Dreams for the Sleepless

Prologue - Sleep

Do ponies know when they are dreaming? If yes, are they aware of themselves while being caught in a dream? What if the dream ends and everything is too far from tangible to be real? What if reality turns out just being another dream? What if there’s no reality at all and every time a pony wakes up that pony just finds itself again in an even longer, even more complicated dream? What if a pony is caught in dreams for almost a whole life? Can that pony realize reality when facing it again?

Twilight grumbled at the ceiling of her bedroom, trying to force herself to sleep. She rolled to the side, removed the blanket because it was too warm and buried her face in the sweaty pillow. Three days had passed since her severe dispute with Rainbow Dash. Three days she wasn’t able to think about anything else than the terrible things she said to her best friend and three nights she wasn’t able to close an eye without going through the whole quarrel over and over again.

She put the pillow to the side, threw a glance at the clock and groaned in annoyance. The last two hours felt like an eternity. Twilight was tired like never before, no wonder considering the circumstance that she was awake for almost eighty-three hours. But no matter how hard she tried to empty her mind, she wasn’t able to avoid thinking. Not even for just a second. There was no way she just could release all the things that happened from her mind and find a single moment of rest to peacefully fall asleep.

She felt guilty for the things she said, really guilty. It already is awful to say such things to any pony already, but there is no word to even closely describe the awfulness throwing such words at ones best friend. Of course, Rainbow Dash provoked her being stubborn as always when they got caught in an argument, but that was far from a legitimate excuse for such a tirade.

From the moment she noticed the watery magenta eyes of her friend she knew that she overreacted greatly and wanted nothing more than excuse to Rainbow for those horrible paraphrases she used for her. But before she could find any words to start with the blue pegasus had hastily left the library through an open window, probably on the run so that nopony would see her cry. She injured her best friend, even made her cry. What kind of friend was she?

The images of the angry, but at the same time obviously broken Rainbow Dash crossed her mind. She felt a cool breeze stroking over her legs, rolled to the other side of the bed and covered herself under the blanket again. “What have I done... how could I... will she ever forgive me?” Twilight sobbed into the pillow, fighting with tears, trying to avoid getting caught in another crying fit.

Since Rainbow Dash discovered the joy of reading, she usually was around Twilight’s place all the time she hadn’t to fulfill weather duties. She often even skived her Training to do so and stayed until the middle of the night to read together with her best friend. For that reason the pegasus became more of a roommate to Twilight than a visitor. The past three days Rainbow didn’t come to the library at all, not even for a short visit.

Thinking about all of this, Twilight didn’t just feel guilty, but also lonely, very lonely. Even if a lot of other ponies came around to borrow and discuss books, it just wasn’t the same. Spending time with Rainbow was always much more than just reading and talking. It was fun, no matter what they were doing. There didn’t need to be a reason for laugh or joy. It just was like it was... awesome, like the blue pegasus would say. She should just have stopped Rainbow Dash back then, if necessary with force, to be able to excuse to her and iron things out instead of just letting her fly away.

She sat up as her sobs got heavier again and hot tears started rolling down her face, slowly falling from her cheeks and drenching the blanket beneath them.

Furious on herself, she grabbed the pillow and threw it against the opposite wall of the room. Driven by adrenaline, she wiped the tears from her face, turned on the bedside lamp, threw off the blanked and jumped up from the mattress, almost stumbling over her tired hooves. There was no possibility she could bear these thoughts any longer, not even for a split second. With wide steps she stomped towards her private bookshelf, the perhaps only one in the whole library which wasn’t covered with a small film of dust, and started looking for a certain lecture.

When she finally found the object of her desire in one of the top shelves a relieved sigh escaped her lips as her horn started glowing in a light purple shine. Twilight was certain that she once read about a sleeping spell for ponies who are suffering from insomnia and started flipping through the pages of the ancient book.

As she reached page sixty-eight she was proven right. There it was, a rather difficult high level spell named ‘Dreams for the sleepless’. Ancient magic books had in common that the spell was always written on the left site and the detailed description on the right site of the opened book.

Holding back more tears, Twilight carefully read the long magic formula and as she was finished her view slowly drifted to the right site of the book. The area reserved for detailed descriptions was empty, which was also common for such old books if the name of the spell was self-explanatory. The area reserved for possible side effects just contained the word ‘none’.

A small, triumphantly grin made its way to her mouth angles. “Perfect,” she said to herself and trotted back to her bed. Using her levitation spell she grabbed the pillow from the other side of the room, shook it out and placed it back where it belonged to. The tears of remorse and desperation completely stopped.

In anticipation of a refreshing nap she yawned and laid down on the bed with a wide smile on her face. Three days ago, right before her outburst, Twilight and Rainbow Dash were arguing if there was always a solution to be found in books, and even if she deeply regretted everything else that happened, she once more was proven right.

She covered herself with the fluffy blanket, levitated the book at her side and started casting the complicated spell. There was nothing that could possibly prevent her from sleeping now. For the next few hours she would be able to forget all her guilt and concerns to start into the following day with a clear mind, and perhaps would also be able to reconcile with her best friend.

When she had finished the last words of the spell, her eyelids suddenly turned heavy, her levitation spell eased and the book fell to the ground. It worked. She finally was asleep.

As the opened book hit the floor, the page didn’t flip. There it was, the ‘Dreams for the sleepless’ spell written down on page sixty-eight followed by its alleged and fateful description on page seventy-one.