Rediscovery

Chapter Two – Dreamscape

We toss and turn in the bed, our forehead coated in a sheen of sweat. Yellow-Pink-Pegapony—I mean Fluttershy—is with us, sleeping soundly on the ground near our bed. We let out a frustrated moan and I jerk upwards. You remain tossing under the covers. The resulting bodily strain produces nothing but a pulled muscle in our right forehoof. Joy. We end up falling off the bed straight onto Yellowshy and she yelps loudly. OW OW OW MY HEAD OH SWEET CELESTIA IT HURTS

The exclamation awakens in our cranium a mental agony nearly on par with yesterday’s, and we fall to the ground, each rolling a different way and the same way at once. Fluttersus quickly and quietly flutters—Ha ha ow—over to us, gently massaging our temples. After almost an hour of uneventful anguished moaning and gentle massages, we manage to scramble to our hooves. Still. Still is good. Move bad.

I shake my head ever-so-gently to clear the cobwebs. Finally capable of intelligent thought, more or less. No reg—regreso—going back. You whisper “Regression…” in my ear and I groan as we flop down on the bed again. Our eyes gradually fall closed as you give in to sleep. I’m stuck.

Some time later, a pressing need presents itself. Trying my hardest to overcome your sleep, I whisper hoarsely to Yellow-Pink-Pegapony. More head shaking. Fluttershy. Fluttershy Fluttershy Fluttershy! “Please…drink…need…” The effort defeats me and I allow myself to relax, slumping down as cool water is slowly poured down my throat. I savor it, a drunken smile on my face. A hysterical giggle escapes from my throat. If I had the energy, I would break out in song. My thirst sated for the moment, I allow myself to slip off to sleep and join you.

We’re on the book-field again. This time, you look less angry. You look sad. You look like me, but you can’t be, because I’m me. I still don’t know who you are. Our eyes meet.

I suddenly remember you saying something in our fever-dream. ‘”I made you by mistake’” was what you said. I stare into your eyes. You stare into mine. Two identical pairs, meeting each other. Finding myself unable to look away, I suddenly yell out a rambling series of questions, “What did you mean when you said you made me? And where are we? The last thing I remember is the month before the Summer Sun Celebration. Did the Princess take Nightmare Moon seriously? Who are all these other ponies?”

You take a deep, almost sobbing breath, tears beading in your eyes, and look away in shame. “I…I made…I made a deal with Discord.” Before I can interrupt, you keep going. “He’s the evil spirit of mischief and chaos. Celestia told us to stop reading books for a while and to make some friends, so she sent us to Ponyville. Nightmare Moon attacked, and we made friends with five other ponies and stopped her with the Elements of Harmony. So, back to Discord. I made a deal with him. He would leave Equestria alone for another few centuries, but in exchange, I had to give up not only magic, but also…” You motion at my unmarked flank “…I had to give up my special talent. I agreed, and things quickly spun out of control. The massive shock fractured—“

A sudden blast of pain sizzles through my head, searing my neurons like a thousand suns, and I crumple soundlessly to the floor of the dreamscape. The last thing I see is the book-ground shattering into millions of shards of razor-sharp green glass. Waves of pain crash over me as I surge back into consciousness, screaming.

We arch our back in agony, hooves kicking feebly at the air as we wrench our head around, clinging to a desperate hope that it will hurt less if it’s wrapped in a pillow. We faintly hear panicking voices, but they might as well be on the other side of the moon for how much we understand. We feel like Celestia painstakingly inserted the sun into our skull and then made it explode. But more than anything, I want to cry because I didn’t get to hear the rest of your explanation. What did the shock fracture? Just as it did the day before, then pain forces us out of consciousness. This time, however, there’s no green-book field. I’m just falling, endlessly falling. You’re there too, blood pouring from cuts all over your body. My mouth is sewn shut. There is green glass everywhere.

The wind rushes by me, buffeting my face and toying with my mane and tail. I can’t see any ground below me, just you falling and an endless black abyss. What is this? There’s absolutely nothing in sight, and we keep falling.

After some time, I realize with a jolt that I’m no longer falling. Nor are you. We’re both simply floating, castaways shipwrecked in an endless velvet sea. Is this your mind? My mind? Or is it our mind, the joining of us? Is this the space between our souls?

Finally, after days, months, years of waiting in the nothing, I see twin glimmers beneath me. You’ve opened your eyes, and they’re glowing, burning with a brilliant white light. It grows, feeds like a fire, until it’s so bright it hurts my eyes. As I look away, the wave of light washes over me, and the headache recedes somewhat. Another wave of light, more relief. Finally, the last wave rolls over me and I feel as if a house is lifted off of my mind, looking at our surroundings for the first the first time.

Breathtaking walls of translucent walls of crystal soar around me, sparkling with blue light. The magic finally fizzles out from your horn and your eyes take on their normal color. You open your mouth to say something, and everything goes black. There’s an ear-wrenching shriek and an image flashes before my eyes, an image of blood and darkness, for just a split second, and then the dreamscape returns to normal. We lower gently to the floor, looking at each other. You look at me sadly.

“Sorry about last time,” you murmur softly, “I did some poking around our head and found out that if you know exactly what happened to us once Discord…changed…us, it could literally break our mind. We can’t have that, so for right now, you’re on your own.”

I sigh. Of course. Whitewind The Warlock’s theories on cross-memoric mind break return to my mind, clearly highlighting the consequences. I wince involuntarily at the mental image before quickly shaking my head to be rid of it.

“So, in other words, you’ll have no idea what’s wrong with your head. Oh, and one more thing. If you don’t, as Discord put it, “rediscover” yourself within a year, your soul will collapse and we’ll…um…well, I’m sure you know what I’m talking about.”

You avert your eyes. I sigh. I’m pretty sure I know what you’re talking about at this point, and it isn’t pretty. Suddenly, the blue crystal floor begins to shake, starting as a gentle tremble until escalating into a full shake that shakes us awake. We groan. “Just five more minutes, Mom…” As we realize what we just said, we catch our breath. Mom? I guess the lines between memories are already starting to blur. Hurry up, me. We need to rediscover fast. Despite everything, I blearily chuckle to myself. If only it were that easy.

The door slams open, a rainbow-maned cyan pegasus—Rainbow Dash, you quickly tell me—bolting through it and nearly landing on me, looking like she can’t decide whether or not to hug me or smack me. Luckily, she chooses the former, and I feel the warm embrace before the other ponies even arrive. Maybe, as you assure me, she really is the fastest flyer ever.

Hmmm. I wonder…