I know it must have been hard to do. You must have been wanting to call for help as well. Mom, Dad, please, don't be mad at them, they were doing what they were supposed to do."

"What happened to make you thrash around like that?" Russell asked.

I shook my head. "I'm not sure. I can't say everything I experienced, because some of what I experienced involves still living people. I'll say some though. I was a bunch of sentient gasses living on the surface of a star for a bit. I was a father crying, holding his daughter right before their world was destroyed by the Devourers. I was an angry primordial, committing complete genocide against all magical life. I was a young alien dragon, playing with his friend among ancient ruins. I even remember sewing that creepy old doll. I was many other things. I was all the Dreamwardens who had ever been, experiencing their happy moments, their tragedies, and all the little moments in between. I experienced them like they had happened to me; like I was the one there– millions of years of experiences stretching back billions of years. It's…a lot to take in and handle. That's probably why I was thrashing around and having such a hard time."

"You remember…everything from all that?" Maggie whispered.

"Right now I remember the stuff I focused on, not everything. I didn't consciously choose what I focused on and can't tell for sure why I focused on those things," I clarified. "I think there are holes in it, even when I'm in the dream realm. It's kinda compartmentalized when I'm there. They're my memories, but stored away, and not mine. Things to be accessed when called upon while I'm sleeping."

"And how much of you is you after all that?" Mom asked worriedly.

I gave her a gentle smile. "I'm still me, just me with new features. I haven't figured out what all the new features are, only some. There's no user manual, I have to figure them out. You guys will probably figure out some of them before me. They're part of me, so they don't stand out as much if I'm not trying to analyze it."

"You're being very calm and logical about all this," Roger remarked. "Far more so than I would normally attribute to you."

I giggled. I needed to stop doing that. It made my lungs ache. "Maybe that's a bit of Psychic Calm in me." Then I thought again about the fact Psychic Calm was leaving, and I broke down crying– which again hurt, but I didn't care. "My brother is going away! I don't know if I want to be awake when it happens to watch it on the news or asleep to be with the others. I think asleep. We should be together. Miss Seapony, Phobia, and Ghadab are going to take it the hardest. I need to be with them."

"Okaaay…that was a quick flip of emotion there," Julie said warily. "This is going to take some getting used to."

"The bond between Dreamwardens is a big deal. Phobia Remedy talked to me about it," Sunflower explained. "Psychic Calm going away is like a family member going away without you knowing if you'll see or hear from them again, maybe an even worse feeling. To her, he isn't some person we talk about as a faraway individual anymore. He is like her brother whom she loves deeply, even after just a few minutes. She lived the Dreamwardens' lives, including his and all the others interacting with him. She inherited all that history with him."

"She's still shifting emotions pretty fast," Julie pointed out.

"It's been a trying experience, give her time to settle," Russell said.

I sniffled. "Thanks, Russell. If I were feeling better, I'd ask you if you wanted to rent a hotel room somewhere." Russell blinked and went wide-eyed.

Ashley chuckled. "And there's the Yinyu in her. She wasn't even embarrassed saying that in front of everybody, including her parents. Hold onto your britches, Russell. Your relationship is about to get a whole lot more interesting."

"Becky has never been one to let embarrassment get in the way of her mouth. She's bold, and her filter is pretty weak. Nothing's new about that. All but saying let's go have sex is new, though," Stepdad said.

"It wasn't like that. I would have only asked," I clarified.

Mom sighed. "At least it's someone who can't get you pregnant. You're grown adults. If you two do decide to do something before you get your apartment, save your money and use your room here; just alert us in advance, and don't get too loud."

Russell rubbed his hands nervously. "Um, thanks. Bec and I are likely still going to wait, at least for a little while. I need to get used to the new stuff. She and I discussed that before."

"Yeah, he needs to know he can be happy with the enhanced me. I was a big pony to deal with before, and now there's all this extra stuff to deal with. I don't want him unhappy," I said with a sigh."That had been too forward. Sorry about that. It's going to take me a little bit to get used to this, me and everyone else."

"I'll run her to the ER," Maggie offered. "I can give updates by text, and since we're both heading to the dorms after, I might as well be the one to be her transportation and let everyone settle down. I'll keep her away from any sweets too. She promised cookies, and I was told to always pay attention to a Dreamwarden's wordings."

"I'll go with you. I'm watching her back through the rest of the year, and I don't want to walk back to school from here in the middle of the night. Meadow and Sunflower can fly back to school faster than we can get to the ER," Ashley said.

"I'll go as well. I'm technically her bodyguard now," Blanche said.

"I'll give you another ride, Roger. I want to go to bed soon. I expect I'm going to have a busy day tomorrow, considering I'm the red herring," Jonathan said as he laughed and shrugged his shoulders.

Locutus of Bear gave my mom a sheepish grin. "Um, I'll pay to replace your phone. I need to go wake Melissa up and tell her everything's been taken care of." He turned and smiled at me. "Congratulations, by the way."

Mom went to the kitchen counter and grabbed her purse. "We're going to follow behind to the ER. I'm not going to bed till I know my baby is okay."

Julie looked around at everyone. "I don't think she had a heart attack. She was like this after getting off the treadmill this morning. I think she's just overworked herself for today."

I raised a wing. "I blame Sunset Blessing and Jordan for making me chase Wrinkles!"

"She must be delirious, that sentence made no sense," Stepdad said worriedly.

Sunflower flapped her wings. "It does in context. She's not delirious."

My stepdad gave her an incredulous look. "She chased wrinkles because some famous preacher and a middle eastern country told her to? That makes sense in some context?"

"Jordan's a teenage unicorn. They both know Sunset Blessing, and she was around both of them when foalsitting a filly named Drizzle who happens to have a puppy named Wrinkles. See, contextually, it makes sense," Sunflower explained.

Julie grimaced. "I knew she'd been active, but hadn't thought about how much she's done today until now. She really should have been resting after this morning's workout. She's not used to that level of activity. Add to that this binding thing…okay, maybe she should be checked out."

"Can someone carry me to Maggie's car?" I asked. "Walking hurts."

Russell came over and hoisted me up over his shoulder. "I got you, babe."

So it was off to the ER. I was sore and tired. It was time to take a nap.

"Back so soon, little sister?" Arbiter asked. "You weren't awake for long."

We were in the void again, and I found the void very boring. I brought up the visual representation of dreams…only with my own personal flair.

"That's different," Ghadab muttered.

Cakes, every dream was represented by a different cake, each with different decorations representing the mindset and personality of the dreamer. Every fruit, every spice, every color, and every flavor was present in every combination imaginable. All of them floated through a bright blue sky like clouds. Dreamwalkers traveling between dreams were represented by bits of candy, everything from gumdrops to black licorice, floating from one cake to another.

I made an avatar of my regular old self and stood looking around at all the lovely cakes. This was making me hungry, but these cakes were not for eating. I noticed an odd cake. A very sturdy sheet cake that had many candies embedded in it, and a peppermint floating away. I focused on this peppermint, and to my surprise, the peppermint paused, as if aware it was being examined. The dreamwalker called out different Dreamwarden names questionably as if trying to deduce who was watching him. He was quite the remarkable dreamwalker to be able to sense my attention, and his cake, though plain looking, had its own remarkable qualities. I chose to read him, Silver Eclipse, and knew his thoughts, dreams, hopes, memories, and ingenuity. Such a creative pony. I would have to play with him sometime, but not yet. I was not yet announced. None of the others answered Silver Eclipse, and after a few seconds with no reply, he retreated to his dream.

Miss Seapony created an avatar beside me of her seadragon. "Itching to interact with creative ponies, Rebecca? I know the feeling, only I seek out the warm and steamy dreams, the wet dreams fueled by lust, and those who have strong passions. It is our nature to interact with what we represent, and you chose what you represent when bound."

"I think this whole candy and cake thing is a silly way of representing our body," Ghadab grumbled. I could observe how he represented the dream realm. He, along with Phobia, and Miss Seapony, used the stars in the night sky. Arbiter's representation was different, houses on a street. Avtandil's was different again, doorways in a hallway of a hotel. Psychic Calm was not here, so I didn't know what his representation was.

"She can look upon our body however she wishes. At least it isn't as drab as Avtandil's version. If I weren't forever asleep already, I would fall asleep looking at his representation," Miss Seapony said.

"It is functional and orderly," Avtandil protested.

"And bor-ing!" Miss Seapony fired back.

I looked sideways at her. "Did I have a heart attack?"

She looked away. "We can't be sure. We aren't very good at telling these things. We know there were a few moments that worried us."

Arbiter appeared, in her partial-angel form. In one hand she held her normal bronze staff, but in the other, she cupped a wooden bowl full of fruit. "I monitored you through it all. You are fully stable now, but during the binding your fruit did quiver."

I looked at the bowl, a perfect match to Sha'am Maut's cutie mark. "You seriously monitor someone dying using the same methods Sha'am Maut did?"

She shrugged.."Why break tradition? I also do it to honor the good she did rather than the ill. She was a complex individual, and if she truly does live on through that colt, I hope that she can find some redemption."

I couldn't argue with that. It wasn't the big thing on my mind anyway. I had more pressing things on my mind, like the fact I probably, doctor-diagnosis pending, had a heart attack and almost died! The way today could have gone was them saying, Hi, new sister. Guess what? You're getting phenomenal cosmic power over the dream realm…and itty-bitty living space– you're stuck here. So sorry about that. I wasn't mad about it. I'd been warned multiple times that it was possible.

And what was the worst part? My gut reaction to this news was I wanted some cake. Talk about having a death wish. Dance classes! Right away! Right away after this week was over! Okay, I needed to do something to hold to that.

"Miss Seapony, I promise you that I will start dance classes before the month is over," I said.

She arched an eye ridge at me. "You know that promises are binding to us, right?"

I nodded. "That's why I made one with a timeframe. I'm making sure I'm held to it."

"You do know there is less than a week left in the month, right?" Arbiter asked.

My eyes went wide. I hadn't thought of that. I needed to think these things through more before making promises. Me and my big mouth.

Chapter 127: The Marshmallow Dreams

I awoke to Wild Growth giving me a shake.

"Hey, we have thirty minutes till your speech. Phobia is on her way to introduce you. You ready to do this thing?"

I'd known the time was upon me before waking up. Phobia had left the rest of us to prepare. I hadn't wanted to wake up yet. It was cozy cuddling with all the others. Still, this was my hour. The moment when I got introduced to world leaders. They'd be making announcements to the press immediately afterward stating that there was a new Dreamwarden called The Marshmallow Warden of Creativity and what kinds of dreams I was interested in. They'd done something similar announcing the Warden of Order– with no further name attached, and saying the Warden of Order would be tending exclusively to human dreams because the Warden of Order was human. It had been a bit of a commotion at the time since people had automatically assumed the Dreamwardens were an exclusively pony thing.

I rolled over and promptly fell off the couch.

"Ow," I grunted. That was my word of the day. I was ready to get back into my cozy bed back in the dorms. It couldn't come soon enough. I normally didn't have issues with mild soreness, but yesterday took a massive toll on me and it would be days before things stopped aching. I wasn't used to this prolonged sensation of pain and discomfort; pain was normally a temporary thing that lasted a moment or two. The last time I had to deal with anything similar was when I still had those cysts growing inside me. Why were all my limbs sore anyway if my heart was what had the attack? My heart felt fine, other than me being tired in general.

"Are you alright?" Wild Growth asked as she helped me stand. "I heard you had a heart attack during your binding. Are you going to be able to do this?"

She was asking that now?? A little bit late to be asking that. It wasn't like I could get out of this anyway. The only reason I wasn't in bed as the doctor ordered was this needed to be done. Psychic Calm was gone. The world leaders needed to know conclusively who his replacement was and what I would be doing. It'd been stressed to me that not making an appearance would be considered very insulting to them. No one wants to start off a new job by insulting all the people that have to deal with you– aside from that Chinese guy; I could stand insulting him. Then again, it might not be a good idea to insult the guy who threatened families to get leverage. He deserved to be insulted, but it was a bad idea to do it. Don't poke a rabid animal.

"I'll be okay. I fall out of bed all the time," I said with a smile.

She gave me a doubtful look. "Alright. Let's get going."

She started walking, and I started following slowly behind. She stopped and let me catch up, then started again. We did this twice before she stopped and sighed.

"Do you mind if I just carry you?" she asked.

"I'm a little heavy. I wouldn't want you to-"

She gave me a smug grin. Oh, yeah. I forgot who I was talking to. She was one of the strongest, if not the strongest pony. I was a feather to her.

"You may carry me," I agreed.

She effortlessly hoisted me up on her back like a sack. Our pace through the mansion. It wasn't that far to her theater, just across a hall. The theater wasn't huge. There were only a dozen seats. There were red curtains, a massive movie screen, a projector, and a stage. The stage had a separate small curtain set up at its back and a collection of flags for different countries and flags that represented groups of countries– I picked out Russia, China, U.K, the East African Union, the Caribbean Confederation, U.N, Brazil, and some flag which I assumed represented some middle eastern country I didn't recognize. In front of the seats were a set of television screens. Phobia stood on stage, waiting for us, and there was a small staff of three who I guessed were in charge of the broadcast.

"Getting carried in? Are you that bad off?" Phobia asked as we approached.

Wild Growth set me down and I looked back at Phobia. "You monitored me through the binding. Shouldn't you know?"

"Our dead brother and sisters were the ones primarily doing that. My focus was more limited, as was Psychic Calm's, and our human brother has an even more limited ability to read what's going on in a pony body than us. You know those of us who are dead are more aware, but even that extra awareness tells us little about your true condition. We do always recommend doctors make those calls, not us," Phobia answered.

"I'm sore all over and tired," I explained. "Every step hurts. I think the doctors were so focused on checking my heart that they didn't check the rest of me. I must have muscle strain or something."

"Possible," Phobia said with a nod. "We'll get you to bed soon enough. Expect your next time sleeping to be much more active. There will be an announcement about you soon, and with it, you are going to get bombarded by dreamers seeking you out. Don't feel obligated to answer all their calls. We are not Arbiter, Ghadab, or Yinyu; we can only split ourselves in so many ways, and many who call upon us call for frivolous reasons. I do answer some, but I end up ignoring most such calls upon my name. Even if I gave all I could to answer those calls, it would only be a small portion answered, and it would leave me with nothing left to attend to the dreams I feel are most worthy of my attention. The ones who need our aid the most are often the ones who never ask for it. Let Arbiter or Yinyu filter through those requests to speak to you and let you know who you should answer. Focus on the dreams you want to focus on."

"Are there seriously so many requests for the Nightmare Queen's attention?" Wild Growth asked curiously.

"Thousands, sometimes tens of thousands, every day," Phobia answered. "Yet, most of our siblings get far more than me. I can only imagine, given what she says she stands for, that Rebecca's requests will be among the highest number. Who doesn't want a friend or to inspire a little creativity? Some get very dramatic in their requests, even bordering on religious in nature. It is best not to indulge that."

"Some of your associates should drop the religious imagery then," Wild Growth muttered.

"There are…disagreements among us. Those arguments are private," Phobia said. "Let's get this started. Rebecca, stand behind the curtain of the stage and come out when I call upon you."

I looked at the stage and my ears sagged. More walking, and up steps this time. It was only three steps that I had to climb, but it still felt like a lot. Which hurt more, my wings or my legs? My legs did, but my wings hurt just enough that I didn't trust myself to fly that short distance without a crash landing, and though crash landings typically didn't bother me, I was already in pain and didn't want to do anything to aggravate that further. I'd endure the short walk.

A dozen more ows, and I was in place, standing behind the stage curtain, waiting for Phobia to call me forward.

"We are ready when you are, madam Dreamwardens. Are you ready," one of the staff asked.

There were a few seconds of silence.

"Rebecca, they were asking both of us. Are you ready or not?" Phobia asked. "I gave them a nod."

I blinked. "Oh! Um, yeah. Sorry about that. Not used to being addressed that way."

"We begin in three, two, one, you're live," the staff answered.

"Esteemed leaders and representatives," Phobia greeted. "I thank you for taking the time to meet. I do apologize that we are not meeting in person as was originally intended, but the alternative was delaying the introduction of our newest member for several weeks. We felt that transparency in who the world was dealing with was best and that it would allow our new sibling to get to work on her primary duties unhindered as soon as possible. Her secondary uses will be delayed for some time since she is still pursuing her education and has expressed her desire to complete her degree. She may occasionally fulfill her secondary uses while enrolled and perhaps more often once she completes her degree in four years. This should give you additional time to adjust your procedures to properly deal with her."

"And what procedures should we need to adjust, Warden of Fear?" someone on one of the screens asked. I couldn't see since I was behind the curtain. It was a male voice with an accent which told me nothing.

"Our newest member possesses the ability to astral project. She can make what seems an illusion of herself appear and travel with it. Through this form, she is in direct communion with those of us in the dream realm, and she can be used to address Ghadab, Yinyu, and Arbiter directly in the waking world. Her primary role will always be, like us, attending to dreams in the dream realm and protecting them against those who would subvert them, but you can consider one of her other roles to be our ambassador," Phobia answered.

"That would be a valuable boon, if true. Will she be demonstrating this today?" a different delegate asked.

"Unlikely," Phobia replied. "Her binding was difficult, and she needs time to recover. In truth, she should be resting in bed, but she has agreed to this meeting to be introduced. If she agrees, we can do a demonstration during the originally planned time. I do not dictate her actions, as I do not dictate any of my siblings' actions, so you will have to take that up with her."

"Then let us meet her," yet another delegate said.

"As you wish." Phobia said. "Esteemed delegates, allow me to introduce the newest Dreamwarden, Rebecca Riddle, The Marshmallow, Warden of Creativity."

That was my queue! I put on my best smile and pushed through the opening of the curtain and stepped through.

"Hi! I'm The Marshmallow, Warden of Creativity!" I said as I emerged, spreading my wings wide.

One of my wings got caught in the curtain and the other clipped the flag for China and it started to fall over. I rushed to try to stop it. "Whoops! I got-"

I then tripped on the curtain and hit the still-falling flag, which went from teetering to toppling over quickly right into the Eastern African Union flag.

"I can fix this!" I said as I got up. I didn't realize my wing was still caught up in the curtain, I ended up yanking the curtain and the curtain fell, knocking over the other flags.

I looked around at the disaster I wrecked on the stage Then at Phobia who had slapped one of her wings over her face. Then out to Wild Growth and the broadcasting crew, who were staring slack-jawed at the devastation my clumsiness had brought about. I finally looked at the screens filled with the shocked and angry faces of the delegates.

I gave them all a grin. "Yeah…I might not be the most agile Dreamwarden. Don't take this as some sort of sign. But, hey, I bet this means you'll be that much more happy my projected form can't touch things. That's a plus, right?"

"Do we stop the broadcast?" one of the broadcasting crew asked.

Phobia waved a hoof while keeping her face covered. "Just continue. The damage has been done. Say what you need to say, Rebecca.

I kept my grin in place. I didn't think I could recall my speech now, but I could adlib. "So, I'm The Marshmallow with a capital T. I'm an architecture student, which will come in handy since buildings and I tend to have a love-hate relationship as you see. I've always been a bit of an oddball and outcast. There are plenty of ponies who feel like they can't do anything right and no one likes them, so my focus will largely involve giving ponies who feel that way a friend. I also favor the arts, and want to help get that creative spark to bloom in others."

No reaction from anybody. Well, all I could do was keep going.

"I do astral project," I continued. "I'm not sure of my full range when doing that. I haven't tried it to see if anything is different since becoming a Dreamwarden, but I know I can reach a few miles–excuse me– kilometers from where my body is. Sorry, I can't show you that right now, but I need to be comfortable and in my happy place to do that, and I've been really sore the last day or so– like walking is painful. I'll hopefully be in better shape in a few weeks. Still very round, but more comfortable."

"Is this supposed to be a joke, Dreamwarden Phobia Remedy?" another delegate practically snarled.

My smile dropped as I stared at the screens. He hadn't been the one to speak, but I saw that monster who had threatened Miss Seapony's foals watching me from his screen.

"I can answer for myself, sister," I said grimly.

Phobia uncovered her face and she gave me a small smile. "The stage is yours, sister."

I stepped forward and caught my balance before I could fall off the stage. I spread my wings and looked at the screens.

"I am a joke, and that's not a negative thing," I said firmly. "Let me ask you a question. A homeless family of ponies, miserable, scared, and tired, are walking through the woods and come upon two sticks. The family is a mother, a father, and two foals. The mother looks at these sticks and thinks of all the things she can craft with them. Perhaps she can use them in building a shelter or for a fire or a brace. The father looks at these two sticks, picks them up, and pretends to be a deer, making the family laugh. Which parent provided more for their family?"

"The mother was clearly thinking of what she could do to help her family. The father just acted like a fool, but I suppose you will give some nonsense explanation saying how the father was more useful," one of the delegates said.

I shook my head. "It is a trick question; both provided equally for their family. The mother was thinking ahead and using her creativity to think of ways of helping the family. The father was lifting their spirits. They have two sticks and haven't put them to use, and may not find a use, but he raised the morale and strengthened their bond with each other. The sticks can still be put to use later, but they have to keep their spirits up in dark times."

I glanced at Phobia and she nodded at me to continue, so I did. "I want people to be happy, inspire a little creativity, and help the friendless feel a little less alone. That's all I want. Inspiring happiness and dreaming of what can be, rather than what is. Do you think jokes, laughter, and silliness are unimportant? What use is stability and peace if that stability and peace are gloomy and gray? Society is advanced not by soldiers with guns or politicians with pens, but by artists painting, writers telling stories, scientists looking at problems in a new way, and comedians brightening up others' day. These are the things that hold us together and push us forward. I don't care about politics or formalities. I care about the person crying. I care about the person who has an idea to make things better but just needs a little creative push to figure out how to make it work. I've been given a platform to help those people and I intend to use it. Yeah, I'm a clutz and, yeah, I'm fat and don't know what I'm doing with a room full of politicians, but for some little foal or some inventor-artist-writer others call a crackpot, I'm the person who will cheer them on when they think no one else will. That's who The Marshmallow is. That's who you can announce the new Dreamwarden to be."

I lowered my wings. "And I know I shouldn't say anything that comes off as rude, but I need to stand up for these things. Frankly, it doesn't matter if you think the stuff I stand for is unimportant or if you think I'm not the best person for the job. I'm here, I'm not going anywhere, and I'm not abandoning what I stand for."

I took a deep breath. "The world could be ending in our lifetimes. When people find out, they'll be scared and feel hopeless. They need to remember how to laugh. They need to dream big to come up with solutions. I am not going to be the most helpful with implementing those solutions, but the world has my siblings and all of you to do that. Help me inspire the people who can give you the solutions you can implement. I serve the world, but I serve it in my way doing what I believe in. Leave me out of your politics. I have no interest in getting involved with them. I wouldn't even know what to do. Just let me do my thing in peace while every once and a while giving you a chance to directly talk to my siblings who might care more about all that political stuff and implementations and so on."

Phobia stepped forward and draped a wing over my back. "My sister has said her peace and what she stands for, and with a passion that will make Yinyu proud when she hears it. I stand to help others understand and confront fear, but Rebecca offers one of the greatest weapons against fear, and I am proud to have her as my sister. The Wardens stand united with our new member and wish her great success. I hope all of you will too. With that, I think this introduction is at an end. You will be receiving our official press release through the normal channels, and the press shall as well. May you all sleep well knowing the Dreamwardens stand ready to do our duties."

"And camera is off," the broadcast crew announced as the screens went blank.

I smiled at Phobia. "Thanks for standing up for me, even though I'm pretty sure I embarrassed you."

"I never lie," Phobia reminded me. "And maybe we'll do some practice rehearsals for the next time you enter a stage, shall we?"

I giggled, which still hurt, but that was okay. "Yeah, sounds like a good idea. Can I go back to the dorms now? I need to sleep– after I find a big cake to eat."

"I baked you one and already have it out to be delivered to your dorm room," Phobia answered. Someone knew me well.

Well, that ordeal was over. It was official. I was The Marshmallow, the Dreamwarden of Creativity, and my era of being a Dreamwarden would be something special.

Author's Note

Stay tuned for the epilogue. It might be a few days. If anyone knows anything about my epilogues, they tend to be lengthy.

Epilogue: My Life as a Marshmallow

Two Months Later

"I can't believe you managed to do it twice. How is that even possible?" the almost completely mended Crystal Dreams said from the driver's seat.

I shrugged. "Perhaps I'm talented and have an aversion to flags."

"That answer isn't going to work. I know Dreamwardens like to put perhaps in their sentences to get around lying," Crystal fussed.

"It's a very useful word, along with might, maybe, and possibly," I replied cheerfully.

"Don't forget may," Phobia added in.

"Don't encourage her!" Crystal shouted. "How could you let her do that? She's making fools out of you."

"Because I make the Dreamwardens less scary and mysterious. The Dreamwardens have an image problem where people think we're evil authoritarians controlling everything from the shadows. It's hard to believe that when people see me. I make people laugh at the Dreamwardens and feel safer. The only people who would believe us evil after seeing me are those people who thought Jar Jar Binks was the Sith mastermind in Star Wars," I replied. "And, to be clear, I consider may to be a variation on saying maybe."

"You know they retconned that so that is what he was, " Crystal replied.

I blinked. "Meesa didn't know that. I haven't watched the rebooted trilogy."

"So, were you trying to knock all those flags down the second time just to be funny?" Crystal pressed.

"Maybe," I said with a grin.

We passed the second fence and entered the farm proper. I looked around. It was rather plain looking. Most of the fields didn't have anything growing in them. That was a sign someone was working the farm, otherwise, they'd be overgrown with weeds and wild crops. There were two barns, a silo, and a farmhouse. I saw a few cows out in the fields and a few chickens around the house, but no sign of any people. Wait…there was a human in the shade of the house, painting it. He or she had a robe and hood on so it was hard to see what they looked like. I could only assume that it was a zombie.

The robed person took notice of us and stopped working to head to the farmhouse door as we pulled up to the front of it. He or she opened the front door and entered the house. A few seconds later, Ulga walked out and stood at the entrance, ears twitching. The robed individual came behind her and stood silently.

Phobia and I got out of the vehicle but Crystal stayed behind. She wasn't a big fan of zombies.

Ulga smiled. "Dreamwarden Phobia Remedy and guest, welcome! Moses will be so excited to see you. Your guest doesn't need to worry. Moses's other selves have his powers under control."

I didn't have to worry anyway. I was now immune to mind magic, but Ulga didn't know that. Moses might know, depending on how much he talked to Sha'am. I wasn't sure if they communed. Sha'am could be this current zombie for all I knew.

"Other selves, plural?" I asked.

"Om'po here and his little friend Patches," Ulga replied. "I'm surprised they haven't come down already. Since Om'po saw you, they should know you're here."

Not Sha'am then, but some other zombies.

"Patches isn't supposed to come outside, so maybe they are behaving themselves. Is all well with the farm?" Phobia asked.

Ulga nodded. "Oh, it is going very well. Om'po has been a great help and helps me around the farm. I need to do most of the heavy lifting and preparation of the fields, but he tells me the things I can't see and works straight through the night on various projects– when he isn't keeping Patches out of trouble while Moses and I sleep. Zombies don't need to sleep, and these two don't want to be put to sleep. Patches breaks down crying at the suggestion, the poor dear."

"We'd like to enter and see them; if that is alright," Phobia replied.

Ulga nodded and stepped aside. Om'po did as well.

I followed Phobia as she walked into the house, but paused to look up at Om'po as we entered. He was a plain-looking guy and had an expressionless face. He did glance down at me.

"How's this second round of life going for you, Om'po?" I asked him.

"It is good. Our last time was not pleasant," Om'po replied dully.

"What was your life like when you were alive?" I asked curiously.

"We prefer not to talk about it," Om'po said stiffly.

Okay, leaving that question be. I didn't have time to think of anything else to ask, because there was suddenly a thundering gallop down the stairs.

"Miss Phobia!" a duet of voices said in almost perfect harmony.

"No running on the stairs!" Ulga shouted.

The warning came too late. One of the pair went tumbling down the stairs and landed hard on its back. She…I was fairly certain it was a she…
looked like she really was patchwork. A foal sewn together using other foals. Each of her limbs looked like they came from different sources. Her mane was just a few stray hairs, and her tail was just skin and bone– no hair at all.

Om'po walked over and checked the filly as Moses came to a stop at the bottom of the stairs.

"We are undamaged," Om'po announced in a monotone and walked away. I was having to resist the urge to call him Lurch.

The filly got up and excitedly hopped up and down. "Hi, Miss Phobia! We learned we can shake our tail today! See!" She proceeded to wag the little stump on her rump.

"Very nice, Patches, Moses," Phobia said with a smile. "Are all of you doing well?"

"We are happy! This farm is great!" Moses announced happily. "We have lots of fun playing. It's so big!"

Patches noticed me. "The big pony! Hi, big pony!" She held up a leg. "Look! We have legs! We can touch things!" She then proceeded to prance in place. "Touch, touch, touch, touch!"

I smiled, loving this zombie. "Touching is great. I guess most people don't appreciate it."

"We are unsure what kind of creature Patches was," Phobia said. "Whatever she was didn't have senses as we understand them, although she can understand our senses, language, and other concepts through her bond with Moses, at least as well as he understands them. We're unsure what kind of body she had while alive, but it was alien to anything on Earth. She was a carefree creature that existed at some point before the Devourers– not a primordial, but something that lived in the early primordial universe, perhaps even predating Triss. There was no concept of a name with her, so we named her Patches for obvious reasons. She is very childlike, only interested in having fun, and ready to accept whatever Moses believes is fun to be fun. She will never grow up, and I doubt she will mentally mature beyond this point. She's an eternal child. A perfect playmate for Moses, at least for the moment."

"Going to get interesting when he gets older. She will still want to play as he grows up. Does he put her back to sleep then?" I asked.

"No! No sleep!" Patches cried.

Moses came over and hugged the stitched-together zombie. "We won't put you to sleep. We are friends. We love us."

"Promise, no sleep?" Patches sniffled.

"Promise," Moses confirmed.

I looked at Phobia.."Um, is that going to work out? He can't very well go off to school with her. She'd cause a panic. We wanted him to go to school."

"I've done some tests with Om'Po. Om'Po is not as concerned about falling asleep, so we used him to judge how far from Moses these zombies can get before the magic wears off," Phobia replied.

"What did you do, just stick him in a van and keep driving till he collapsed?" I asked.

"Yes," Phobia answered. "An easy enough way to test. Om'Po made it halfway to Augusta before he gave out. That was good, it was a decent distance but not so far we couldn't get him back here to reanimate before the rot set in. Moses should be able to attend school while keeping Patches active."

"The dear helps me out around the house sometimes when Moses can't play with her, simple tasks, but tasks that are much easier with a working set of eyes. She is very eager to please and takes pleasure in the most mundane of tasks," Ulga said cheerfully. "It is very hard to upset her. The only thing that seems to upset her is the idea of having to go to sleep. She's even taken injuries, admitted those injuries hurt, and then gushed happily about feeling pain because she's experiencing something."

What an odd but happy little person. Oh well, at least Moses could go off to school and have a semi-normal life. He had zombies at home, but we all had our little oddities.

"I guess I'm satisfied Moses is being taken care of," I said.

Moses walked over and gave me a hopeful look. "Play with us?"

Patches came beside him and gave me the same puppy dog eyes which looked strangely adorable on a stitched-up zombie. "Please?"

I laughed. "Okay, we can play a few games." I was here to make ponies happy…and I guess that included zombie aliens in patchwork pony bodies too.

Three Years and Seven Months Later

Graduation had come and gone, but now, it was time for the next big stage of my life.

"Russell Rice, do you take this mare, Rebecca Riddle, to be your lawfully wedded wife? Will you honor and cherish her, love, trust, and commit to her, through joy and pain, sickness and health, and whatever life may throw at you both until death do you part?"

Russell, smiling gently, looked me in the eyes. "I do." I felt like my legs were going to buckle.

"Rebecca Riddle, do you take this man, Russell Rice, to be your lawfully wedded husband? Will you honor and cherish him, love, trust, and commit to him, through joy and pain, sickness and health, and whatever life may throw at you both until death do you part?"

"Oh, yes!" I squeaked at a high pitch.

"At this time, Russell Rice and Rebecca Riddle have agreed to exchange collars. These collars will act in the same fashion as the traditional wedding ring, and are a symbol of binding. A symbol of attachment and of belonging, not of possession, but of partnership. With this exchange and placement of collars, they shall say their vows. Russell Rice, you may begin."

The collar-bearer, a very young human cousin of Russell's handed the collar to Robby Middleton, Russell's best stallion, who in turn passed it on to Russell. All his other groomsmen were human cousins of Russell's that I didn't know well, and he had a lot of them– not that I didn't have a lot of bridesmaids. At least I knew Robby well.

Russell opened the collar, a plain black collar with a single diamond embedded in the front that would stand out starkly against my fur, and looked me in the eyes again.

"Rebecca, you caught my attention from the first moment I met you and have never ceased to be the most interesting thing in my life from that moment on. I promise to always support you when you need a shoulder to cry on, to be always faithful and never abuse your trust or your love, to bake you cake on your birthday every year even though I'm a horrible cook-"

There were some giggles and chuckles from the audience.

"-and stay with you till death do us part," Russell concluded. He put the collar on around my neck and gently clasped it in place. "Will you have me as your husband, Rebecca?"

"I will," I said breathlessly.

"It is now your turn, Rebecca," the preacher said.

Maggie, my maid of honor, reached down to try to take the white collar from Robby's young daughter Eve. Eve decided not to cooperate and there was a brief tug-a-war between the two until Nightscape stepped in and tickled her daughter's wing using her own. The filly burst out laughing and released the collar into Maggie's hands. As the audience laughed, my other bridesmaids, Nightscape (heavily pregnant), Blanche, Meadow (also heavily pregnant), Sunflower, Josie, Julie, and Jordan, gave Maggie bemused looks (Nightscape looked more flabbergasted than bemused at her toddler's behavior) and gestured to her to hand me the collar.

I took the collar and held it in a single hoof. I'd spent a lot of time practicing holding and latching a collar onto both Maggie and Blanche's necks leading up to this ceremony so I could accomplish this odd feat of dexterity. We had debated doing rings on necklaces, which might have been easier, but we wanted something more secure, and something that felt more binding. Pony wedding traditions still had a lot of flexibility even eighteen years after ETS, and it was largely up to the bride and groom how they wanted to symbolize they were wed.

I looked up at Russell. "Russell, from the moment I met you, my world felt like it was turned upside down– probably because I was upside down at the time."

There were more chuckles and giggles from the audience. Russell struggled to keep a straight face but couldn't manage it and let out a short laugh before clasping his mouth shut.

"I promise to always be faithful to you, awake or asleep. I promise to always listen to your concerns, and never object to what you want for dinner– though I draw the line at skim milk. That could be grounds for divorce."

There was more laughter at that. My bridesmaids didn't laugh. They probably wondered if I was dead serious about that. Russell didn't laugh either. I was a Dreamwarden, and I avoided lies. Anyway, I knew Russell wouldn't serve me skim milk knowingly. Was I psychotically obsessive over that? Maybe, but we're all a little crazy.

"I will stay with you through sickness and in health, to death do us part, and if there is ever a disagreement over a household issue that we cannot come to a compromise on, I agree to submit to your will, knowing that you will never abuse this privilege. Russell, will you take have me as your wife?"

Russell took a small gulp. "I will."

He bent down and I carefully fastened the collar around his neck. Everything went smoothly with no hiccups. We then both turned and faced the preacher.

The preacher raised a hand. "I, hearing your vows before God and these assembled witnesses, and by the power vested in me by the church and the state of South Carolina, do pronounce you to be Mister and Misses Rice, wedded husband and wife. You may now kiss the bride."

Russell reached down and grasped me with his big powerful hands, lifted me up as I shivered with anticipation, and we shared a deep kiss. The audience may have cheered or ooohhh or awwwed, but I had no way of knowing. I was in my own little world, and in it existed just me and my husband.

After being carried to a limo by my husband we went off to the wedding reception. All our friends and family followed along. Since we were not long ahead of the guests for the reception, there wasn't time to do much. Russell stripped my dress mostly off, except for the clear lacy cloak that trailed behind me everywhere but was something that I was far less likely to trip on compared to my dress. We got a little smooching in before the guests arrived and we had to be out to go greet them.

First to arrive, of course, were Blanche and Josie. They were my bodyguards so of course they would be first through the door. Blanche had wanted to ride with us in the limo before I put my hoof down. She was a bit uptight about my safety. Thankfully, Josie was more easygoing and acted more as my helper than my bodyguard most of the time. She and I both loved helping foals and having her as an aid was great.

Maggie and my other bridesmaids were next through the door. They spent time congratulating us one by one and Russell and I spent time thanking each of them for being part of the ceremony.

Maggie had to keep her congratulations short since she was also in charge of the reception and needed to go make sure everything went smoothly. Nightscape had her toddler and husband in tow and went to take a seat quickly after greeting me. Despite this being her second pregnancy, she did not take well to the extra weight she was carrying and had expressed dismay that I carried around this much weight all the time. Meadow was positively glowing by contrast. Happily greeting me with her husband beaming along with her as she insisted at least three times in less than two minutes for me to touch her distended belly. Julie greeted me quickly and then went looking for the snack bar. She was still in great shape, but with her flight team days over, she was starting to put on a little pouch at the bottom. Jordan blushed as Russell and I spent a moment gushing about how fine a young mare she had become and how she was going to be turning heads as she began her senior year in high school in the fall and when she went off to college the following year. She really was pretty, and now was at that same part of her life as me where people looking at you at a glance weren't sure if you were in your late teens or mid-twenties. Apparently, Jess had been at the wedding and was going to be at the reception, and Jordan was enjoying finally looking like she was a similar age to her similarly-aged friend so they could hang out in public without it seeming weird.

Sunflower gave us both a big smile and told us she'd be taking lots of pictures and showing us lots of pictures of her adventures around the world– most recently having visited Göbekli Tepe after having drawn what it looked like eleven thousand years ago, though why she had a vision drawing of that was anyone's guess. Her drawing had given archaeologists some new leads on some possible nearby structures or something, and despite the area not being the safest for ponies the Turkish government had paid to fly her out there to help with the dig. That was cool. I was glad she was getting to live her dream of going off and seeing amazing places.

Russell's many cousins, aunts, uncles, and so on came next. It was a huge family that I had married into, and it was hard to keep up with everyone's names and how they were related. The only other pony out of the bunch was Mama Jas, my new mother-in-law, but no one seemed to have any negative views about Russell taking a pony bride. I had expected at least some off-color jokes about it, but they didn't ever seem to come, at least in my hearing. Most of his family was also completely devoid of magic, save one uncle and cousin who had a tiny bit of earth pony strength, not even enough to seem like they had extraordinary strength, but they still lamented it was enough to disqualify that younger cousin from most high school sports.

Then came our parents and parents-in-law. Both sets of parents were practically giddy and both our mothers were going back and forth between squeals of joy and tears about how their only child was all grown up. Mama Jas was already starting with questions about when we would adopt or do some sort of fertilization procedure. My mom didn't do that. She knew my feelings and knew it wouldn't come for a while if at all. Mama Jas still didn't know she was mother-in-law to a Dreamwarden. Russell and I had talked about letting his parents know, but while Russell trusted his father to keep a secret, he felt like there was a real danger his mother would blurt it out if she knew. His father wouldn't keep secrets from Mama Jas, so there was no telling him either. I felt a little guilty for not letting them know because my parents-in-law were nice people, but this involved our safety.

Then came the rest of the guests. Most of the guests were friends from college. There were also a few professors from college that both of us had at one point or another. There were some random other guests too– Jordan's parents and her sister Jackie, Robby's parents and siblings, some people from our mothers' newly formed company, Maggie's parents, and…

"Lántiān?" I greeted in confusion. "I sent you and Drizzle an invitation, but I didn't expect you to show up."

She gave me a flat look. "Then maybe you shouldn't have sent it."

"I mean…I sorta hoped Drizzle would show up. Maybe you as her chaperone. I didn't expect you and not her. Where is she?" I asked.

Lántiān sighed. "She is attending a sleepover with some friends. She doesn't want to be seen in public with me. I'm ants according to her. I mess with her…I'm not even sure what word she used or if it was even English I swear in the last year or so she and I have been speaking different languages and she uses every opportunity she can to spend the night somewhere else during the weekend."

I did my cool pony pose. "You got to get with the times, Lántiān. Learn the lingo! Ants means you throw off her cool pony groove by being around. I can send you a link to a site called The Latest Slang your Kids are Using for People that are Suddenly Feeling Old. She's a preteen. That's when popularity and being seen as cool suddenly become a big deal and being seen with your parents is like an anathema. It's a stage. She'll grow out of it, eventually."

"Hopefully sooner rather than later," she muttered. "Her having frequent sleepovers isn't the worst thing. It lets me have my own sleepovers without having to worry about her walking in on me."

I blinked. "Drizzle isn't having those kinds of sleepovers, is she? She's waaayyy too young. I normally wouldn't think it of a filly but given her lineage…"

Lántiān snorted and glared at me. "Are you asking whether my filly is having sex? No, you idiotic sugary glob of goo! How dare you even ask it!"

I held up a wing defensively. "Well, both you and your mother started too early, so I was just checking."

Lántiān rolled her eyes. "Having basically grown up in a brothel, I know that smell in an instant and would smell it on her….like I smell it on you right now. Drizzle would be grounded till she was fifty if I caught her doing that! No, she is having innocent sleepovers. I make sure I get contact information for the other filly's parents so I can check up on her."

I smirked. "You're bluffing. We haven't done anything since last night."

"That isn't long enough to banish the smell," she replied. "I can smell it for days. It can get quite annoying. Not the most desirable talent I ever got from spending time with my birth mother."

No wonder she was so cranky all the time. Walking around the street must have been constant bombardment with sex smells. Time to drop that subject.

"But why are you here by yourself?" I asked. "You don't even like me."

"Did I ever say that?" she asked.

"Regularly," I said flatly.

She looked a little abashed at that. "I attended your wedding with my date so we could get ideas, but after he had to leave for work. I didn't have any other plans for the next few hours and several ponies I'm friends with who I haven't seen in some time were attending this reception so I thought, why not?"

I sighed. "You and I are never going to be friends, are we?"

She looked away. "Most likely not. However, I don't hate you. I find you…tolerable…most of the time."

Russell balled up his hands into fists. "That's my wife you are talking to."

"And I congratulate you. She is quite a catch," Lántiān replied then smiled. "And there is no veiled insult in that. She's an architect, and I suspect has a side job of considerably more importance, although I can't verify the latter, nor do I want it verified. She has connections with many of the most notable ponies, and while her humor is not to my taste, I can admit she is highly entertaining for others. I know she has a deeply caring heart and strong enthusiasm and passion for her work. Plus, she tries very hard to make everyone happy. She is a good mare, who was very pretty up on that stage with you. and I could tell looking at the two of you that you adore one another. You're a lucky man to have her. I simply don't like her– never have and likely never will, but I can appreciate her."

"And that's the best I'm going to get," I announced. "Thanks for coming. I'm still happy you are here, even if we aren't technically friends. Be sure to tell your daughter and stallionfriend about all the fun they missed."

She grinned. "I surely will."

Sometimes that was all you could get from some people, and that was good enough.

A Month After the Wedding

In the literal form of a long marshmallow, I floated out in front of the podium. There were some gasps, but no one ran in fear.

"Hello, news correspondents! We're so happy you all came out today to talk to us. I'm the Marshmallow! Have no fear! I'm friendly, and I can't touch anything."

I was using an altered voice that, while not robotic, was neither male nor female. That would help mask my identity. I turned into a big smiley emoji briefly before reverting to my globulous form with a face.

"I was a little hesitant when I was told Fox News would be here. The only thing lower than their standards is our approval ratings."

Many of the reporters chuckled at this, and I grinned widely. The Fox News reporter didn't seem very amused.

"I had a friend show me the approval numbers for the Dreamwardens the other day, and I had to pull out a microscope to find them. Geez, those things are tiny!"

The crowd lightly chuckled again, and I grinned wider.

"Phobia's glaring at me, isn't she? She does that a lot. Don't worry, I can take it. The scariest thing that comes from her is her Thanksgiving dinner. Baked tarantula? Eeesssh. I think she forgets her day was a few weeks before. I hear night ponies like it, but well, I think the best dish at Thanksgiving is me and some sweet potatoes!"

A few of the reporters got the joke. Oh well, not every joke would land.

"Anyway, you all came here to see how I'll adjust Dreamwarden policies now that I'm being more active since our approval ratings are kinda poopie like I mentioned. Sadly, I won't be too involved in that. I don't play politics. I said it when I became Dreamwarden, and I'm saying it again now. I can let you guys talk to Yinyu, Ghadab, or Arbiter; that I can do. Everybody else likes to propose policy decisions and gets feisty about them. I just float along and do my thing, and part of my thing is giving all you people who don't have access to the dream realm a way to directly question the Dreamwardens you normally wouldn't. In fact, Arbiter, how'd you like to talk to these nice reporters? I'd ask Ghadab, but he has a potty mouth, and Yinyu would probably talk about their sex lives and this is a public broadcast that kids can see!"

I shifted to my mirror form and Arbiter appeared in the mirror.

"This is coming much faster than I expected. I'm hardly prepared," Arbiter said in a flustered state.

I ran a newsfeed around the mirror saying. Dreamwarden Arbiter unprepared for reporter questions in first public appearance.

"Seriously, Marshmallow? Are you really doing that?" Arbiter asked in exasperation.

Dreamwarden Arbiter seemed confused about what was going on at the press conference today.

She sighed. "Okay, play your games. I'm going to ignore them. Nobody print what she displays."

Shocking development! Arbiter tries to silence freedom of the press!

She rubbed her head. "Fine, print what you want."

Dreamwarden Arbiter abandons previous position on suppression of free press after public outcry.

"Marshmallow, you are making me look bad," Arbiter growled.

Dreamwarden Arbiter commits a fashion faux pas at a press conference by wearing an orange dress while having orange wings.

Arbiter turned her attention to the reporters. "I'm going to ignore The Marshmallow. My sibling hates formality and, along with Phobia and the Warden of Order, I'm as formal as we get, so I think The Marshmallow is taking out its displeasure on me. I'm also sure we're interrupting The Marshmallow doing something else, like reading bad fanfiction."

Dreamwarden Arbiter makes a subjective claim about the quality of author's work.

"Anyway," Arbiter continued while ignoring my newsfeed. "I did want to discuss policy and policy changes in regards to transparency of Warden Contracts in regards to record keeping who is held by one at any given time. In regards to our current record-keeping process-"

I kinda zoned out. She might as well have been Charlie Brown's mom for how much her words registered to me. I still broadcast them, but I wasn't giving them any active attention. They were boring and dealt with stuff I didn't care about. This talk was an Arbiter, Phobia, or Avtandil thing. I decided to do other things to amuse myself.

Fox news reporter tries to hide mustard stain on jacket with a lapel pin.

"Marshmallow! Can you please!" Arbiter hollered. "Will you behave yourself if I agree to vote in favor of your next ridiculous idea?"

You promise I added a promise emoji.

"Yes! Now just do a written dub of what I'm saying," Arbiter insisted.

Yes! Now just do a written dub of what I'm saying.

Arbiter shook her head in exasperation and continued addressing the reporters before taking questions.

A few years later

It was a sad fact that in any age in Earth's history, there were those unfortunates who had nothing. On a rainy night, in a dark alleyway in Oklahoma City, a little earth pony colt, perhaps eight or nine years old, huddled in a wooden crate, trying to keep warm and dry. By the looks of him, he hadn't been eating very well. I'd come upon him while projecting back and forth over a large area. I was supposed to be doing something else right now, but he was what held my attention.

I was invisible and could see a little camp set up near the box that he had clearly not set up. He was homeless, but he was not out on his own. There was at least one adult who spent time with him, maybe more. Unfortunately, it seemed that trying to get what they needed to survive meant leaving him by himself for periods. I couldn't leave him be. I had to do something.

I appeared just out of his range of vision, making myself a little earth pony filly form. I considered the form I made and then altered it a bit to look soaking wet. I was supposed to be standing out in the rain. It would draw attention to me being odd if I stood out in the rain but looked dry. I considered how to do this. I wasn't allowed to lie. That meant I couldn't give him my name or tell him where I was from or even some sob story about why I was there or that I was cold and wet. That would make engaging with him a challenge.

After deciding on a course of action, I moved into his view. He noticed me quickly, and did a startled jump, before looking left and right for more ponies. Having decided there was no one else, he returned his gaze to me.

"Hello? Who are you?" he asked me.

"I'm Rice," I answered. It wasn't a lie, just not the whole truth. My last name was Rice. "I didn't expect to find any colts out here. What's your name?"

"Ruben," he said quietly. "Do you live near here? You should go home. It's wet outside."

"I live a long way away," I replied. "Do you live here, in this crate?"

He gave a sad nod. "Yeah, just me and my dad."

"Where's your dad?" I asked.

He looked away. "Working, again." He then looked back at me. "Do you want to come in here, until the rain stops?"

I chuckled and smiled. "That's nice of you to ask, but the rain doesn't bother me. I like the rain. All the ponies in my family are pegasi except for my mother." Not a lie. I was the only pony in my family except for my mother-in-law.

He looked around again. "You aren't a pegasus. Where's your mom?"

I giggled. "Oh, I'm a pegasus, I'm just not showing you my wings. My mom is a long way away, not here."

He looked at my wingless sides and shook his head. "You're weird. What are you doing out here?"

I appeared to sit down. "I am weird, that's true, and I'm talking to you, silly. You looked like you could use a friend. Do you have any friends?"

He looked away again. "No, no friends. You don't want to be friends with me. I don't have any toys or even a house."

"Sure I do!" I insisted. I then came closer to him. "You know, I know what it's like to have no friends, and to be hungry, and alone, and waiting fearfully for your parent to come back."

"No, you don't," he muttered. He looked ready to cry.

I lowered my head. "When I was younger, my mom and I lived in a car There were no ponies around. She'd have to leave me alone in that car to go work all the time. Sometimes we would get to stay in a hotel, but the hotel was scarier than the car."

He looked at me again. "But you have a home now?"

I looked up and gave a soft smile. "Yeah, I have a home now, and a great life, and it all started with me meeting a special friend. I can tell you about it and be your special friend, but you have to promise to keep it a secret "

"I promise," he said.

I smiled "I'll hold you to that promise. Now on to my story. Be patient, it might take a while to say."

He looked around and shrugged. "I'm not going anywhere."

"Maybe you will. This story might change your life, but the real thing that will be making a friend," I said with a giggle.

He gave me a skeptical look, but then he smiled. "Whatever you say, Rice. Tell me the story."

I gave him an adoring look. It was strange how life could turn around and bring you back where you began. We live many lives in a lifetime. One of my lives was a homeless little filly not too different from what Ruben was like now. I wondered what Ruben's first memory was, and where his story began. I hoped to make sure his life took a very different twist today, just like a certain seapony did for me, many years ago.

I took a deep breath and began. "I think our lives begin at our first memory. My first memory came when I was four, it was a dream…"

Author's Note

Thank you all for ready through the story of a chubby happy pony for 375K words. I appreciate it.

Chapter 1: Average Start of the Day

Some people say life starts at conception, others say at birth. They will argue about whether it came with the first beat of your heart or the first breath you took. For me, I believe life begins when we get our first memory. I'm not talking about the first thing we learned, but the first thing that stuck with us; that left such a powerful impression that years later, we could still recall it, even if much of the memory was recobbled together and only fractionally right. It was the beginning of our reality, the start of what makes us-- us. There was life before that memory, but that life wasn't us.

My first memory came ironically, or perhaps unironically, from a dream. I was four years old. How do I know I had this dream when I was four? Simple, my mom told me, and it is well documented historically. It was no ordinary dream; it was a vision. It was the last night of ETS before the cure came, and the night a little human girl became a little pegasus filly. I can't remember anything that came before that dream, so I must assume that I didn't yet exist. There was some young human girl named Rebecca Riddle there, but this was the birth of Rebecca Riddle, the pegasus. If you live long enough, you can be lots of people, and I sometimes wonder how many I will be. Sometimes we have to be more than one person at once, and that gets hard.

Most of my early memories are dreams, rather than things that happened out in the waking world. I don't know why that is. Maybe it is because I didn't want to accept the reality around me when I was awake. After all, there were terrible things all around me, so I focused on my dreams. My dreams became more and more elaborate, a reflection of the world I wanted to live in—a world of smiling sunflowers, singing dogs, and warm and toasty beds. I met my first ever friend in my dreams, Miss Seapony. You might know her by a different name, but she'll always be Miss Seapony to me.

My first super vivid memory in the waking world came when I was about seven years old. That was three years after ETS. My mom and I were in a hotel room, it was dirty, and people were yelling in the next room over. My mom, who had caught ETS years before, but rehumanized, was doing her best to distract me from the yelling going on next door. We spent a lot of nights in hotel rooms like this one if we were lucky. If we weren't fortunate, we spent the night in the car. I spent many days in the car, and my mom would tell me to keep the doors locked and not let anyone in. She would say to me that if anyone tried to break into the car just to run away as fast as I could; don't try to fight them, don't try to save our possessions. She would say that the car and the stuff in it were not as important as me. Then she would go off to work, so we could eat and maybe spend a night in a hotel.

My mom was telling me all about how she was going to be a great ballerina, and someday someone would give her a great dancing job, and we wouldn't have to spend nights in hotels like this anymore. I snuggled up to her as she brushed her hands through my snow-white feathers and corn colored mane. I had absolute trust in my mom that she'd make those dreams come true. I didn't understand that the dancing my mom did was stripping at a gentleman's club. I didn't know or understand that my mom was almost to the point she might take me to social services because she was scared of not being able to keep us in hotel rooms through the winter and snow. I understood just one thing, and it was something real, that my mom loved me absolutely.

There was a knock on the door, and my mom tensed up. She told me to hide under the bed, and if anything terrible happened to run. Otherwise, I needed to stay there until she said to come out. I did as I was told, peaking as much as I could towards the door while remaining hidden. My mom went to the door and peeked out the eyehole, then called out, asking who was there. A voice responded with something, a female voice. My mom cracked the door open and spoke to whoever was outside. They talked for a minute, then she opened the door all the way and let a pony inside.

We lived in the middle of Massachusetts at the time. There weren't a lot of other ponies than me around that area. ETS hadn't gotten that well spread in our region, and most of the people who caught it ended up rehumanizing, like my mom. I had seen only a couple of other ponies in my life up to that point. This was a green earth pony mare, with a short cut purple mane. She was bundled up in a sweater, and I got the impression she didn't like the cold. She and my mom talked a little while. My mom then told me that I could come out. She introduced me to the mare, but I don't recall her name.

They talked for a while longer, and then we all left. My mom took us to a much nicer hotel room that night, nicer than anywhere I'd ever been. It had clean white sheets, a high ceiling with no dark spots on it, the place was warm and bright, and the room smelled funny (I'd never smelled a hotel room that didn't reek of piss before this, although I didn't understand that fact either). The entire place was like a palace from one of my dreams. My mom then told me that we would be moving far away, and the nice mare was going to be giving her a new job, and soon we'd have our own house. My faith in my mom had never been in doubt, nor had my faith in the fact that the world could be like a dream. This was the foundation of who I was in the waking world.

Since then, I've been just a regular pony, living an ordinary life, doing all the typical things that everyday people do… except for a few itsy-bitsy, teeny-weenie details.

My alarm clock woke me up, as it usually did, and I reached out a wing and tapped the top of it, as I usually did. When I did, the radio came on, as it always did. A happy-bouncy song from sometime in the nineteen-seventies or eighties started to play. I got up and stretched my legs, my wings, my neck, and my tail. I fluttered my ears a little and shook my head to clear my mane from my eyes. Then I hopped out of my bed and shook my rump in concert with the beat, singing as I walked to my window to see what the weather was like that day. It was bright blue skies, and I took the time to smile and greet the sun.

Still bouncing along to the rhythm, and adding some clumsy dance steps to the mix, I exited my room for the bathroom. I turned on the shower and continued to dance and hum my music within it, stopping my singing so I could brush my teeth. I couldn't hear the music that well over the running water, but that was okay. I could listen to music in my head. I finished with my shower and climbed out onto the waiting towel on the floor. I hit the button for the big blow dryer on the wall and let its warm airflow all over my fur, feathers, and mane for two minutes. I'm not sure if it would dry faster if I didn't spend my time dancing, but that wasn't going to stop me. I stood up on just my hind legs and shook my tail while the dryer got my chubby underside. I'm not the slimmest of ponies, and my two-legged dance didn't rank high on the list of graceful things in the world, but I didn't fall over. When I finally felt dry enough, I shut it down and went to brush my mane and fur, and preen my feathers.

I noted to myself it was almost time to empty my preening bin again, after adding a few more feathers to it and tried to remind myself that I needed to do that later, even though I had done the exact same thing yesterday. I'd get around to it sooner or later, but I had plans for today and wanted to be out and about soon.

The radio was on a timer and had just shut off. That brought a temporary halt to my dancing. How my belly stayed big was a mystery for the ages, because I enjoyed bouncing and dancing whenever I could, and got a lot of exercise as a result. I'd started putting on pounds back around the time I was twelve (I'd been scrawny as a young filly), and they only had gone up with the years. My big belly didn't bother me too much. In my view, it just made me more cuddly and huggable-- like a giant fuzzy marshmallow, but it would be nice to be a little more aerodynamic. People who saw me fly said I flew like a bumblebee, and I couldn't keep pace with other pegasi, or even keep up with leathery-winged night ponies for that matter. I was the slowest flyer that I knew.

I went back into my room and picked out a lovely purple ribbon from the open drawer of my dresser. It took a minute for me actually to get my mane into it. Humans and unicorns were so lucky. They could do this kind of thing easily with no help from anyone else, while I had to try to twist my body around in yoga positions to pull my mane back with a ribbon. My parents were probably already at work, so they weren't about to help. I hoped whoever I ended up getting as a roommate at the college would be willing to help me with this once I moved in.

Having gotten myself dressed (as much as I typically got dressed anyway), I went out to the kitchen. There was a note on the refrigerator:

Hi, my little sunshine,

I won't be home until an hour or two later than usual. I'm just getting some things done before my vacation time starts tomorrow. I left you and your father plenty of stuff to make salads, and you need to make enough for six because we're going to have some guests over tonight. I need to stress that these are really important guests, some of the most important we've ever had over, so be ready.

I expect you to lay off the ranch dressing; you're supposed to be on a diet, young lady! No sweet snacks either. Remember, we are supposed to be taking you to the doctor tomorrow-- you're going, no arguments-- so don't make any plans that will interfere with that.

I hope you have a fun day visiting the college, meeting who you'll be roommates with, and getting your books. Just be home in time to help your father prep dinner. I'll be sure not to be late.

Love Mom

The doctor's trip wasn't necessary. Mom had this idea that because I was going to be living in the dorms that I needed to be on birth control because being out on my own would suddenly turn me into a sex monster or something-- not to mention being sure I'd be trying marijuana and getting drunk, possibly joining a cult or something. I rolled my eyes at her unfounded fears, but whatever made my mom feel better. If she wanted me on birth control, it wasn't that big a deal, even if it was unnecessary. It did make me think to take a quick sniff under my tail since I'd forgotten to do so, and I didn't smell any of that time of month mare funk. I was pretty sure I was a few days away from that coming up again, but it could always come early or late. I'd put some deodorant on, just in case.

I wondered who the guests were. Maybe someone from either my mom or stepdad's work? We had guests on and off for dinner, but typically my mom told me who they were. This time she didn't even mention if they were humans or ponies, so I'd know how big of meals I should be making. My stepdad probably knew, but it left me wondering. He'd be back home before me. I'd give him a call before I came home to see if we needed anything from the store. He usually tried to spice up dinner a little more than mom did and might want to add something else to the menu.

After eating a pair of carrots for breakfast (and resisting the urge to grab a slice of very delicious looking fudge cake), I went back to my room to finish getting ready. Maggie should be calling soon to tell me she was on her way. It was a shame they couldn't have us as roommates, but in addition to being male and female dorms, the dorms were separated into pony housing and human housing, mainly so they could keep appropriate furniture in each room without having to move it around. It would be nice to be able to drive myself too, but seating for winged ponies was already restrictive in pony cars, and I found the driver's seat cramped and uncomfy. I'd dropped out of driver's ed the first day they had us get into a driver's seat.

Returning to my room, I put on my phone band and scrolled through the contacts using my feathers. I tapped the screen to give it an order to call Maggie and then waited while it rang.

"Hello?" Maggie's voice said groggily over the phone, quickly followed by a gasp. "Oh, crap! I'm sorry, Bec, I overslept."

I giggled. "It's okay. How long do you think you'll take to get ready?"

"Um, ah, give me an hour-- make that an hour-and-a-half. I want to make sure I don't show up at the school looking like a zombie. Sorry, I was up late, writing."

I shrugged, even if Maggie wouldn't see it. "Hey, have to ride that inspiration when it hits. Is that the Star Trek fanfiction you were writing before?" Maggie was a huge Trekie. They rebooted the Star Trek universe last year, and it had gotten trendy. It had some old characters, kept as the original races, and many new pony characters-- as well as some updates on the lore.

"Yeah, writing a love triangle between Picard, Riker, and Data."

"Ah, that's an interesting triangle," I replied, bemused. "Can't wait to read it." Maggie had a thing for shipping guys together. I rarely questioned it and tried not to laugh at her tastes.

"I'll give you a call when I'm about to leave. Sorry again, and see you soon."

Well, that left me with more than an hour with nothing to do. At the same time, it was an opportunity. No one was home, and no one was going to see me for at least an hour, if not more. That meant I could flex my abilities a little and not have my parents yell at me or have Maggie find out what I could do. I just had to be careful to make sure no one spotted me.

With a tap on the radio, I had music again; I winced when an old Twisted Sister song came on. I liked Twisted Sister, I liked most music from the sixties, seventies, and eighties, but it wasn't what I needed to get in the right mindset. I flipped the radio off, and instead pulled up something from my playlist on my phone-- an old Bob Dylan song, Hey Mr. Tambourine Man-- that was more the right vibe.

I sat and gently swayed in place with the mellow tones of Bob Dylan's voice, closing my eyes as I did. I let myself become more relaxed, reaching a point where I was neither truly asleep nor genuinely awake.

It didn't take long before I was sitting opposite myself, watching myself zone out in a trance at the music. I lifted a hoof to double-check myself and saw nothing. That was good; it meant that no one else could see me either, only the part of me seeing swaying in tune with the music. I gave myself an invisible smile and then willed myself upwards and through the ceiling.

I quickly moved through the crawl space and up through the roof to the bright morning air, as immaterial as a ghost. I was capable of making myself seen and heard if I wanted to be, but I was utterly incapable of touching anything. I'd tried doing this once during a flying competition since I could move extremely fast like this, but the other flyers had caught on that they weren't feeling any air gusts coming off my wings. I had to abort and disappear as soon as I found somewhere safe to disappear unnoticed. My mom had heard about it and had given me an earful about it. No one was supposed to know that I could do this. There were only a few ponies in the world who could, and all of them tended to keep quiet about being able to. It would draw unwanted attention to me if anyone found out. Not that I altogether avoided doing it. I just had to be careful.

I took the opportunity to gain some height so that I could see around my neighborhood. It was average suburbia, with all new housing that had gone up in the last few years. Far in the distance were the trees that gave the town its name, Skytree. What caught my attention was the house across the street from mine. It had movers moving things into it. That house had been empty for most of the last year, so it was nice to get new neighbors at last-- even if I would be moving off to the college dorms.

Letting curiosity get the better of me, I swooped down and took a closer look at the things that were being moved in. It seemed to be a mix of pony-sized things and human-sized, which indicated a mixed family-- like mine. I didn't see any toys or anything that would indicate foals. Everything was in darker colors. Some of the objects were kind of weird-looking, and it took me a little bit to figure out they were for someone who was physically disabled. I zipped around, passing straight through the movers, as I looked at various items.

My nosey search of my new neighbors' stuff came to an abrupt halt when a big multicolored seapony with wings appeared right between one of the movers and me. The mover didn't notice her, since she was even less there than I was, but it was kinda funny watching her finned tail go in and out of the human mover's arm.

"Spying, Rebecca?" Miss Seapony asked as she crossed her fins and raised an eyebrow.

I pretended to settle on a nearby couch, even if I couldn't touch it. "Just being curious. I won't use any information I gain, and won't mention to anyone what I've seen."

The mover walked through Miss Seapony and obscured my view of her briefly before she moved back through him to be seen. "You'll find out about these two tonight so that you can avoid spying. There's too much chance you'll learn something that will influence your opinion of them early. Just wait till tonight."

That made me frown. "I will? I thought you couldn't tell me things like that."

She smiled at me, she had fangs, but I never found them scary. "I can say when they are here at my behest."

Okay then. Only there was only one reason Miss Seapony would have asked someone to move here. "They're here because of me? Why?"

"You'll see," she replied nonchalantly. "Just be on good behavior, and try to make a good impression. They're here to protect your family."

That confused and worried me. "Why do we need bodyguards? No one knows about me. I'm not even anything to know about yet."

"Just taking early precautions," Miss Seapony replied. "I hate to sound too businesslike with you, as our friendship is real, but you're an investment, and protecting our investments is important. I want to ensure you and your family are safe when the time comes to cash in that investment, and we don't make any noticeable moves that would give you away when we do." Her expression turned sad. "I wouldn't want anything bad happening to you or your family, even if it wasn't tied to that. I love you like I love one of my own foals. If I could, I'd die again for your sake, if it came to that."

"Okay," I replied warily. I trusted Miss Seapony. I knew that whatever the reason, she'd never want me hurt. "Just don't let them get in the way of my groove."

My oldest friend laughed. "Your groove is safe. Now head home, and quit spying." My phantom friend then vanished.

I gave one last brief look around, and let off a non-existent sigh. Then I opened my eyes back up in my bedroom; the music had gone through two more songs on my playlist—still lots of time to waste before Maggie called. Maybe I could have just a tiny piece of cake without ruining my diet. I changed songs and danced back to the kitchen.

Author's Note

Prologue:

In March of 2023, a flu pandemic, unlike any other, spread across the United States and then to the rest of the world. At first, it seemed like just regular garden variety flu, but it wasn't.

The first warning that it wasn't normal was it didn't result in any deaths, even among the very weak or elderly. This was a good thing, but it was also a sign that this was not normal, as even weaker flu seasons always resulted in some deaths. The second warning was that those that recovered not only from flu but from other long-standing ailments.

Then the changes started happening. Those that recovered from the flu began reporting their hair changing colors and their eyes changing colors. This was followed by growing tails, having ears change shape and location, fur started growing, and losing height. Over two weeks, and with accelerating pace, those who had caught the flu transformed from humans to equines—the earth ponies, unicorns, pegasi, crystal ponies, and night ponies. It was called ETS, Equine Transformation Syndrome.
Contact was made with Equestria, and it was discovered that a bioterrorist from Equestria seeking to make more ponies had been responsible. With the help of Twilight Sparkle and Starlight Glimmer, ETS was brought to an end, but the damage had already been done. By the time it was brought to an end, there were over five-hundred million transformed worldwide, with over a hundred million of those in the United States alone. Some converted back to humans with the Equestrians' aid but most staunchly insisted on remaining ponies.

Since then, there has been a transition period where the Earth is adjusting to there now being two intelligent species that call it home. New powerful beings, the Dreamwardens, have arisen and taken claim and mastery of the new magical dream realm. New philosophies and religions have come into being. Magic is now considered reality, and politics, as they were before, have been upended. It is the post-pandemic works, and it is trying to establish a new normal.

This is an ongoing series with multiple authors.

Chapter 13: It's a Bird. It's a Plane. It's Coming Right at Us

The day we finally moved to Skytree I got an unexpected guest at the house.

Everything had been packed, and put on the movers van. The movers had left an hour or so earlier, and we'd be leaving for the airport soon. David was walking around the house with the agent (a crystal pony stallion), talking about the improvements that had been done to the house since we'd been there. I was sitting in what had been the living room, but without any of our stuff in it, it was just an empty room, without much living involved.

"Glad I caught you before you left. You'll be far out of my range soon."

I gave a startled hop, and turned around to face a smiling night pony. "Josie! You came to say goodbye!"

She nodded to me. "Yep, I'm here. At least as here as I ever am. I couldn't let my one and only student leave without seeing her off."

My wings and legs twitched with the urge to hug her, but I knew there was nothing solid to hug. "Thank you, for teaching me, and for coming today. You've been a good friend."

"I'm still your friend, and plan on dreamwalking to you on and off to just check up on you," she replied. Her smile was small, but I could tell it wasn't forced. Seeing an honest smile on her face was always something special. "I do have some parting advice before you leave."

I giggled, and gave a playful bow. "One final lesson from my Jedi master?"

She rolled her eyes. "Hardly a Jedi. Do you have any idea how enraged the Dreamwardens would get about the Jedi mind trick? Obi-Wan Kenobi would never have made it to episode four. You know all that I know about projection, but this is tips for life, not an astral projection lesson."

I decided to revise my answer. "Oh? Well, Jedi wisdom then."

Josie shook her head in exasperation. "However you want to frame it. Anyway, I wanted to tell you that if you ever make a big mistake, something so big that it has long lasting consequences, don't let that define who you are. Acknowledging what happened and trying to do better does not mean you need to make that the core of your life. I made a horrible mistake. I can blame Sunset Shimmer for influencing me, and I wouldn't be wrong, but it's ultimately on me. I've let that mistake define me for a long time, and it has only made me miserable. The past is the past, we can only go forward. Let your mistakes be reasons to be better, not balls and chains you drag around."

I still really wanted to hug her. "Does that mean you're ready to move forward?"

"I'm ready to try. We shall see how it goes," Josie said simply. "I have another word of advice. The Dreamwardens have an unusual amount of interest in you. You should be wary when someone that powerful gets that interested in your life. It usually means they want something out of you." The night pony turned her head slightly to look beyond me, and flattened her ears. "Yes, I know you can hear everything I say to her. It's not against the rules for me to express my opinion."

Miss Seapony or one of the other Dreamwardens must have been talking to her. She paused, and seemed to be listening. "I'm not telling her that you don't care about her. I'm telling her that she needs to just be cautious. Can you blame me? What would you do if our positions were reversed? The advice also carries over to more than just you."

I knew Miss Seapony could hear and see me through Josie. "I trust you Miss Seapony. Josie is just being a good friend." I looked directly at Josie. "I know Miss Seapony wanted me to be the one who replaced her, and had been spending time with me at first because of that. I don't mind. I can't replace her anymore, but she still is my friend, just like you."

Josie blinked at me in shock. "Replace her? You? But you're nothing like…" She turned her head to look at wherever Miss Seapony was, and her eyebrows scrunched together. "How is that any different than what was done to me? Grooming a filly?!"

My ears flattened and I tucked my tail between my legs as I looked towards the windows. "Josie, my stepdad and the real estate agent are outside. They'll hear you yelling."

Josie's wings had been slowly opening and stretching to her sides as she had been talking to Miss Seapony. She glanced at the window quickly, then snapped her wings back to being folded at her sides. She looked back to the spot of air I assumed was Miss Seapony. "No, I don't want another Sha'am, and yes, I would like a well prepared Dreamwarden, but she's a foal that you've been indoctrinating since she was small. That's just not right."

I looked at the window again and saw David and the agent walking back towards the house. "Hey, can you go silent and invisible if you're going to sit here and argue? I don't think my stepdad would want the agent to see or hear you."

Josie took another look at the window and then promptly vanished. I breathed a sigh of relief just as my dad and the real estate agent were coming back in.

David gave me a curious look. "Were you talking to someone on the phone? I thought I heard voices."

I grinned tightly, and held up the phone on my leg. "Yep, just saying goodbye to a friend."

The stallion stared at the spot that Josie had just been in. "Are you doing some sort of magic? I can feel something...something odd, but it doesn't feel like it is coming from you." He shook his head. "Now it's gone. I worked for the government for a year or two after ETS, so I'm familiar with a lot of common magic. I don't think I've ever felt anything quite like that before."

Crap! I forgot crystal ponies can feel someone astral projecting. I guess Josie did too, maybe because she was caught up arguing with Miss Seapony. Now I needed to come up with an excuse for what the magic was, one that a crystal pony that knew different magic sensations would believe. Something I could actually do if I was put on the spot to do it.

"You got me," I falsely confessed. "I wasn't really on the phone. I was practicing throwing and altering my voice with my magic." I could invisible astral project and still make noise, that kind of counted as throwing my voice. It was a creative way of astral projecting without letting him know I was astral projecting.

He flicked an ear, then grinned. "Throwing your voice with magic? That's something I haven't seen yet. Do you have a ventriloquist dummy act you're working on?"

He was buying it. I grinned and nodded rapidly. "Yep! Except I don't have my dummy right now, obviously. So, just practicing the magic part. Just me and my dummy, Josie." I saw David seem to get it at that point. He'd looked confused when I first mentioned it.

The crystal pony nodded. "Can you still demonstrate it, throwing your voice with magic?"

I normally needed some music or something to get in the right mindset. Doing astral projection wasn't something I could just do in a split second. Even Josie needed somewhere quiet and secluded in order to pull it off, and she was the very best at it. "I'm still getting over nerves when doing it in front of people, especially without my dummy, but I can try."

I closed my eyes, and tried to find my peaceful place. To that point I'd never done astral projection without music, but I knew it was possible. I focused on all the things that put me at ease: my mom running her hands over my back, eating chocolate cake, drawing, music, sunbathing, days with light rain, and talking with Miss Seapony over dream tea. It took a few seconds, but I found my happy place, and found myself floating outside my body.

Luckily, I had remembered to make my projection invisible. I could move about without being seen. The crystal pony was watching me closely, and I could tell he could feel my magic at work. Looking at my body, I looked completely zoned out.

It was time to demonstrate. I floated over behind the crystal pony, and watched as one of his ears seemed to follow me. He was definitely locked onto me, but hopefully I could still convince him this was just a magic trick to throwing my voice, and not throwing my whole consciousness.

"Hi! Can you hear me?" I called out from behind him. Even though his ear had been following me like a pointer he still jumped, and looked around in a hurry.

After he settled down he laughed. "Wow! That's pretty cool. Do you do voice impressions as well?"

I floated a short distance away, but this time his eyes were tracking me. I figured he couldn't actually see me, but maybe he was imagining something where he felt the magic. "How about this?" I asked, using Josie' s voice. I could imitate just about any voice or sound I was familiar with when in this form. I floated a short distance to the side then made a sound like a cat meowing.

He shook his head while smiling. "Really impressive. You know, with a team of puppeteers you could run an entire show by yourself. You should give the Jim Henson company a call."

I returned to my body, and opened my eyes, letting off a giggle as I did. "That's nice of you to say, but it's just a little hobby. I don't think I really want to make a career out of it. I don't know what I want to do yet, but I don't want this to go past being a hobby."

He turned back around to face me. "Well, hobbies make the best jobs. Do what you love, and you never feel as if you're working."

I never did take up ventriloquism as a serious hobby, or career path, but I took that crystal pony's words to heart. I always focused on doing what I love, so I'd never feel like my work was work.

When we arrived at the college, Maggie gave a look towards the main building. "Are you ready?"

I glanced back towards where the dorms were at. "I actually need to make a pit stop by my roommates' to pick up my key. They didn't have it ready yesterday. I'd hate to be moving in and not be able to get in the door."

"No problem," she replied. "I'm a little hungry, so I'll just check out the cafeteria while I'm waiting on you. I figure that gives me about an hour to eat."

My ears flicked. Missing out on food was not something I wanted. "An hour? Why do you think it will take an hour?"

She looked down at me. "Um, you aren't exactly the fastest pony. I don't know a delicate way of saying this, but you kind of waddle."

I flicked my tail. "I prefer, shimmy and shake. It won't take an hour though. I'll just fly."

"Uh, you sure you should be doing that?" She asked as she gave me a skeptical frown. "Your flying makes your walking look like ballet."

I shook my rump. "I'm the Swan Princess, ballet studios don't know what they're missing out on."

"They sure don't," Maggie laughed. "But in all seriousness. I don't want to have to be running you to the hospital or something."

I waved a wing at her. "I'll be fine. My flying isn't that bad. I only have problems trying to go fast, taking tight turns, flying in a straight line, hovering stationary, keeping firm footing on a cloud, or needing to come to a stop quickly."

"And you have rough landings," Maggue added.

I blew a raspberry at her. "Pish-posh! Any landing you can walk away from is a good landing."

"Whatever you say, Launchpad McQuack."

I started to dance in place. "Life is like a hurricane. Here in Duckburg. Racecars, lasers aeroplanes; it's a duck-blur. Might solve a mystery-"

She covered her ears. "No! Stop it! You'll get it stuck in my head for the rest of the day."

"It's too late for that, and you know it."

She glared at me with so much mock indignation it was comical. "Evil little pony. I'll wait for you in the cafeteria. I'll call you if you haven't shown up in an hour, and if you don't answer I'll go asking students if they saw a pegasus go splat against a building somewhere."

"Sounds like a good plan," I replied. I then spread my wings, and gave myself a full body shake. Maggie took several steps back from me. I swished my tail one way, then the other, crouched down on my haunches, and then used them to eject myself upward as I beat my wings like a panicked hummingbird.

I rapidly gained altitude. Going straight up was one of the surprisingly easiest parts about flying. When I gained enough height that I was over the tops of all the buildings I tried to adjust my course so I was going forward instead of upward, which wasn't nearly as easy. It would have been easier if I had taken my ascent slower, but I had been showing off that I wasn't a completely inept flyer. It didn't turn out to be too hard to change my direction, since I rarely could keep in a straight line anyway, but there was some struggle in making sure that I didn't end up overcorrecting and reaiming myself straight down. It took a lot to embarrass me, but kamikazing the ground right after lifting off would have been enough to make me blush.

What I did end up overshooting was the campus itself. By the time I had myself under control I was on a crash course with the skytrees of the Remembrance Monument. I managed to pull myself into a turn, and avoided colliding with them. A few pegasi, guarding the monument against flyers who wanted to try to land in the said trees, shouted things at me. I was already circling back around towards the school though, and all the turning had slowed me down enough that I had greater control over my flight path. Next time I tried to fly to the dorms I wasn't going to go up so fast or let myself go so high.

I spotted my destination and brought myself in for a crooked circle around the building as I lowered my altitude. The extra turning would slow me down more, and give me more control over my landing. I circled for a few laps, and didn't go smacking into any other pegasi students who were in the air (mainly because they were paying attention and deftly dodged me). I was nearly down to the ground, and I spread out my legs like they were landing gear. Just a few more feet and I'd be back on terra firma.

BOINK, BOINK, BOINK, CRASH!

I somehow had my rear end propped up high against the wall of the dorm building, and my head down where my rump should go when I was sitting. Oh well, I still got here faster than walking, and it wasn't like I never crashed while walking.

Chapter 22: Two Interviews

When I was fourteen years old-

"You may cease with your recollections, for now."

I stopped thinking of my next memory in line, returning my surroundings to just the grey stillness that was waiting to be filled with whatever was on my mind. All that existed was the blank slate, me, and the pony who'd been my audience through all my memories. "Are we out of time?" I asked her.

Princess Luna nodded. "Indeed we are. Or at least we soon will be. My visits to your world cannot be overly long. I must soon be returning to Equestria. I do need to get some permissions from you before I go, and there is another matter that I need to discuss with you that Tikhiy Krik has brought to my attention in the time since his retirement."

"Okay," I replied, a little disappointed that my session was at an end. "What do you need permission for?"

"I need to be able to share all that you have shared with me in turn to Celestia, Twilight Sparkle, and Mi Amore Cadenza. Before you give that permission let me tell you that they will be using this information to assess whether they have any objections to your nomination to the post of Dreamwarden. So this would be information learned in a dream that would be used in the waking world. I need your permission to have it used in such a way. Equestria may be in a different universe, but many of the same rules that govern your Dreamwardens govern me as well. Do I have your permission to use this information thusly?"

"Um, sure. That's why you've been following along after all. I don't mind."

She nodded to me. "Thank you. I have other questions that need to be addressed before I leave you. The first of which is a matter that may not be of any immediate importance, but may someday long after you are gone be of pivotal importance. As the system with your Dreamwardens stands now the Dreamwardens retire to Equestria. They are not Dreamwardens of Equestria and are not the embodied will of my dream realm as they are here. However, they are capable of still creating Dreamwardens for my dream realm. This raises several far-reaching concerns that I think you'll understand."

My ears sagged. "You're worried we might make some new Dreamwarden there without your permission."

"That is one of my concerns, as well as a concern of my fellow princesses," Luna agreed. "Mind you, I do not think any of the current Dreamwardens or you would have such nefarious intentions. However, it is well known that becoming a Dreamwarden can alter some aspects of your personality. You are gaining colossal power and have access to large amounts of memories of all the Dreamwardens that preceded you. It is difficult to judge how this can impact any individual, or change how drastically their thought processes work."

That hadn't been something I'd been deeply concerned about before. I couldn't imagine going from my happy self to some horrible dream despot. Still, Princess Luna was like the most powerful Dreamwarden in terms of having less restrictions on her and actually having huge amounts of power when she was awake. If I was chosen as Dreamwarden I'd technically be the most magically powerful Dreamwarden when awake out of the Earth Dreamwardens (making an assumption that the mysterious Warden of Order didn't have super magic powers), but I wouldn't even be a drop in the magic jar compared to Princess Luna. She was also the one who made Miss Seapony a Dreamwarden, but also the one who made the big meanie Sha'am Maut a Dreamwarden. If she was saying getting all those Dreamwarden powers could change me it was worth taking seriously.

"So… what do you want to do to stop me from doing something bad like that?" I asked hesitantly.

She gave me a kind smile. "Tikhiy Krik has been working tirelessly to craft some additional oaths that will alleviate my concerns about how you could impact Equestria. Completely blocking you from making a Dreamwarden on my world is not something that would be advisable either."

I blinked. "Uh, I don't understand."

"Let me illuminate the matter then," she said gently. I found I liked listening to her voice. It was very calming. "If for some unforeseen reason our worlds were cut off from one another permanently, and I ended up trapped in this world, my world would need a new Dreamwarden. Having all of you retire to Equestria is what you Earthlings would call an insurance policy- in the case of the most dire events occurring. That is also why our opinion of Dreamwarden nominees is given weight. The retired Dreamwardens potentially hold electing power over my successor. I don't foresee a circumstance where this will happen, but it defies my ability to predict it by its very nature. It is not only your world impacted by your election, it's Equestria as well."

Fate of two worlds on your haunches, Rebecca. No pressure!

Actually, it wasn't really that big a deal. The chances of that happening in my lifetime seemed slim, and they had lots of smart and powerful magic users who could fix it if the portal temporarily went down. Plus there was that Discord guy. Miss Seapony said he kind of moved between universes and realms as he pleased. At least, she said he'd opened up portals straight into our dream realm before. That didn't make much sense to me, but Miss Seapony had said to not try to make sense or apply logic to Discord. It would make my brain hurt. The only consistent thing she said he did was be inconsistent.

"Well, I hope that never happens," I replied. "Did you have any other questions for me?"

"I have one more, although I will wait until my next visit to get your answer. It is not a simple question to answer, but it impacts many aspects of the position. What do you find threatening in general, and why?"

I looked at her, wondering if she was trying to play some joke on me. "That's kind of a big question."

"It is indeed. That's why I'm giving you time to think about your answer. Perhaps you should consult Phobia for assistance. Although, mind you, her assistance in such things, while helpful, is not always pleasant."

I meeped. I couldn't help myself. The thought of letting Miss Nightmares have her way with my nightmares was a terrifying thought. "I'll think about doing that."

The alicorn laughed at me. "It's okay to be afraid, little pegasus. It's important to understand how that fear impacts your decision making process. I made a mistake by letting my fear guide my own decision making process when choosing your forebears. They in turn made the mistake of letting their fear rule them. We have all learned to do better since then, but it is best not to repeat history."

What did I fear? Someone coming up to me and being mean and nasty was scary, but I'm not sure mean and nasty people counted as a fear. I'd outgrown my fear of not ever being a great flyer. I didn't want my friends or family hurt, but didn't want anyone to get hurt for that matter. I wasn't aware of any 'phobias' that Miss Nightmare could make me more aware of. Maybe fear of the unknown, because I was still scared of whatever she might bring, and I didn't even know what it could be.

She started to simply fade away. "Good night to you, Rebecca Riddle. We shall meet again.

At least I was getting to take a break from recounting memories. Finding things I thought she thought might possibly be important was exhausting. I was about ready to start describing my toys I had as a foal. The adventures of how my stuffed caterpillar Mister Wiggles and all his friends might have been interesting to me, but I think it might have bored her. I didn't think she'd find my many foalhood crushes that I never asked out would be very interesting either. I wasn't down to the bottom of my barrel yet, but I had been getting there.

I let myself fall back into a normal dream.

My parents usually left for work before I even got up in the morning, but they'd both decided to take vacation as my move in date for college approached. We were just finishing up a rare family breakfast when there was a knock at the front door.

My parents gave each other a look of confusion at the knock before my stepdad got up and answered it. I couldn't see who was at the door from where I was sitting, but I could hear them.

"Hi there! I'm Crystal, and I'm here to pick up a pony named Rebecca. This is the Riddle residence, right?"

I could see my stepdad look even more confused. "It's technically the Stanborn residence, but my stepdaughter has her mom's maiden name still, which is Riddle."

"I see," the voice cheerfully replied. "Is she here? I don't want to keep my boss waiting."

My step dad turned to me. "Becky, it's for you. Were you expecting someone?"

I hopped down from my seat and started to hurry over. "Yes. I just didn't expect them so early."

When I reached the door I saw an olympic blue crystal pony mare with a bleach white mane, and her cutie mark was just a plain red heart design. She smiled at me as I came into view. "You must be Rebecca. I'm Crystal, Crystal Dreams. I'm a bodyguard for Phobia Remedy and her driver. She's extended an invitation to come visit her. Are you ready to go?"

I was a little confused because she didn't say the code phrase. "Do you know why Miss Nightmares wants to see me?"

Crystal snort-laughed at me. "Miss Nightmares? I love that. I have no idea why she wants to see you. I'm just following orders. I was given the impression you expected to be picked up to go see her. Was I misinformed? I'm not going to haul you to her against your will if you don't want to go. It's a little odd to be sent to go fetch someone anyway. Are interviewing for some OMMR job or something?"

"Or something, I guess." Miss Nightmares' personal bodyguard didn't know anything about me. I wasn't sure if that was a good thing, bad thing, or a 'whatever' thing. "I can go right now. I was expecting this."

"Any idea when you'll be getting back?" My mom asked. "We wanted to help get your things in order to move, but I don't feel comfortable going into your room without you present."

"I'm not sure," I replied. I then gave her a mischievous grin. "But you're welcome to start without me. Just beware the huge drawer full of drug paraphernalia at the bottom of my dresser, the dildo hidden in my pillow, and the dead body in the closet."

She rolled her eyes. "Okay, I get it. You don't have anything to worry about in your room."

My grin turned sheepish. "Actually… one of those things might really be there. Quick hint, don't go checking inside my pillows."

My mom crossed her arms and gave me a stoney look. "Young lady, what have we said before about needing to put on some filters in front of strangers?"

Crystal chuckled. "It's okay. I deal with three teenaged night ponies every day. Nothing shocks me. I'll keep her safe. No one's died while I was watching them. A few came close once or twice, but they're all still kicking." I wasn't sure if that reassured my mom at all, but since I was fine with Crystal my mom didn't object. She then bowed and pointed a leg out to the driveway. "Miss Riddle, your chariot awaits."

I walked past her and my stepdad closed the door behind me. Out in the driveway was a big white van. Crystal hurried by me towards the driver's door and the doors popped straight up with small ramps extending out so we could easily climb up into the vehicle. I followed her and got into the back seat. Inside was very spacious, with plenty of seating. I picked a spot and started harnessing myself into my seat.

Crystal's driver seat was one that put her sitting almost like a human, with a hole in the back of the seat for her to fit her tail through. She harnessed herself up, closed the automatic doors, and I heard the electric hum of the engine start.

"So, your name's Crystal… and you're a crystal pony," I observed as she pulled out of the driveway.

"Yep, makes it easy for everyone to remember. My human name was Crystal Heart as well, but the Heart part was spelled H-A-R-T back then."

"Oh, I guess that was really easy to convert into a pony name. My parents always told me I was allowed to have a pony name if I wanted one. I think they kind of expected me to take one, because they never asked if I wanted to take my step dad's last name. Would be a hassle, changing my name twice. I just never really had anything that appealed enough to me."

"No reason to take a pony name just to take a pony name, I say," Crystal replied as she drove along. "Of course, that is just my opinion, and opinions are like assholes, everybody's got one. If a pony wants a pony name that's their personal preference."

"What's your cutie mark mean?" I asked. It was just a plain heart, and that was pretty broad in scope. It also didn't scream bodyguard.

"Mine? It's nothing much. It just represents how I tend to get very passionate about whatever I do. Put my whole heart into everything. I don't have any special talent or anything, but I give things my all," she explained.

"That sounds nice. I guess it means you're very flexible on finding jobs you like."

I saw her glance at me in her mirror. "I suppose that's true. So is this an interview I'm taking you to? Phobia doesn't do many of those. I know she is in the market for third and forth full-time bodyguards now that the foals are getting more independent, and therefore not always in the same place as each other, but you don't really look the part for a bodyguard- no offence."

"You never know, no one would ever suspect a killer marshmallow," I said, gesturing a wing at myself.

She chuckled. "Don't let the night pony mares around the house hear you call yourself that. I'm still dealing with being called the rollie pollie crystal pony. I'm not even fat, I just have a larger frame than a lot of other crystal ponies. Those mares are merciless with the verbal jabs though."

"I had another pegasus call me rollie pollie the other day. Maybe she overheard one of them?"

"Could have," Crystal replied. "What does she look like? I know most of the pegasi that come near the house."

I didn't want to say her name, but was curious if Lántiān did visit Miss Nightmares sometimes. "She has blue fur and a black mane and tail, a little older than me."

"Lántiān," Crystal confirmed. "Don't let her get to you. She's an odd one. She isn't a bad natured mare, but she can get opinionated- at least from what little I've seen. She's been by the house a few times, but isn't a frequent visitor."

"Why does she visit Miss Nightmares?" I asked.

"They're god sisters. They aren't close, but Phobia's mother is Lántiān's godmother. Lántiān gets a courtesy invitation whenever there's a family event going on. Sometimes she accepts it, sometimes she doesn't."

"Oh," I wondered what Miss Nightmare's mother was like. I thought I recalled hearing about her once somewhere, but I must not have been paying much attention at the time.

"Pulling into Old Town now," Crystal announced. "Be on your best behavior. Every pony, and even some of the humans, are all deeply loyal to Phobia here. No one likes troublemakers."

I looked out the window. All the houses were older here. None of them were really fancy, although some had really nice yards. There were lots of trees and no sidewalk along the road. I could see people sitting out on their porches, just watching us as we drove by. I'd never been to Old Town before. I'd heard stories about it though. As the name implied it was the oldest part of the city. Most of the humans that lived here had lived here since before ponies ever came to Skytree. The main thing about Old Town that everyone talked about was the fact that the Warden of Fear lived there, and her presence attracted people that treated her almost like she was a god or something. There was supposedly a cult dedicated to her that had members here, even if she didn't endorse it. Old Town was Miss Nightmare's personal stronghold, and protesters would not willingly go into it. It also had a zero crime rate, even though the police almost never came here.

There were lots of side roads that curved off deeper into the neighborhood, but Crystal stayed on the main road. I saw a sign that labeled this as Main Street, and guessed that it went into the historic main street area that had all the old shops and restaurants that had been there for over a hundred years. I kept waiting for her to turn, but she never did. I was starting to wonder if we were going to just bypass Old Town altogether, since I could see newer buildings off in the distance- I think the part of town that had grown up around the military base.

She suddenly stopped the car in front of a Main Street house that was on the very edge of Old Town and put the car in park. "We've arrived. I'll need to escort you up to the house. Otherwise you'll get a flock of night pony mares coming down on your head."

A flock of night ponies attacking me didn't sound like a good time. The fact it was even a possibility didn't really make me feel welcome.

I followed Crystal up the path to the house, and my ears flattened at the sound of fighting. I looked around and saw the source. There were two night pony fillies, who could only be twelve or thirteen years old, directly above us trying to crash one another.

"You're going down this time, Arachne!" One of them yelled.

"You wish, Char!" The other yelled in turn.

"Less yelling and more technique! Be aware, we have a guest down below you. If you hit any non-combatant I'll have you both doing wing-ups for an hour!" A third voice yelled from somewhere nearby.

The fight… at least it looked like a fight- had a large audience. The house at the end of the path had every visible inch of the roof covered in night pony mares, and there were even a few hanging off the sides of the house and in a nearby tree. A night pony colt and teenaged unicorn filly (who both looked about the same age as the fillies in the air) sat together off to the side staring up at the conflict. A dark skinned human lady with a bright magenta mohawk stood watching them with her arms crossed and a scowl on her face. She had a weird looking scar right on the center of her forehead that drew my eyes for some reason. Standing on the house porch was a familiar face, Jess the partial lady… or was it Doctor something…

Crystal paused and pulled me to the side, apparently wanting to wait until the two fillies were done before going forward. I understood why. There was a good chance that if we didn't keep out of the way I really would have a night pony come down on my head. The rest of the audience shouted encouragement to the two fillies, and different people seemed to favor one or another. I even heard one of them yelling to whichever one Arachne was that she better win because they had a hundred bucks on her.

They weren't being gentle with one another. They were landing kicks on one another regularly, and I saw quite a few winced of pain, and muffled oww's. They seemed to be evenly matched, and there was no sign this was going to be over soon.

Out of nowhere the one I think people were calling Char hurled her whole body towards the other one and instead of kicking wrapped her wings around her opponent tightly. The other one cried out in shock as she tried to break the grip, but it didn't work. With neither of them flapping their wings they came down together into the grass with a crash that even I would feel.

"Point goes to Charlotte!" The dark skinned human yelled out.

The filly who had been tackled in midair jumped to her hooves like she hadn't just taken a hard crash. "What! She crashed both of us! How does she get a point?! She should be disqualified for cheating, or at the very least it should be a draw."

The human glared at her. "There's no such thing as cheating in this. The only parameters are the ones I set. Her job was to bring you down using only her body as a weapon. Your job was to prevent her from doing that without any assistance from a weapon or your little spider friends. She brought you down. It doesn't matter if she went down with you. Point goes to your sister."

Charlotte feebly raised up a wing from where she was laying. "Woohoo! I'm happy. I'd hate to have bloodied my nuzzle for nothing."

"Try not to do that in the future, Charlotte," the woman instructed. "I don't want to be running any of you to the hospital again." Again? They've sent each other to the hospital before?

The woman turned to the other two foals. "Your turn. I want you two to start off at ten paces. Jordan, your goal is to keep Nightmare Moon from landing a blow on you for three minutes straight. Nightmare Moon, your goal is to land any blow you can on Jordan. Neither of you may use any objects or get any outside assistance. Attacks from the air are permitted, as is the use of magic."

"Three minutes?" The unicorn squeaked. "I can't keep a shield up for three straight minutes of him hitting it!"

The woman pointed for the two of them to go. "Then you'll have to figure out some alternative strategy. Get moving!"

"I'd much rather be reading a book. I'm a scholar, not a fighter. I wanna teach. How many teachers have to learn self defense like this?" Jordan grumbled, but she moved to take her position. The night pony colt stoically walked out to his assigned distance without a word.

"Come on, Jordan! Woo!" The partial lady cheered from the porch.

Crystal tapped my side. "Come on. Let's get moving before they start." I nodded and followed after her towards the porch.

"Why are they doing that?" I asked as we reached the porch.

"Self defense," Crystal replied. "The three night ponies are Phobia's foals. They have targets on their heads because of that. That little unicorn is her half-sister. There's another one, a pegasus filly who's Phobia's step-sister, who'd normally be here too, but she lucked out and had junior flight team practice today."

Was that what Miss Seapony wanted me to see? This looked brutal. I couldn't imagine having to do the same thing, or asking my friends and family to do that.

"Hey, Jess!" Crystal called over to the partial lady. "Phobia wants to make use of you for her meeting she's about to have."

Jess frowned. "But I wanted to cheer on Jordan."

"Better if you come inside," Crystal said slyly. "I know for a fact that when this fight is done Tempest is going to be demanding you have a bout with her. She can't do that if you aren't present."

The partial lady paled as she glanced hurriedly towards the woman out in the yard. "Um, okay, you convinced me. I don't feel like having her bruise me up today. Doctor Jessica Middleton is at Phobia's service."

Crystal gave her a flat look. "Please tell me you haven't started referring to yourself in the third person? That's not a good sign."

Jess blushed. "Just goofing around. Lighten up!"

Crystal chuckled. "Well, glad you learned to goof around. You've always been way too serious."

Jess looked back towards where the night pony was unleashing a rapid barrage of kicks on Jordan's magical shield as the unicorn filly cringed back with her horn glowing brightly. "I just seriously don't want to even try to fight Tempest Shadow. Your coworker is scary."

Crystal shrugged. "Won't argue with that. She's even scarier now that she has hands. She can handle all kinds of weapons she couldn't before. Not that she needs them. Let's get inside before Jordan loses."

"She could win!" Jess protested.

"And you could beat Tempest in hand to hand combat, but the chances of that are about the same."

Jess snorted, but didn't voice any disagreement. Crystal pushed open the front door of the house, which seemed to lead into a pitch black void. "After you, Miss Riddle. Phobia awaits."

I gulped. It was time to face Miss Nightmares, and find out exactly how scary she could be.

Author's Note

Sorry for the delay. Summer heat has been making me sick. It's hard to focus on writing when dealing with heat exhaustion, headache, and nausea.

Chapter 30: Emotion Doesn't Work at a Certain Processing Speed

Everything was packed and ready to go. I was spending my final night living at home. It wasn't like I was going to be far away, or that I wasn't going to visit my parents on a regular basis, but this felt like my final evening before going out into the wide world.

I wouldn't be returning home for the summer. My mother had made it clear that she expected me to be out on my own from here on out. I still had her as a safety net, and she would be paying for deposit and first few months rent for me for an apartment when school let out- if I wasn't immediately able to sustain it with some roommates, but she expected me to figure it out after that. I needed to learn to be an independent adult. My scholarships paid enough that I could put some money towards rent next year instead of paying for dorms, but I'd still need to get a job to support some of it. I didn't doubt that she'd let me return home if it all fell apart, but the expectation was I would still make a full effort to make it work.

Well, if I became a Dreamwarden I would get paid for that. Dreamwardens were listed as OMMR agents, and paid accordingly. It wasn't a top paying job, but it was plenty to live off of; enough to cover rent, utilities, and food, just so long as I didn't splurge on anything. I'd make far more as an architect than I could as a Dreamwarden, once I graduated and found work in my field. But my future status as a Dreamwarden was still questionable anyway, on both my end and the Dreamwardens'.

My stepdad prepared a big dinner, with eggplant casserole, mac n' cheese, side salads, and they even poured me a glass of champagne. My parents had let me have champagne previously on special occasions- like New Year's Eve, the last two Thanksgivings, and my most recent birthday. I didn't like it as much as just plain fruit juices. It wasn't horrible, but I doubted I'd ever have a strong craving for it. I did appreciate the gesture of having It served, and how it marked this as a special night. My stepdad took the special meals very seriously.

Conversation around the table that evening didn't touch on subjects of Dreamwardens or powers. We talked about whether I was excited or nervous (I was a bit of both). We talked about the classes I was going to be taking for the first semester. My stepdad talked about his job a little. My mom didn't really talk too much about her own job, as she rarely did, but she talked about conversations she had with friends. There was a brief mention that they'd be visiting Melissa and Locutus of Bear's house in a few days for dinner, but nothing else was said about that. It was just a normal conversation one might expect the night before someone was going off to college. I might have teared up at some point from emotion, but this was still a happy time.

I went to bed a little early that evening, knowing I had to get up early. Actually falling asleep still ended up being a difficult proposition. I went to bed around nine, and was so full of nervous energy that I found it hard to sleep. I even took steps to burn off some energy and make myself a little more sleepy, but even doing those things it was nearly midnight before the Sandman finally decided to visit me.

Once dreaming, my first impulse was to reach out to Miss Seapony, but I stopped myself. I had told Jess that I'd talk to the Arbiter about pretending to be her tomorrow. I wasn't sure when I was going to have time to do this thing, given I had to move into the dorms tomorrow and get settled, but it meant a lot to my friend, and I wanted to do what I could.

"Rebecca Riddle, it's a surprise to have you desiring my company," Arbiter's voice rang out.

I found myself in what looked like a pearly white temple, with big marble columns on either side of me, and open blue skies beyond them. The ceiling was a simple white dome, and in front of me was a silver throne with Arbiter sitting on it while looking at me. Even though it seemed to be daytime she had a pair of fire filled braziers to either side of her, and her bronze staff stood perfect in one hand as she leaned against the side of the chair. There was no other decoration, but there was a sense of power about the place. She sat smiling, and waiting for me to speak.

"Hi there," I began, not used to greeting any Dreamwarden but Miss Seapony in a dream. "Do you think this place might be a little much?"

She shrugged in a very undignified way, but kept smiling. "Maybe for a casual chat perhaps, but when someone intends to entreat upon me for something it is best to remind them who they are dealing with. It helps discourage the more petty requests if people are at least a little intimidated by their surroundings. I don't mind listening to and doing what I can to help, but you'd be surprised at the absurd requests we get sometimes."

"Like what?" I asked, not used to hearing about this aspect of being a Dreamwarden.

She waved a hand. "It goes without saying that I can’t get into any specifics but I get plenty of requests for things that would be violations of my oaths, others I would never consider doing, and things where they must think I can just wave my hands and make anything happen. These range from requests to force someone to fall in love with them, make them rich, make their bosses nicer to them, tell them other people's secrets, or just grant them magic good luck. I let my surroundings reflect what I think of their requests in that case, something I inherited from Psychic Calm, I believe."

Well, the place didn't look menacing in any way right now, so I supposed she was in a good mood so far. I knew she could read my mind to know what I wanted, but I hadn't given her permission to act on that yet. My searching her out could be seen as looking to make a request- which I was. I guessed I'd know quickly how she felt about what I had to ask by looking around me after asking.

"I talked to Jess today, your niece, she was wanting to do something, and I said we could talk to you," I began, then decided to just make this easier. "Um, you have permission to act on my thoughts in relation to that."

There was an instant change in the atmosphere. It was no longer blue skies outside, but grey ones, with gentle rain falling. I wasn't sure what to make of this. As a pegasus rain like this was actually kind of a pleasant thing, and she'd been a pegasus too- when she had been alive. She wasn't a pegasus since her death though, and she had a certain human aspect to her as well that could be harder to read in regards to the weather. A lot of humans saw rain as a sign of unhappiness. It was definitely not the same mood as before in any case.

"Give me a moment," she said calmly.

I sat silently waiting for her to say or do something, but she just sat as she had been, minus her smile. She wasn't frowning, but didn't seem happy either. It was what someone might call a poker faced expression. The rain continued to gently fall outside the columns.

After a short wait, Jess appeared in front of me. She was missing her pony parts as she looked at me. "Rebecca?" She said, seemingly confused. Then she seemed to realize she was in a dream. She turned around and looked at Arbiter, and for some reason briefly turned into a full yellow earth pony mare for just a second, before shifting back to her normal partial self. "Hi, Aunt Arbiter."

Arbiter's smile returned. "Jessie, you really must get a better grip on your dream form. Having it shift around like that can be a little strange for others. I could help you with that, if you give me permission."

Jess stepped back, and shook her head. "No thank you. I'll figure it out on my own. It only flickered this time. You know how I feel about anyone messing with my head."

The Dreamwarden looked a little sad. "As you wish. Although I do think you should spend more time considering why it happens. However, that's neither here nor there for right now. The two of you are wanting to give me an opportunity to speak with my brother, correct?"

Jess relaxed. "Yes, Aunt Arbiter. If you both agree to it. Rebecca said she would try to do it."

Arbiter sat still, and the rain continued to fall, although harder than before- a downpour, but not a storm. The fires of her braziers seemed to be a little less blazing, and the pearly white columns seemed a little less pearly. She just sat, quietly observing us.

Jess didn't seem to care for her silence. "You can think faster than I can. Why are you taking so long to give an answer?"

A single lighting bolt flashed outside, but Arbiter's expression didn't change. "Just because I can think quickly doesn't mean every decision is easy for me, or that I consider things with the same logical outlook you do. This holds emotional impact. I may now be something far beyond your ability to fully comprehend, but deep inside me is still the girl that wants her big brother's love and acceptance. These are things that touch upon my emotional needs, and I don't give those as much consideration these days so I am not used to dealing with them. Please, don't rush me."

"Rushing you is you asking for a few seconds," Jess impatiently countered. "You can process everything that I could think to consider and more in milliseconds."

Arbiter sighed and looked at me. "Do you see what I have to deal with? Even my niece treats me like I'm some sort of computer. I'm sure if you asked her she would sit down and calculate out my exact processing power and maximum memory storage. It probably wouldn't even take her that long to do, since she is rather brilliant."

Jess shifted back into pony form. She gave herself a look over and scowled at her body, while stomping a hoof. "Ooohh, stop that and behave!" She then reverted back to her partial form.

My curiosity was driving me crazy. "What's with-"

She turned and cut me off. "It's nothing."

"How very illogical of you," Arbiter said with a smile. "Emotions and reflections on yourself are powerful forces, and that is why I need time to consider. All the processing power in the world- which I have- doesn't speed such things up by much. I'll be glad when you get a little older and a little more patient."

Jess crossed her arms and snorted. She seemed to realize immediately after that she was letting her true age show through her behavior, and relaxed her posture. "Sorry, I guess I was being unfair. I don't mean to act like a child."

Arbiter stood up and approached her niece, then laid a hand on Jess's shoulder. "You aren't a child, you're a grown adult, despite your age. However, you had a very rushed childhood, and even your puberty wasn't typical. There's maturity that comes from age and there's maturity that comes from experience, and those two are not always in line with one another. I have faith the experience will catch up, eventually. You're too smart a young woman not to have that happen."

Jess frowned. "I feel like you're patronizing me."

Arbiter removed her hand and smirked. "My apologies about that. It's a little hard for me to avoid at times. As you like to point out, I am a superior being."

Jess smirked back. "Okay, now you're just trying to get a rise out of me."

"Is it working?" Arbiter asked.

Jess crossed her arms. "No."

Arbiter returned to her silver throne and sat down. "I see… I guess you're making progress then." She sat up straight after that. "I'll do it, if my brother agrees. Although we might want to do a test run right now. Having Rebecca try this with no practice at all is not fair to anyone, least of all her."

That was my cue. "How do you want to do this?" I asked. Still not sure how this was going to work out.

"You can shapeshift here as well as you can while projecting, so make yourself look like me to start," Arbiter instructed. She then pursed her lips. "Actually, let me give you a different avatar to copy. One that should be easier for you, and one Paul will be more comfortable with."

The Dreamwarden stood up and then shifted shape. She now had the body of a normal looking orange pegasus mare with a purple mane and tail. Her cutie mark was an odd circle with a cross going straight down at the bottom and an arrow jutting off at an angle from the top that I felt like I'd seen before, but wasn't able to place the exact meaning of at the moment- something to do with gender, if I was remembering right.

"This was how I looked as a pony in life," she informed me. "He'll probably refer to me as Tonya, and I have no objection to that. It was my name, and there's at least one pony who still calls me that more often than she calls me by my proper name. Close family gets to have some privileges."

I looked at Jess. "You never call her Tonya?"

Jess shrugged. "It's not her name anymore, and I didn't know her as well as a pony as I do now."

The rain came down even harder than before. "I regret I didn't get to spend more time with you back then. I did try, but you were such an odd little filly. It was hard to have a conversation with you. Although, part of that was me not fully respecting how intelligent you are. I was trying to be a cool aunt to a normal small foal, but I should have maybe tried treating you less like a typical small child."

"You still treat me like a child," Jess grumbled. She shifted again to a pony mare and glared down at herself, but she just rolled her eyes and pouted this time around.

The rain was now nearly deafening as Arbiter frowned. "I now remember hunting the ancestors of ponies as food, and a very young Triss being scolded for stealing treats before there were even microbes on Earth. They aren't memories from me, but they are part of me. You have no idea how much you all seem like children to me. Still, I should try to be better at treating you as if you are adults."

"Are all the Dreamwardens like that?" I asked hesitantly. "Stuck remembering things from long long ago like they're your own memories?"

She turned back towards me, and the rain lessened. "More so for those of us who are dead. Those who are still alive don't walk around remembering that stuff in the waking world all the time- but dead, with the ability to use the full power of the dream realm, and no escape from it, they get to be more oppressive. If you become a Dreamwarden you'll be forced to remember it all during your binding- and for the unprepared that alone can be fatal, but it is your choice whether you summon those memories up again while you are here. It's one of the benefits of not being trapped here all the time. Don't go dying, being undead isn't a fun time."

"Definitely not something I'm interested in, but more power to you if you are," Jess said in echo of what she told me before. She'd shifted back to her full human form sometime while I was focused on Arbiter speaking and just seemed to take notice of that as she went feeling with one hand for her ears and another for her missing tail. "Seriously, dream! Can't I just be me without you trying to change me!"

Arbiter stretched a wing out towards her. "If you would just let me-"

Jess reverted to pony form briefly and then immediately back to her partial form. "No! I've got this!"

I really wished I understood what was going on with Jess, but she didn't seem like she wanted to talk about it. I was focused on what Arbiter had been saying anyway. I shivered as I worked up the nerve to ask Arbiter some questions. "What was it like… dying?"

The rain lessened some more, and Arbiter looked at me sympathetically. "For me it happened so fast I couldn't say much about it. The hours before were painful, but I'd been walking around with a gunshot wound, so that kinda hurt. I was terrified up until the last few minutes, but in the end I felt a certain calmness about my fate. I was dying so others wouldn't, and that brought acceptance and peace. It's hard to explain if you've never been in that position. Jessie understands it, sadly. I hope you never have to understand it by being in that position."

These were all aspects of being a Dreamwarden that Miss Seapony never talked to me about. Phobia had talked to me about even different things, which again, my oldest friend had neglected to say anything about. Miss Seapony had chosen to die, just like Arbiter, and it stood to reason she had to deal with the same type of experiences and memories. Why hadn't she talked to me about this?

Arbiter cocked her head as if listening, and nodded. "Yinyu says she will speak to you when we're done, but doesn't want to intrude upon our practice. Let's get to work. I doubt this will be a perfected art before tonight's done, but hopefully it will be good enough to give me and my brother some quality time. I know I miss him, and my niece and nephew assure me that he misses me."

I nodded, and shifted my appearance to try to match Arbiter's. I'd get to question Miss Seapony later. Right now I needed to practice this so I could help Jess's dad. It occurred to me that being dead granted Arbiter, Miss Seapony, and Mister Potty-Mouth unfathomable power, but they were far less free than the average person. Becoming a Dreamwarden was a big risk, because I could end up like them if I wasn't careful.

I pushed those considerations out of my mind as I focused on the task at hoof. It wasn't until we'd been working at it for a long time that I realized that I'd stopped thinking of Arbiter as the Angel Lady.

Author's Note

Chapter 53: Prelude to the Where We Began

A dark blue mare with a sapphire blue mane that seemed alive stepped forward and gave my parents and me a beaming smile. She had both a horn and wings, and everything about her seemed just a bit bigger and majestic than other ponies. She was wearing a tiny black crown behind her horn and some garment I could not determine if it was a breastplate or necklace which bore her cutie mark, and lavender shoes. Her flank looked like someone had splattered black paint against it, with one big glob and a few small black spots that went along her leg and her side. Her eyes were colored cyan and seemed kind and full of life. The best word to describe her I could come up with was regal.

My parents made to bow while I stood there dumbly, but the alicorn motioned with a hoof for them to rise. "Please, no formality is required, although your gesture of respect is appreciated. I am Luna, co-ruler, Princess, and Dreamwarden of Equestria, and tonight is a joyous night. I have been most eager to meet each of the top Dreamwarden candidates. Each of the Dreamwardens has said many good things about every candidate, and I finally get my opportunity to see all of you myself."

"We'll try not to waste too much of your time if you have multiple ponies to see tonight, Princess," Mom said breathlessly.

Luna chuckled. "Fear not, I may not be a Dreamwarden of this world, but I am no mere dreamwalker who is bound to but one dream. I can meet with you all at once. There are five others I am to visit tonight, and three of them I have already begun engaging with before now. We shall conduct our business with no fear of distraction or pressing of time, and when the fifth is ready, I will meet with that individual as well without you even taking notice that my attention has been divided pentagonally."

Five of us? There were four other ponies that the Dreamwardens felt were worth calling Luna in to interview. There might be more, she said all at once, but she also said five tonight, which might mean more another night.

Luna looked at me. "I see the question in your eyes. The vetting process has been narrowed down to just five, barring some unforeseen circumstance that would eliminate all the top five from consideration in one swell swoop. I find that to be unlikely. The Dreamwardens have told me nothing else of your rankings beyond that. You are Rebecca Riddle, the portly one, correct?"

"They identified my daughter as the fat one?!" Mom yelled. She looked caught between outraged and flabbergasted.

Luna winced. "Ghadab used a different set of terms. He can be quite colorful in his descriptions. No insult was intended. He assured me that Rebecca would have no problem with being referenced by his crudest of terms and insisted I greet as such. I found the request odd and decided to scale back the terminology."

"Mom, if you ever meet Ghadab, you'll understand. He has his own way of looking at things. It's okay. I am fat," I said placatingly. I then looked at Luna with a big smile. "Or you can go with fluffy, chubby, squishy, huggable, cookie jar, marshmallow, fuzzy lumpkins, master of the lard, the happy earthquake, and one person once called me Celestia with a normal metabolism."

"Sister's appetite is well-known on both worlds. It is exaggerated, but her manners when eating cake are often abandoned, and it is a little known fact that she is also fond of cooking when she can," Luna giggled while trying to cover a smirk. "However, Twilight Sparkle is a monster when put around fast food, with table-manners so appalling that she has been banned by no less than a dozen establishments, last I checked."

I blinked. "Really? That bad? I have some nasty table-manners, but no one has ever talked about banning me from a place."

Luna laughed. "Twilight has been known to order everything on the menu and wipe her face and table with her food—she says to pick up the stray sauce. Ponies have passed out while observing her eat. Twilight with hayburgers is far worse than even the tabloids say Celestia is with cake! How Twilight Sparkle manages to stay thin is one of the great mysteries of our time. You don't want to get me started on Cadence and her need to hog all the chocolate pudding on special occasions—I have had to set guards to keep her at bay so other ponies can have some. Some ponies have stated I have unusual eating habits as well, but know this, they are lies and slander!"

"Hey, good food deserves to be devoured!" I said with a happy bounce.

"Indeed," Luna replied. "Now, on to the matters of my visit that concern both you and your family. You, along with all the other candidates, and their families, will be invited to come later next month for a week-long visit to Equestria."

"But I have classes!" I said in shock. "My architecture teacher, in particular, is strict about attendance."

"I used my vacation for this week, and my wife just did too," Stepdad protested right after me.

"All such matters shall be taken care of, so Senator Wild Growth assures us," Luna said dismissively. "The Dreamwardens and I all felt it was best if the candidates were first allowed to visit the place they hope to retire to eventually. While it may seem silly to concern ourselves about it to some, not liking Equestria could be a deal-breaker for others."

"Won't that practically advertise to the public who the candidates are?" Mom asked. "Rebecca's identity is supposed to be a secret."

"You are simply going because you won the contest you entered, not because of anything else," Luna said smugly.

"Contest?" I asked. "What contest?"

"We didn't enter any contest," Mom echoed.

"Senator Wild Growth will be making a trip to Equestria to visit family. Being the generous soul she is, she has decided to host a dozen families to join hers on this vacation. It was quite a popular contest, with hundreds of thousands of entries. Five of those dozen will be candidates' families. The seven true winning families were informed of their winning two months ago."

"That sounds like a lot of people," I said.

Luna nodded. "I have not been given the final number yet, but it could be upwards of sixty-seven at max, although we don't expect it to max out, only five of whom are candidates, and will be treated with the exact same level of hospitality as the rest. Senator Wild Growth will be bringing her brothers, sister, nephew, and nieces with her, and each other family can bring up to five family members. You will not be made aware who out of the others are the candidates."

I rubbed the back of my neck with a hoof. "I kinda found out who one of them was by accident. I let them know about me, to be fair."

"I see," Luna replied with a slight frown, then got a faraway look on her face. "Ah, I have confirmed. They have not had a chance to discuss it with you yet."

"I'm guessing you are talking to them now?" I asked.

Luna nodded. "The individual and their parents. They just communicated with me that they'll find time to discuss it with you. I'll leave the matter between the two of you to deal with responsibly. The Dreamwardens are aware of the situation already, of course, and continue to monitor each of you."

Mom cleared her throat. "Getting back to the talk about the trip; I understand that a trip to Equestria is a rare once and a lifetime opportunity that is very hard to arrange, and I may not have another chance, but I do have a critical contract project coming up for work that I already put on hold for my daughter's move-in to college. I want to be there to support her, but I simply cannot take time off again so soon, especially if I'm going to be clearing personal days later this year to be with her if she does end up becoming a Dreamwarden. Wild Growth used to be my boss, but she is no longer involved with company business to clear my schedule since she was elected to office."

Luna gave my parents a sympathetic look. "If you are unable to go, that is perfectly alright. If possible, perhaps we could arrange something of a… rain check so you can visit in the future. But the only one of you three who needs to go is Rebecca, as this trip is for her and the other candidates' benefit. Well… and Senator Wild Growth and her family. The senator is going to meet her parents for the first time since they settled in Equestria, along with meeting her youngest brother for the first time. It's a joyous occasion."

"Am I going to have to have more meetings with people in Equestria," I asked. I was about full on the number of people who wanted meetings with me.

Luna shook her head. "This is just a relaxing vacation. You are just another tourist coming to see the sites. It is so you can judge Equestria, and whether you will want to retire there. Krik is there, but he will probably not interact with any of the candidates. He spends most of his evenings painting and enjoying proper sleep during the day. He sometimes does tasks for me, and I will sometimes seek his opinion on some matters, but I mostly leave him be in his retirement. My fellow princesses will be aware you and the other candidates are visiting, but don't plan on doing any interviews. If you greet any of them, it will be as just another tourist."

"What kind of tasks do you have retired Dreamwardens do?" I asked. "I thought retirement was supposed to mean we don't have jobs anymore."

"An excellent question," Luna replied. "The retired Dreamwardens keep an eye on the dream realm in Equestria for me when I am off-world. They don't possess the full power of a Dreamwarden in Equestria, but they are still capable of far more than your typical dreamwalker, and can delay or stop threats until I can return to vanquish them. If a catastrophe were to strike, and I were to be killed or permanently trapped in your world, they are to install whoever I have chosen as a successor to my sted as the Dreamwarden of Equestria. I don't foresee this happening, but failure to have preparations for such an unhappy circumstance could result in consequences most dire."

"My daughter is expected to fight monsters!?" Mom exclaimed in shock.

Luna gave my parents a flat look. "That is in the job description. What do you think a Dreamwarden is responsible for?"

"I already knew it was a possibility," I said before my parents could answer. "Miss Seapony told me earlier that she regularly has to chase Discord out of the dream realm, and she's told me before they sometimes have to do things to bad guys using mind magic that aren't safe for cops to try to catch."

Luna grumbled. "Discord is a nuisance of no malicious intent, but can become a problem if left unsupervised. It is in his nature to cause chaos and confusion. He is not alone in possible threats. I have faced invaders from beyond the borders of the unknown before and have shown them that the dream realm is no easy conquest. The Dreamwardens here have related to me that, while they have yet to have such a breach, they do have memories of it happening in the distant past."

"And now they are wondering if Sha'am Maut is somehow touching the world from the eternal dream. She's like the biggest meanie baddie ever!" I exclaimed.

Luna frowned. "I have heard this concern from them, and I do not know how that could be possible. Even if she were, I cannot make myself believe she would intend to do harm. Sha'am was unnecessarily brutal and cruel, but she did not have evil intent. The phenomenon that Phobia described could be a result of something else entirely, and we know nothing yet of its nature or purpose. It's best not to jump to conclusions."

Mom looked uncomfortable as she looked between Luna and me."They play up the services Dreamwardens provide so much—arranging dream meetings, talking people through problems, encouraging foals, alerting medics of people in need of immediate medical care, acting as notaries and witnesses for contracts, so many other things…it gets easy to forget there's this whole other side to them. It's easy to see Rebecca in that service role of Dreamwardens because she's so happy and caring, but it's hard to imagine her in that enforcement role."

"Mom, I doubt I will ever be needed to fight bad guys," I consoled her. "What can I do that Miss Seapony, Ghadab, and Arbiter can't do better? And Phobia Remedy is Phobia Remedy, the Queen of Nightmares. If anything like that was needed in the waking world, I'm sure she could do it. I would be around just to cheerleader and focus on being as non-threatening as possible."

"I heard you have an optimistic and cheerful personality," Luna said, regaining her smile. "That's good. They need that. Yinyu used to fill that role, but since her death, much of that has faded. It isn't all gone, but she once had much more life to her…" Luna's smile dropped. "Perhaps I worded that poorly. However, you'll find that being a Dreamwarden comes with an instinctual drive to defend the dream realm and a deep burning rage at those that would try to subvert or harm the dreamers. If it were to be invaded, you would not hesitate to put yourself on the front lines of its defense, and woe to the miscreant that had the folly to incite your rage. I can speak of this from personal experience."

Mom half-frowned. "I suppose she would have the tools to do that in that case, but it still is hard to picture my baby charging in to fight anything, and I worry about her doing that, even if I know she would be practically undefeatable—at least in the dream realm. She isn't going to try that when awake, right? She'd get slaughtered."

Luna chewed on her lip. "It is best she just is kept far away from such threats when awake. She would be immune to mind magic, but far from immune to physical attack. Understand, none of the Dreamwardens of this world have ever presented much in the way of a physical threat. Sha'am was the most feared, and she was as lacking in physical prowess as they come. Only Yinyu, Ghadab, and Psychic Calm would qualify as having been physically fit, and two of them met their living ends. This is one of the many roles the OMMR and other governmental authorities fill here, to be the spear of the Dreamwardens in the waking world so the Dreamwardens can stay far away and safe. Although, she may be called upon to use her unique abilities at times."

"Hopefully, no crystal ponies get me again; that hurt," I said as I absently rubbed my head.

Mom narrowed her eyes at me. "What do you mean by again?"

"Did I not mention Phobia Remedy's crystal pony bodyguard sapped my magic because she thought I was attacking Phobia Remedy?"

"You somehow left that part off your list," Mom said flatly.

I blushed. "Yeah, Phobia Remedy screamed and had a panic attack. She thought I was her daughter's big hairy spider."

Luna blinked. "I think dear Phobia's vision may be failing at a young age. You do not bear any resemblance to Goliath."

"I kinda stuck my head up her butt—it's a long story. Sorry, it got lost in the shuffle of everything else," I said, blushing deeper.

"The Dreamwardens told me that it was a colorful and unique group of candidates they had gathered. They weren't wrong," Luna chuckled. "Your shoving your head up Phobia's posterior is not even in the top three misadventures I have heard from candidates."

I knew about Sunflower's issue, which I would think was a bigger deal than mine, but I wondered what the other candidates had managed to do. My parents gave Luna a dumb stare of disbelief. She wouldn't be able to elaborate on what occurred, but I still felt sorry for the other candidates if they had something worse than what had happened to me. At least I could say I didn't seem to have hurt my chances.

"I think it is time for your parents to be allowed to sleep properly, Rebecca Riddle, but you and I shall continue to speak until it is nearly time for you to wake," Luna said gently.

And so began my first multi-hour marathon of recollecting began, and this is where we came in.

Chapter 70: An Old Soul Needs a New Dress

Fifty-two...fifty-three...fifty-four…

Do you know what's worse than a bad thing happening? Knowing a bad thing is going to happen, and just sitting there waiting for it.

Sixty-seven…sixty-eight...sixty-nine…

The garden in the courtyard was pretty and peaceful. I should be enjoying it. Instead, I was waiting in dread for some terror, and that anticipation sucked all joy out of what I was seeing. Phobia Remedy liked to teach lessons about fear—this was a lesson. Fear made you not appreciate what was right in front of your face. Self-preservation made you cease to care about other important things. I could imagine it getting to the point that all that mattered was an insane need to defend yourself against everything and forgetting what you were defending and why. You could lose yourself to fear.

One hundred thirty-nine...one hundred forty...one hundred forty-one…

Moses was doing pretty good. It was coming up on three minutes, and nothing had happened yet.

One hundred seventy…one hundred seventy-one… one hundred sev—

Blanche let out a gasp. "One hundred sixty-four! That's what I reached. That was terrible!"

"I lost count now," Sunflower whimpered. "Nothing yet. What did you see?"

"Me, Phobia Remedy, and the Warden of Order crucified," Blanche said shakily.

"I lost count, too," I said as I shook my head. "Nothing y—"

"Aaawww!" I jerked my head up to see me running towards me. I was on fire. I shut my eyes.

"Nevermind! I'm burning to death!" I yelped.

Sunflower was whimpering loudly now, knowing it was only a matter of time before her vision came. The whimpering abruptly stopped. "Huh?" Sunflower said in confusion.

I still had my eyes closed but turned towards her. "What do you see?"

"I was old and had a bunch of ponies around me, watching me," she said slowly. "Old me was sitting in the grass, staring up at the sky, then I just… fell asleep… I think?"

"Lucky you," Blanche muttered.

"You can all focus your attention back on Moses now," Phobia said. "Moses, you did a good job. You are getting much better."

About three minutes, he couldn't go out in public if he would lose control after just three minutes. Still, it was better than nothing, I supposed. She said he had only been like this for a few months. I guessed that when he started, he couldn't stop it for any period of time. Three minutes seemed like a lot when I used to be immediate, no matter what.

I turned and opened my eyes. Moses looked at us with big eyes, like he was begging us not to be mad at him. I smiled at him, trying to reassure him.

"See, not so bad," I said with some extra pep in my tone. "If I wanted to see something terrifying, I would go to the grocery store and stare at the two-percent milk. Now that's scary." I did an exaggerated shiver.

"Mine was nice," Sunflower said with a mix of relief and happiness, and I could hear the smile in her voice. "I wouldn't mind dying that way—old, surrounded by loved ones, and just peacefully pass away while gazing at the sky."

"Mine wasn't nice, but I know it was not real," Blanche said. "I am not mad at you for it."

"You closed your eyes right away. That protected you from being hit with vision after vision," Ulga reminded us. "The others, they can often endure one, sometimes two, but as they see the never-ending river of horror, they break down."

I didn't argue that point. Even now, I could see things happening on the edges of my vision, and they seemed to shift where they were constantly. His power was still in full effect, and if I turned to look, I knew I would see one thing after another. Could I become numb to it? I didn't know.

"Now we can discuss the doll," Phobia said. "Moses, I am guessing one of the staff saw a doll with you on the camera. Did you see an old doll yesterday?"

Moses nodded quickly. "Old toy. Mine. Toy went away. You bring back?"

Phobia sat silent for a moment. "You claim the doll is yours?"

"Mine," Moses asserted.

"When did you have the doll before yesterday?" Phobia asked slowly.

Moses frowned and seemed to think about that. "Don't know. My toy. Promise. Friend, Chaaya."

I jumped as I heard Phobia gasp loudly and saw Moses jump too. "W-what was that last thing you said?" she asked in a trembling voice. Was she afraid? Did I need to be frightened?

"Chaaya," Moses repeated. "Chaaya is my friend. Chaaya's dress is old. Chaaya miss me."

"Who is Chaaya, Dreamwarden?" Blanche asked. "You seem to know the name."

Phobia took time to answer. "Who Chaaya was, I won't discuss here. It is the name written on the back of the doll. I doubt anyone here could read the script; it is written in Devanagari script."

"I feel stupid again," Sunflower said. "What is dena… whatever that word is script?"

"It is the common script used in the Indian subcontinent; it is used for several different languages," Blanche informed her—well, informed us since I didn't know either. I got the impression Blanche was more knowledgeable about many random weird things than Sunflower and me.

"You have met Chaaya before?" Phobia asked slowly.

Moses seemed to think about it. "Think so. Don't remember."

"Is reincarnation a thing? Did the Story let her go?" I heard Phobia whisper under her breath. I only heard her because I was standing closest to her. I wasn't sure if anyone else would have heard her.

I may not have been the brightest pony, but I wasn't a stupid one either. I only knew one pony held by the Story, and that pony also had strong ties to that doll. I examined Moses closely. Could he really be her, spun out by the Story to live again and have a fresh start? Could Moses be the reincarnation of Sha'am Maut? She supposedly didn't have powers of her own, but everything about Moses had death involved. He showed you visions of death. An honest-to-goodness dead man had protected him. He claimed the doll was his and knew what the name on the doll was even though he was too young to read English, much less Indian writing. He might not remember being her, but the soul might have memories. Enough of a memory to remember a doll from another life.

I didn't see anything about him that made him seem like anything but a little kid. One that wanted to be loved and had no more knowledge of the world than any other little kid. This was not the evil Dreamwarden; this was an innocent foal even if it were true. Even if he was her risen again and given a new life, he carried none of the blame for what had happened before.

The world had been unfair to Sha'am Maut last time around and created a monster out of her, and now the world was being unjust to Moses. Sha'am needed someone to care and never got it. Now Moses was here, and he needed people to care. We couldn't let history repeat itself. We couldn't let Moses get bitter and angry at a world that never gave him a chance. He shouldn't have to be punished with a cruel life for what happened in another.

I walked up to Moses and sat down, stretching out my forelegs and wings towards him. He immediately recognized me offering to hug him, and jumped into me. He couldn't get his legs all the way around my chubby body, but he latched on well enough.

"You're a sweet little kid, and you deserve to be loved," I whispered to him. "You're different from lots of other people, but there's nothing wrong with that. We're all different too. We're a bunch of weirdos, but being weird just means you have something extra special to give the world. I bet that when you get full control of your magic, you'll figure out how to do wonderful things with it."

I wasn't exactly sure how that last thing would work with his particular magic, but I still believed it.

"I will let you take care of the doll," Phobia said; she sounded like she was trying not to cry. "You have to promise to take good care of it."

I let go of him and watched him nod. "I promise. New dress? Chaaya needs a new dress. Dress is old."

"Yes, I can have someone make her a new dress," Phobia confirmed. "I think it is time she has something nice. A new dress for a new owner, and I'll save the old one. I'll have her for you next week—if she is good and stays put till then."

"Chaaya will be good," Moses assured her.

"And...how do you know that?" Phobia asked.

Moses looked confused. "Don't know. Just know."

I heard Phobia sigh. "Very well. I'll bring her on my visit next week. I'll make sure no one takes her from you."

"Thank you, Dreamwarden," Ulga said. "It might be strange to give a colt a doll, but it will mean a lot to him."

"It brings up so many other questions, but I know I won't be getting those answers today," Phobia replied. "I think we are done for today. Everyone, say your goodbyes to Moses and Ulga, and don't speak of this visit with anyone until I have fully investigated some things."

Author's Note

Short chapter today. I will have a longer one Sunday or Monday.

Chapter 85: Griffins, Goats, and Minataurs, Oh My!

I have been on plenty of planes and to many airports in my life. It's something that happens when you are moving from place to place every few years. I was not an airplane expert, but I was no novice to getting ready to board one. Things had regular policies you had to follow.

Equestrians had different policies.

There was no airport in the Crystal Empire. We all gathered into the crystal stadium and made our way near the top of it, where three airships were tied to the side of the stadium with ropes. Three separate gangplanks had been laid out for boarding the three ships. From what I could tell, the ships were primarily wood, and I didn't know what to make of their balloon or how it was fixed to the vessel. I had gotten a good look at the ships as we were coming up to the stadium and noticed that they had no visible motors, just what looked like fins that hung off the back. Equestrian airships were supposedly much more advanced in terms of their safety and maneuverability compared to Earth's zeppelins, but looking at them, I didn't understand how. They looked pretty.

I was separated for the moment from the other candidates and left to board alone. This was only going to be temporary because I saw that we and our families had all been assigned to the same ship, and it was because of those families I was temporarily alone. My friends were busy trying to keep their families focused as they boarded. Sunflower, in particular, looked like she was having struggles with her earth pony relatives, who had suddenly developed a fear of flying when they noticed the gangplanks had no safety railings or even ropes on the side. She was now trying to convince them that it was perfectly safe to walk across and hold up the line waiting to board. A month ago, I would have called Sunflower timid. Now I would call Sunflower exasperated.

"Mom! You aren't going to fall off the side, and even if you did, I would immediately rush to catch you. There are plenty of other pegasi and unicorns here that will help me too," Sunflower said in a long-suffering tone. "You're making a scene. Just hurry across and don't think about it."

Sunflower's mom, a tan earth pony with a red mane, didn't even answer; she just sat in front of the gangplank and cowered down.

"I can walk you across and guide you as you go if you want to close your eyes," Sunflower suggested but still got no positive response.

Everyone waiting to board this particular ship was getting restless and started to mutter again. There had been some early mutters expressing sympathy for the mare, but now those mutters were beginning to turn to annoyance, with ponies and humans wanting her just to let someone guide her across, have someone find a unicorn who could teleport her across or at least have her get out of the way so others could board in the meantime.

Sunflower looked around and took in the crowd's mood before stepping close to her mother and whispering too low for me to hear. I could only imagine it was more cajoling to cross in a hurry. However, the crowd suddenly quieted down as a new figure came to the ship's side of the gangplank, a goat—a goat with a clipboard and a microphone headset.

We all watched in rapt attention as the goat sat down, lifted the clipboard to look at it in his forehooves, then held the clipboard in one forever and pointed at it with the other while bleating out angrily. "Beauh!"

I heard the crowd around me start to mutter again.

"Is that a goat?"
"Are goats supposed to be intelligent in Equestria? I hadn't heard of any goat country."
"Are we getting bossed around by farm animals?"
"What is this, a cartoon? Are the birds and the pigs and the cows going to start talking too?"
"What other farm animals are going to come out and boss us around?"

It was primarily ponies muttering, but the humans waiting seemed more amused by the ponies' reaction than amazed that a goat had just come and fussed about the schedule. I wasn't immediately sure why. I mean, how often do you see an intelligent goat? Then it finally dawned on me, and I think it occurred to some other ponies around the same time what the humans were amused by. I took it in stride, but I think several of the ponies may have been deeply insulted. The humans had the good sense to keep their mouths shut; otherwise, there might have been some ponies screaming about how they weren't animals.

The mutterings were cut short, and a few gasps were let out as another figure stepped up beside the goat, a minotaur, an honest to goodness minotaur!

The great bull glared down at Sunflower's mother and snorted. "Iron Will runs a tight ship and has a contract with strict timetables. Iron Will can't have ponies delaying takeoff!"

Iron Will, or at least, I was pretty sure that was his name, and he was speaking in the third person, marched down the ramp to the now shivering form of Sunflower's mother. Sunflower shifted out of his way, taking to the air in a low hover just off the side of the ramp. Without saying another word, the minotaur reached down, grabbed Sunflower's mother, slung her over his shoulder, grabbed her luggage and put it on his other shoulder, and marched up the ramp.

"CAPTAIN WILL!" a voice shouted in outrage from somewhere on the ship as Iron Will deposited the earth pony on the deck.

Wild Growth marched into view, glaring up at the minotaur without a hint of fear, looking furious. "These are my guests, and you have no business handling them like that! You need to apologize right now!"

Iron Will pulled out a sheath of papers from...somewhere, and he proceeded to point at them while bending to meet Wild Growth's glare. "Iron Will always fulfills his contract to the letter! Iron Will agreed that he would ensure all guests would be properly boarded and the flight would commence in a timely manner! Iron Will was fulfilling the terms of the contract, and Iron Will will not apologize!"

The standoff continued, and the crowd waited with bated breath to see which of Wild Growth or the fearsome minotaur would back down first. It took several long seconds of silence, then Wild Growth relented.

"This better not be a sign of things to come on this trip, Iron Will, or you and I will continue this conversation, and you will find me not so amendable. Go ahead and continue seeing that everything advances on schedule," the senator said. She then turned and marched off.

With the holdup gone, everyone resumed boarding the ship. By this time, the other two ships were already fully loaded and pulling up their gangplanks, but our line was moving quickly now.

I was among the last to board, and as I started crossing with my luggage dragging behind me, I slowed briefly. I am not a cowardly pegasus, but I was a heavy one, and I couldn't help but give a second's hesitation at the thought that the ramp might not support my weight. It was only a second, though. I quickly realized I was being silly. Iron Will had to weigh way more than I did, and the plank supported him just fine. I picked up my pace and headed onto the ship.

The deck had different sections. There was a big pool area that had what looked like a smaller section with paddle boats, an ice cream vendor, and a huge central cabin that had stairs going down into the boat—presumably where our rooms were. There were also an excessive amount of speakers hanging along the top of the cabin area and off the balloon itself.

"I hope you creatures feel welcome because you are!" the speakers blared with Iron Will's voice.

There was the sound of a scuffle. "Give me that!" Wild Growth's voice came ringing over the speakers mere seconds after the first announcement. "Greetings, everyone. Welcome aboard, and thank you for joining my family and me on this vacation across Equestria!"

Cheers rang out from the crowd as ponies stomped their hooves and humans clapped.

"Now, everyone should already have their cabin number," Wild Growth continued. "I know most of you are eager to drop off your luggage, but if you wait just a moment or two, we will be casting off, and I know that some of you will be eager to see that. If not, nothing is requiring you to stay on deck. Each of your rooms should include brochures detailing ship activities that will periodically happen, and the captain should be announcing when each of those starts. Captain, I believe you had a few announcements to make before we cast off?"

There was a short pause before Iron Will began. "Iron Will advises passengers to be careful when leaning over the sides of the ship. Iron Will is not responsible if anycreature falls to their death or is injured falling. If a winged creature goes overboard, Iron Will will not stop the ship or turn it around, so it is up to that creature to get back onboard themselves. Iron Will is not responsible for injury or death that may result from dragon, roc, wendigo, breezy, bird, pirate, griffin, pegasus, unicorn, night pony, catapult, trebuchet, magic storms, regular storms, time ruptures, asteroids, demonic entities, changelings, centaurs, rams, volcanoes, tornadoes, sheep, machine powered aircraft other than this one, rainbooms, parasites, or ponies named Tim—this is not an all-inclusive list. Satisfaction is not guaranteed, and there are no refunds!"

There were some worried murmurings from the crowd.

"Iron Will does not anticipate any of these things happening. Iron Will orders you to have a good time! Prepare for liftoff!"

Several crystal pony guards standing off the ship unhooked the ropes mooring it to the stadium. The ship began to gently drift away from the stadium before it suddenly lurched and made a sudden turn, and picked up speed. The ship I was on took off first, and the other two ships followed after, each slightly behind ours to either side in a squat triangle formation.

The crowd on deck seemed appreciative of the sights as the ships sped away from the Crystal Empire. From where I was standing, it looked like a lot of snow, which didn't make it any less stunning, but it did seem like something I would rather miss a few minutes of than what might come later. I resolved to hurry and find my cabin before there was a rush.

The central cabin area that descended into the hull of the ship had stairs, and that meant my luggage went thump, thump, thump behind me as I dragged it. Well, better the luggage than me. I was now more happy with my session to leave my laptop on Earth. I could well imagine those thumps cracking its screen. Mom would probably replace it for me since I needed it for school, but she wouldn't be happy about it.

The lower decks were cramped, cramped enough that I imagined two humans walking side by side would be near impossible, and it would be a struggle for most ponies. Luckily, the room numbers were simple, seemingly laid out in order, and I was room number twelve.

I couldn't help but notice that the doors were close together, like, really, really close. How big were these rooms? We're they bigger on the inside? Did they have narrow entrances that led into bigger rooms? I was about to see.

I opened my door and gaped. The room was just as narrow as the hallway. The bed, if you wanted to call it a bed, was a single platform that was attached to all three walls, had a thin mattress, blanket, and two pillows, and it took up the entire room aside from the space where the door swung in. There was some space under the bedplank for me to put my luggage, and there was a single round window with no curtains. Sitting on the pillows was another pouch of coins and the aforementioned brochure.

This wasn't a room. It was a closet.

As I was gaping, I realized another thing; there was no bathroom. Where did I go to use the bathroom? Was there a communal one? How many people was I sharing a potty with?

Okay… first thing first, store my luggage. I pushed my luggage carefully under the edge of the bed and flew up on the top of the bed. This was my room, and I would have to deal with it. There had to be a bathroom somewhere, and I would find that in time. Time to check out the brochure.

"Hey! Ya wanna see a magic twick?"

I turned around and saw a small mass of fur and feathers that had a beak sitting in my still open doorway.

I blinked and moved over to the side of the bed. "Are you a griffin chick?" I'd only ever seen one griffin before, and it looked vaguely like this kid… I was pretty sure he was male. He looked like a brown owl head attached to a lion cub body.

"Yeah!" the griffin declared as if it was obvious. "Wanna see a magic twick?"

I blinked again. How old was he? Maybe five or six, but that was me trying to compare with ponies. "Um, okay. What sorta magic trick?"

He held out a talon. "Ya hafta give me a bit!"

I looked at the coin pouch and dug out one of the coins, tossing it to him with my mouth. He caught greedily with both sets of talons.

"So, what's the magic trick?" I asked.

He held out his talons and showed me the coin, then he brought it close to him and wrapped his wings around it, then he spread his wings and talons. "Poof! No more bit! I made it go away!"

I could just make out the coin sticking out of the feathers of his right wing, but I wasn't going to call him out on it. Instead, I clipped my hooves together, acting impressed. "That's a very good trick. Hey, where are your par—"

"Guillermo! ¡Dónde estás!"

The chick jumped. "Uh oh!"

I was doing a lot of blinking. Did whoever was looking for him call out in Spanish?

Two adult griffins, a male and a female, came into view at the doorway and stared disapprovingly down at the chick. The female had the head of a grey hawk, while the male had the head of a brown falcon. I didn't have much time to process it before the female launched into a verbal tirade which again was in Spanish. My Spanish wasn't very good, so I couldn't keep up with what she was saying. I got the gist; she was angry her chick had wandered off.

The male made a clicking noise with his beak that got the female's attention, and as she looked up, he pointed at me. She looked embarrassed as she straightened up and smiled at me.

"I'm very sorry," she began in Equestrian, but then she switched to English. "Are you from Earth?"

My eyelids were going to get tired from blinking. This griffin was trilingual. I decided to answer her back in English. "Yes, I'm one of the contest winners. Your son—that is your son, right?" She nodded to me. "He wasn't any trouble. I didn't know there were going to be griffins on this flight. Are you part of the crew?"

She shook her head. "Oh, definitely not! I don't have a clue how this ship works. I'm Jean Martinez. This big bird is my husband, Roger Martinez, and this little ball of fluff is our youngest son, Guillermo. We're Wild Growth's family. We live in Equestria, but we are originally from Earth too. Have you met our daughter?"

"Wild Growth?" I asked, smiling happily. "Yes, I have talked to her a few times. I'm from Skytree, and we have run into one another a couple of times. I think I met your grandkids if those are Phobia Remedy's foals. I didn't realize they had griffins in their family tree."

"It's a long story," Jean said with a sigh. "I started off human, then was a crystal pony, now I'm a griffin, and I won't be turning into anything else. It was nice meeting you—"

"Rebecca."

She nodded. "—Rebecca. Maybe we can talk later. I would love to hear how our old town is doing." She grabbed her son up with a talon and wing and deposited him on her back. "However, we have an appointment to go see my other kids and introduce my little nest egg to the rest of his siblings and his nieces and nephews. I hope you enjoy your trip! Nice meeting you, and sorry again about my son disturbing you in your room! It won't happen again!"

I watched them walk off.

Wild Growth had a fascinating family. How did her parents end up as griffins living in Equestria? That had to be an interesting story, but it was a story for another time. It was time to read over my brochure and make some plans because I definitely wasn't staying in here.

Chapter 96: The Quest I Missed

Author's Note

Just a short chapter to transition away from Rainbow Falls.

Chapter 96: The Quest I Missed

It was getting to be late afternoon by the time we were all aboard the airships again. Iron Will informed us that the next destination, Mountainshade, would be coming up shortly, although it would not stand out from the sky, appearing as only a tiny earth pony village from above.

As we awaited arriving at our new destination, all the candidates gathered on one end of the deck to talk about our trip to Rainbow Falls. I knew Discord had gone in to mess with the others after messing with Sunflower and me and was eager to hear what they had gotten up to.

Jonathan stared out into the distance. "It's so surreal, being on this airship again."

Blanche nodded. "To be honest, I never thought we would be here again. Not entirely sure I wanted to be either."

"At least you got all your fingers back," Jonathan said as he looked at Blanche's right hand.

She flexed it. "Yeah, nice having more than three fingers again."

I bewilderedly looked back and forth between them. "Um...so, Discord messed with Sunflower and me, and he said he was going to mess with you after. Anything happen?"

The two humans looked at each other then burst out laughing. The laughing progressed into crying, leaving the three of us ponies even more baffled.

Blanche was the first to regain her composer. "We'll tell you in a minute. How about you tell us about what he did to you first. I don't think we even have time to tell you everything that happened to us or be able to recall it all."

Sunflower and I looked at one another. Sunflower was the one who decided to start. "There was this book I wanted, but the vendor wanted a Discord lamp and a pillow for it. We found out later that Discord had set it up so we had to get those things. Anyway, the pillow turned out to be this filthy sex pillow. I felt so embarrassed lugging it around, but Discord thought it was hilarious. That's nothing compared to what he put Rebecca through to get the lamp."

That was my que. "I had to get a manticore to trade for the lamp, a real-life manticore! I ended up getting caught by it, and it tried to make me its new toy."

"But Scootaloo saved her!" Sunflower interjected excitedly. "The actual Scootaloo! The one who helped found the CMC!"

Blanche frowned. "Is that all?"

"I think meeting Scootaloo is a big deal," Sunflower said with a pout.

"We told you what happened to us. What happened to you two?" I asked. "You said something about missing fingers. Did Discord take your fingers?"

Blanche let out a long breath, raised her hand, and looked at her fingers. "No, he didn't, not directly, anyway. They got chopped off by a sword when I was trying to block a strike." Her expression grew bitter. "Ulysses called it a teachable moment. Fuck Ulysses."

"Blanche, he kept us alive and taught us how to defend ourselves and others," Jonathan said as if reminding her. "If he hadn't been there, I don't want to think about what would have happened."

Blanche balled her hand into a fist and slammed it into the railing. "He's still an ass who never showed us any sympathy or compassion. The only reason he stuck with us was because it was his job. He made that very clear. Doesn't matter what the circumstances are, I keep the Dreamwardens safe and the people they tell me to guard safe. I don't know how many times he said that. The guy is a sociopathic killer. You saw what he did to Yummi!"

Jonathan hung his head. "He thought Yummi was the traitor."

"AND YOU KNOW HOW WRONG THAT TURNED OUT TO BE!" Blanche screamed, breaking down in tears. "Poor Yummi...poor Yummi…."

Everyone on deck turned and started in our direction. Blanche's parents started heading in our direction.

"I'm fine! I'll talk to you later, I promise," Blanche called out to them. They didn't seem happy, but Blanche's father pulled her mother away to leave us in peace.

"I'm getting the impression their stuff with Discord was a bit more involved than ours," Roger said dryly.

"What did he do to you?" Sunflower asked Roger.

"He put pepper in my soup," Roger answered.

"Pepper in your soup? That's all?" I asked, confused.

Roger nodded. "It was really hot pepper."

Jonathan looked at the three of us. "For you guys, a few hours have passed by. Blanche, Ulysses, and I had to deal with months trapped on a different world populated by little fox people called Tetts. There was this demon that was going to destroy the world, and all these corrupted Tetts that served it, along with someone who was secretly working with Draegon—that's the name of the demon."

"We made so many friends while we were there," Blanche said with a sniffle.

"And fought so many battles," Jonathan added in. "I wasn't as good at picking up Ulysses' lessons as Blanche, but I found out my magic can short out magical artifacts just like I can short out a computer."

"We helped them defeat Draegon, and then Discord appeared again and told us it was time to go," Blanche said in a quiet voice. "I didn't want to go, but our magic was reacting badly to theirs, and it was getting worse. The Tetts were getting sick...our friends. We would have killed them by staying."

"We're kind of badasses now," Jonathan said smugly as he crossed his arms.

Blanche gave him a cross look. "Like it was you who had to stand in single combat against Hurric with one hand only having a thumb and one other finger."

Jonathan shrugged. "So you're a little more badass than me. At least I don't send people running for cover when I sing campfire songs."

"My singing wasn't that bad!" Blanche protested.

"You literally killed a zombie by singing to it!" Jonathan countered.

"That was the Tett magic reacting weirdly to mine! It had nothing to do with my singing voice," Blanche continued to protest.

"Do you two need a therapist or something?" Sunflower asked.

"We're not crazy; it happened!" Blanche snapped.

Sunflower flinched and cowered. "Not calling you crazy. I mean like trauma. It sounds like you went through a traumatic experience."

Blanche looked at her hand, the same one she had looked at before. "We'll figure that out when we get back to Earth. I don't know about Jonathan, but right now, I need time to reacclimate myself. I'll do that by trying to pick up right where I left off here."

Jonathan stared downward, not saying anything.

Maybe the Dreamwardens had a good idea when they decided Discord needed to be chased out.

"You know, the Tetts owe Discord a big thank you," Blanche said as if reading my mind.

I looked at her. "Huh?"

Blanche smiled softly. "Discord saved them by sending us over there. Our magic might not be much here, but over there, it was a powerful force. I could make a sword or spear, and they wouldn't just cut or stab; they would disrupt the magic animated zombies and monsters. I could make a physical shield that could withstand magic blasts that felled buildings. It was kinda cool, being the superhero for once."

"Too bad it was slowly poisoning everyone around us, like radiation," Jonathan muttered.

Blanche hung her head, and her smile fell. "Yeah, too bad."

I didn't know what to say. I also didn't know whether I felt left out or happy that I was left out.

I looked at Roger again. "So...hot pepper, huh?"

Roger nodded. "I hope that vendor had fire insurance."

Chapter 111: Back to the Dorms

After a nice meal at the local Perkins, where my family got me lots of food, and Russell spoon-fed me apple pie with vanilla ice cream, it was time to return to school. Russell was the one who gave me a lift– we were going to the same place anyway. It was time to return to dorm life, cafeteria food, sharing a bathroom with five other mares, and classwork. Luckily, being stuck in bed for three days gave me plenty of time to write my report for Architecture class. Blanche was even friendly enough to proofread it. I'd also caught up on my reading.

"You're being unusually quiet," Russell commented as he drove us back to school.

"Just reflecting. That's what you are supposed to do when coming home from an adventure," I replied.

"Is that a rule?" he asked.

I nodded. "I think it is. I think you are supposed to learn things after being on an adventure."

"What did you learn?"

"That adventures make one late for dinner, and lunch, and breakfast, and brunch, and linner."

He chuckled. "Is linner an important meal?"

"Is there such a thing as an unimportant meal?" I asked him.

He laughed. "I'm going to start calling you my little hobbit. Is that all you learned?"

I didn't smile. "I guess I learned what is and isn't okay with me, or maybe what I can and can't endure or tolerate would be a better way of putting it."

He took his eyes off the road briefly to glance at me. "That took a serious turn. We're alone right now. Care to spill the beans about what happened during your trip."

I supposed it was okay. "I went to another place called the Well of Shade. It's some ruins a short distance from Mountainshade. It was the original home of the night pony tribe's monarchy, a huge underground complex. It was a bad place."

"Bad how?" he gently asked.

Tears welled up in my eyes. I had put my feelings for it on hold throughout the entire adventure. I'd been looking for Bursa, and then running from a shadow monster, and then in an epic battle that left me scarred forever. I didn't have time to express my feelings about the horrors I had seen.

"A thousand years ago, Luna murdered them all," I cried. "It was a war. The night ponies started it, but Luna ended it. The bodies… they were all still there, lying in piles, right where she cut them down. She begged them to stop fighting, but they wouldn't, and she killed them in droves. Ultimately, it was an almost complete genocide, with only a small fraction of the tribe surviving, the ones who couldn't fight. I had to go through there. I didn't have time back then to cry about what I saw. There was a shape-changing bug monster that had foalnapped Roger's mother, and then Roger's mother was possessed by the remains of the night ponies' collective dark mind magic. It was horrible being surrounded by all that death!"

Russell turned the car into the parking lot of Walgreens. He parked the car and unfastened his seat belt before reaching over and unfastening mine. I looked up at him in confusion.

"Why did we stop here? What are you-"

He picked me up and pulled me into a hug. I gasped, then l leaned into him, crying my little eyes out.

"My little spotty and stripey Rebecca, you're meant for happy things. I'm sorry you had to see all that. There's some things no one can smile or joke about, not even you."

"Death is never funny," I agreed.

We sat like that for several minutes. I was crying, and he was cuddling me, and I learned that if I were ever to do the job of Dreamwarden, I would need to be able to do this from time to time because fear and sadness were part of the job, and the only thing anyone could do sometimes was cry about it. Sometimes the people that laugh the most hide terrible pain, and they need an outlet to let it all out, or it would devour them from the inside out. Crying gives you the strength to laugh. It was a funny irony, and I smiled as I nested into Russell's embrace.

We eventually got back to the dorms, and sadly, this was where we had to part ways for the moment. Boys weren't allowed past the social area of the female dorm building, but Russell did help get my luggage into the building.

"About time!"

I blinked as I suddenly had a beak jammed in my face, a very big and very predatory beak.

"Beak," I said, looking at the sharp mouth appendage touching my snout.

"Do you have any idea how late it is?" Greta demanded, backing up just a smidge. It was a good thing she did; her beak would have clipped me otherwise.

"Um…no…to tell the truth. Sometime after seven?" I ventured.

"It's nearly midnight!" the angry griffin RA snapped.

Russell stepped between us. "Sorry, it's my fault. I kept her out-"

"I don't care! Get out of here, human," Greta growled.

He turned and bent down, setting down my luggage as he did. "I guess I'll see you in the morning." He then leaned over and kissed me, giving me a very different rumbly in my tummy.

"Ick, gross! Move along," Greta retched.

Russell stood up and raised his hands. "Moving along, avian boss lady."

Greta hopped and flapped her wings while swishing her feline tail. "Faster!"

"I'm getting," Russell said as he scatted out of the dorm.

I smiled at Greta. "It's so nice of you to stay up waiting for me."

She raised a talon and pointed it at my face. "I'm not being nice, I'm just confirming you made it back. Your bathroommate came back hours ago and said you couldn't be that far behind her. As your RA, I must see that you arrived back safely after being gone so long. So I decided to wait around to make sure…and I waited…and I waited…."

"Did you play solitaire?" I asked.

She blinked at me. "How did you- that doesn't matter! I could have been doing something fun or something constructive, but no, I got stuck sitting in this room for hours waiting for your fat flank to show up. I was about to throw in the towel and call your parents in the morning. If they didn't know where you were I was going to file a missing student report. I hate filing missing student reports!"

"Good thing I showed up then," I said with a grin.

"Get to your room!"

I saluted her with a wing. "Yes, ma'am. Good to see you again, ma'am."

"Damn ponies," she muttered as she started to walk away, but stopped and looked over her shoulder. "I know Equestria can get dangerous. It seems like it gets worse every year with some end-of-the-world thing always ready to happen. I don't know what trouble you and that whimpering coward got into, but for what it's worth, I'm glad you two survived– reminds me of one of the reasons I was eager to get away from there. Get a good night's sleep. I'm sure you've got a busy day tomorrow after being gone so long."

Awww! That was sweet of her. That was the nicest thing Greta ever said to me. Still, I needed to get back to my room. Everybody was going to be fast asleep already, except Nightscape. I was a little bummed out by that. Guess my reunion with the rest of my friends would have to wait till morning. I honestly hadn't thought it was that late. Usually, I'd be fast asleep at this hour too, but I guess the universe-jumping jet lag was still impacting me.

I pulled my luggage to the elevator, hyper-aware of the sound of its wheels grinding across the laminate floor. I wanted to apologize to the night security guard on duty at the desk for making so much noise, but they didn't seem to be paying me much attention. I must have been exaggerating the sound of the wheels in my mind with how quiet it was.

Up the elevator I went, humming to myself as it ascended. It came to a stop and opened to reveal a scowling face.

I grinned at her. "Hi, Nighty! Did you miss me?"

Instead of letting me off the elevator, she stepped on, blocking my exit, and waited for the door to close.

"What in Phobia's darkest dreams were you thinking?!" Nightscape snarled at me.

My ears flattened slightly and I stepped back. "Um, I've never been in Phobia's darkest dreams, so I don't know."

She stomped. "It's an expression! Sunflower told us about you trying to bash your brains out and having to be hospitalized. Let's not even get into the fact the lot of you had no business going off into those ruins, to begin with. What were you thinking? I know you act like an idiot sometimes, but I never thought you might legitimately be one until I heard that!"

My ears flattened further. "You didn't yell at Sunflower, did you?"

"I didn't have to, Ashley was ready to tear into her. You're my concern, Sunflower is Ashley's. I'm sure Yolanda is giving Blanche a piece of her mind too. We are supposed to be protecting you and as soon as you get away from us you pull this shit!"

Yolanda might be in for a shock if she tried chewing Blanche out. The Blanche that left was drastically different from the Blanche that returned. I hoped Blanche didn't respond too harshly to her bodyguard trying to chew her out. Sunflower was a different story. While Sunflower had built up a bit of courage while we were on our trip, having one of her good friends scream at her might have put her in tears. I knew it was giving me the urge to cry, but I was an old pro at keeping up a brave face while people were saying hurtful things about me.

There was a time and place for everything. Nightscape wanted a serious answer, and I suppose the best thing was to give a serious answer. No jokes, no trying to play it off.

I raised my head. "You're right. Going off to those ruins was dumb and could have gotten us all killed. Luckily, we were that foolish, otherwise, the Element Bearers might not have won. We had a friend who was insistent on going to find his mother, and there was nothing we could reasonably do to stop him, so we accompanied him. I know trying to break that crystal wasn't the most intelligent thing I've ever done, but my concern was there was a monster that was getting more powerful by the second, and I saw an opening to try to help stop it. I'm sorry that happened while we were away from you, and you weren't there to help protect us, but we had no choice in that and neither did you. I made a choice in the moment. Protecting myself wasn't worth not trying to save everyone else."

Nightscape glared at me for a few seconds, then turned away and gave a small shake of her head. "How am I supposed to argue with that? You're supposed to make some joke that I can yell at you for making."

"Sunflower and I are the last two candidates standing. Phobia impressed upon me how important her bodyguards are to her and how important other Dreamwardens' bodyguards are to them. Not just important for guarding, but important because they listen to each other and trust each other. You're my bodyguard. I need to be straight with you when you ask me a serious question."

She turned back around and smirked. "You two came back tougher. Yeah, Ashley laid into Sunflower, but Sunflower didn't put up with it. Meadow was all ready to jump in and defend her like a little filly, but Sunflower stepped up first and said if Ashley could think of a safer place to be than protected by the Element Bearers and Wild Growth, she was welcome to elaborate. She also gave you props for distracting the monster and only seemed ashamed she couldn't have been more use."

"She was useful," I replied. "Fluttershy and I would have been whimpering in a corner without her help, hers and Pinkie Pie's. Everybody had a role to play."

Her smirk slipped. "You're wrong about one thing. When I graduate, my time as your bodyguard is over. I'm going to be getting married and starting a life, one that hopefully doesn't involve much danger. When I heard about the delay and the fact you'd been hurt, I was beside myself with worry. If you win this thing, I wish the best of luck to your future bodyguards. Try not to worry them so much."

She used a wing to tap the button to open the elevator door, and stepped out. I was sad that she didn't want to stay my bodyguard after she graduated, but I guess I couldn't blame her. Her life shouldn't have to revolve around me. It was still a big what if I'd even need a bodyguard in a month, much less till when she graduated. Nightscape was still my bodyguard for now, and I was pretty sure my adventuring days were over. This fluffy body was not made for adventures. At least I wouldn't worry her anymore.

I stepped out of the elevator, pulling my luggage behind me. They said Psychic Calm was going to speed up his retirement I wondered how much time I had left and how hard the tests were going to get.

Chapter 126: Five Steps While Contemplating Billions

So, it turns out I did indeed have a heart attack, a minor one, but still a heart attack. I was allowed to return to the dorm, but was given a prescription and told that I needed to basically stay in bed for three days while limiting my physical activities for about two weeks until I had a follow-up with the doctor who would tell me if I needed to limit longer or not. Staying in bed for three days wasn't happening. I had a speech to give, and it wasn't that much physical activity to go out on a stage and talk. I wouldn't be demonstrating my abilities to those leaders, that was too much work, but I could talk. Dance classes were a little more of a challenge, but my wording had been I would start dance classes. Did calling up the teacher and enrolling with the intent to show up a month away count as starting? It might seem like semantics, but semantics is how Dreamwardens keep themselves out of trouble.

Maggie went to pick up my prescription after getting me back to the dorms, and Ashley helped me by writing out emails to my professors telling them I was going to be missing even more class, the reason why, and attaching the doctor's note and test results just in case. I got quick replies from most of them. Even my architecture teacher expressed his concern and told me to get well soon– and that my presentation for him better be ready on Friday.

Blanche did sit down with me and made sure I didn't include anything embarrassing in my speech. She didn't do anything to make it more formal. Her recommendation was for me to just be me. Formality was never going to be the norm for me, so why give them some false expectation that I would conduct myself formally around them? Blanche made sure I didn't say anything insulting by accident and that was it.

It was after I went back to sleep again that I discovered I had overlooked an important detail. The thing is, I don't know what I could have done differently to avoid the next problem that came along. Two of my professors who I had just informed I was sick in bed after having a mild heart attack were ponies. They weren't just any ponies, they were night ponies. It's kind of generalist to say, but ponies tend to be very social and very concerned about one another. I'd just told two night ponies who didn't know I was a Dreamwarden that I was sick in bed. I should have guessed what was coming next. My professors, being very nice people who wanted to check in on their sick student out of concern, went searching for my dreams. You can't go searching for the dreams of a Dreamwarden; Dreamwardens are composed of all dreams. What my professors got instead of my dreams was a huge headache. Being smart ponies, they knew the one thing that could cause an instant crippling headache when searching for dreams. So, whoopsie, I had some explaining to do, and I had to issue my first Dreamwarden contracts to seal my two professors to secrecy. Arbiter helped me with the wording.

Then my old friend and astral projecting mentor, Josie, decided tonight was a nice night to catch up with me and socialize, and the next thing I knew, I was issuing another Dreamwarden contract for my secrecy being kept and apologizing for another headache. I hoped I didn't have any other old friends from way back when who decided to pull the same thing anytime soon. Keeping myself secret was a lot of work, and painful for others.

No more mishaps! Sunday was going to be a smooth day with no more problems. Eat breakfast, read over the speech that I had prepared, get picked up by Wild Growth's chauffeur, eat a nice lunch, take a nap to spend time with the others when Psychic Calm left, wake up, give the speech, go back to the dorms and sleep. Nothing could go wrong.

Step one, eat breakfast! Scratch that, eating breakfast was now step two. Step one was making it to the cafeteria to eat breakfast. That involved getting out of bed, leaving the room, and arriving at the cafeteria. Quick summary of how that went– ow, ow, ow, ow, ow, ow, a billion ows. Walking hurt. I'd have flown, but that hurt more for some reason.

Step two! The new step two! Breakfast! My friends had walked me down to the cafeteria. Once I was there, they gave me…health food…with no snacks. Worst of all, they gave me whole bran cereal with…with…with SKIM MILK! The level of betrayal was right up there with Brutus and Caesar. The bran cereal was okay, but skim milk was like a knife to my heart. I did not finish my breakfast, and gave my friends dirty looks through the entire time I sat at the cafeteria table, in between doing old step two since new step two slash old step one was canceled.

Okay, step three was still step three; get picked up by the chauffeur! That involved more walking to get to the parking lot. That was a lot more walking and a lot more ows. The car ride was nice, it was a big fancy limo. However, once we got to the mansion, I found out the parking was well away from the house. Wild Growth liked having lots of green around the immediate house and didn't mind the walk. More ows came.

Once I was in the house, I was escorted to a big room. It was fancy, with big couches, lots of chairs, a fully stocked bar, and a big hookah like they have in the hookah bars. A human and a unicorn were standing behind the bar who I guessed were the staff. The furniture looked like it had been reinforced with steel for some reason, even if the cushions all looked comfy.

Wild Growth herself walked in right behind me. "Ah! You arrived on time. Congratulations on being the new Dreamwarden. I was told you were going to want some food and refreshment before your speech, so I had my staff bring you in here first. We have the stage set up in the movie theater."

"It isn't in the mansion?" I asked.

She chuckled. "It is here. I have a personal theater. Just because I donate most of my profits doesn't mean I don't enjoy a few luxuries for myself. When you make half a billion in income annually, you can still afford a lot with just five percent left to yourself, and I only use five percent of that five percent for personal luxuries."

It wasn't until I heard her say that that I truly understood what super-rich entailed. She was living like a queen off a fraction of a fraction of the money she made.

"You donate ninety-five percent of your money?" I asked.

She nodded. "Yes, there are always those in need and other good causes. I then reinvest seventy-five percent of what I keep for myself. Twenty percent goes towards the upkeep of this place, food, and transportation, and use the remainder for luxuries like movie theaters or nice vacations. Well, that's not entirely true, I use some of my congressional salary, which is separate from my business income, for some things, but that's a negligible amount."

"Do you need to hire an architect by chance?" I asked sheepishly.

She chuckled and rubbed my head with a hoof. "Talk to me again after you graduate, and show me some designs, but I won't make any promises. I am hearing rumors that PonyCo might be losing your mom soon, and she might require some architects. It seems she has an idea for a business venture. I tried to buy the idea from her new partner, but they want to go it alone. Oh well, I'll just buy the stock once they go public if they go public."

I had no idea that my mom had been considering leaving PonyCo. There was only one possibility for what this business venture was. Mom had talked Russell's mom into starting up a company with her to produce that edible shrimp product for ponies. I knew my mom had been salivating over the idea of meat ponies could eat that weren't spiders or insects the second she heard it and saw it confirmed. It was just one of those things that any fool knew would be huge. Between my mom's organizational skills and connections, and Russell's mom's cooking determination, they had a winning recipe.

"Anyway," Wild Growth continued. "We have a little while before the speech. You are welcome to order anything off the staff's menu. You have full access to the bar, even though I know you are underage, just don't get drunk. The staff will make sure to monitor your intake if you do have any alcohol. The hookah works, if you wish to partake. You are also welcome to nap if you have any Dreamwarden business you need to attend to. I will wake you up when it's time if you do. Don't worry about these two members of my staff knowing your secret. They are paid very well to keep their mouths closed and have a Dreamwarden contract to keep secret what goes on here in place as well."

"Thanks, this is nice," I said happily. "I missed most of my breakfast It was defiled by the greatest evil on Earth."

She raised an eyebrow. "Slash and burn farming in the Amazon?"

"Skim milk," I growled.

"Right…" Wild Growth said, stepping back. "Seems the trend of getting somewhat unhinged people to be Dreamwardens continues. We have whole milk available. I tend to have a big appetite, and I don't cut calories anywhere. My metabolism must be top of the line because I never gain any weight."

Lucky her. However, she wasn't wrong. She did have a top-of-the-line metabolism, just like the alicorns did. Maybe all the power required a lot of fuel. Wild Growth wasn't actively using her power, but it was still there. I wondered if other powerful ponies had huge appetites as well. The only other powerful non-alicorn pony I personally knew was Josie, and I'd never seen her eat. I should ask her what her normal meals were like. However, in my case, I just liked food. It had nothing to do with needing a lot of fuel. I can be self-aware and honest with myself.

Wild Growth left me so I could relax and eat. I was definitely getting food. The hookah was of no interest to me. Those things were okay to use when I went to a hookah bar for a party or get-together or whatever– that was part of the whole Skytree experience for honoring its people's history and being part of the unique culture of the city, but I didn't want it to be a thing I did outside those establishments. The bar I mostly dismissed, but I remembered red wine was supposed to be good for the heart. One glass of that wouldn't be the worst thing. It was time to complete step four! Lunch!

I did manage to lay off the sweets for my lunch. It was a massive exercise in self-control, but I only had one piece of cake, and it was carrot cake. My lunch was a very large salad with lots of ranch dressing, a piece of cake, and one glass of red wine– which was much better than that nasty champagne I was used to having when I had alcohol, but still wasn't as good as a tall glass of whole milk or apple juice. I was proud of myself for my lunch. I didn't overeat.

Now on to step five! Oh, right, step five was going to be miserable. That was me and all the other Dreamwardens crying when Psychic Calm left. Still, it needed to be done. At least the couches were all big enough that I could comfortably sleep on without having to try to curl up.

I got to sleep without too much trouble. I think the red wine helped with that, a little alcohol to make me sleepy. I would have to note that I should keep a bottle of red wine around once I left the dorms. It was good for the heart and helped me fall asleep, and tasted just icky enough that I could stand it while not wanting more than one glass at a time. Someone would have to buy it for me, probably Nightscape. Ashley was going to be leaving after summer, but Nightscape, though graduating, would still be in the area. All my other friends would still be just a tad too young. I suppose I could ask my parents or Lántiān, but Lántiān didn't seem like a rule-breaker, and asking my parents to supply me with contraband felt weird. I still had months to figure it out. It wasn't happening until summer when I got an apartment, and there was no way I was sneaking that stuff into the dorms. Ashley might be my bodyguard for the rest of the school year, but she'd probably still report me. Meadow would throw a fit too, and I didn't want to upset her.

It occurred to me I wasn't a rule-breaker normally, so I must have inherited something to even consider breaking the rules, even if I decided not to out of fear of consequences. Where did I get this new trait? None of the others particularly stood out, but it didn't necessarily have to be one of them. There were a lot of Dreamwardens who were long gone. It could have come from any number of them. You'd think there couldn't have been that many Dreamwardens. Dreamwardens can exist for a long time, millions of years before getting tired and committing to the Eternal Dream. The Devourers had reset magical life to scratch any number of times, as had primordial Dreamwardens, and it took time to build life from scratch. The thing is, people don't comprehend what billions of years entails. They should talk to Wild Growth about how she's rich with only a fraction of a fraction of her wealth. A billion is a lot; thirteen or fourteen billion was more than the average mind could fathom. Yeah, a million years is a long time, but it is less than one percent of a billion. You can fit a lot of time into billions of years of history. You could fit a lot of Dreamwardens and life starting over and over again into close to fourteen billion years of history. With that in mind, it wasn't worth worrying over who the trait came from, but it was a curiosity.

We all gathered together in the dream realm, making our avatars plain representations of us as we sat among the sea of stars. The setting was chosen by Phobia, Ghadab, and Miss Seapony. They were the ones who had served beside Psychic Calm longest, and the ones who would be feeling the most pain. It was also chosen because me, Arbiter, and Avtandil all had completely different representations. There was only one choice that was close to a majority, and it wasn't worth voting over. Let the night ponies have their stars. We were here to wait, and cry once the waiting was over. When the news came that he had departed, there were many tears for our brother, the latest Dreamwarden to leave the dream realm out of many over the endless expanse of billions of years.

Now it was time for step six and my big priorities for the day would be done.