Of Paupers and Ponies

SiE003, May 21st: Somewhere at sea, approx. 772 miles southeast of the island of Tempus

            Ugh, the smell. The first thing that Daring Do consciously realized was the scent wafting into her nostrils, and before she was even able to attempt recognition of it, her nose wrinkled up and she began to cough, overwhelmed by whatever it was that had taken it upon itself to invade the air around her head. Slight tidbits of feeling…a tingle here, a prick there, and lots of aching…crept back into her upper body as she hacked and choked on the offending gaseous material; it was a very thick scented smoke, of that much she was sure. Despite her best efforts, she felt it filling her mouth, an odd sensation the likes of which she had not experienced before: it felt almost like a physical presence, as though her cheeks were swelling with water. It was extraordinarily unpleasant and Daring began to panic, attempting to turn her head but being completely unable to do so, but the moment it touched the back of her throat, Daring felt her body loosen up and relax completely, feeling somehow calm and peaceful. The miasma which had been threatening to strangle her moments ago was now nothing more than a tranquil scented perfume, and she felt consciousness slowly stream back into her. There was no rush to get up, nothing harassing her or waiting for her to wake. She did not have the slightest idea where she was, but it was a nice place; she was sure of it now.

            Emitting a loud yawn, Daring forced her eyelids to flutter open, but her vision was so blurry and the lids were so heavy that she had no choice but to allow them to droop closed after only a second or two. The peculiar smoke, though very relaxing, was also making her feel even more lightheaded, and the only thing she could truly feel was that she was sitting in an upright position in what felt like a thick, tall wooden chair covered in overly-soft fur which possessed a texture she had not experienced before. Daring had no memory of a chair like this, and though she was still very groggy, her ever-vigilant mind slowly concluded that somepony must have placed her there in her sleep. That’s never a good sign.

            As though a curse had been broken, Daring instantly felt strength flow back into her body as she made this troubling realization, and she immediately began to squirm and flail her hooves about, opening her eyes at the same time. The first thing that she saw was a hard wooden floor rushing up to meet her; she had lost her balance in the chair and fallen forward during her fit. Daring reflexively thrust out her hooves to break her fall and then pushed herself off the ground, still feeling dazed and not fully aware. She wondered if she should have let herself hit the floor full force in the hopes that it might have allowed her to regain control of a couple more of her senses.

            Daring clumsily regained her balance, not at all feeling like the spry pony she normally was. Her eyelids began to drift open and closed at random intervals seemingly outside of her control, as though they we being controlled by some sort of invisible puppet master, and through her blinks, Daring looked behind her and saw that she had in fact been seated in a very large chair constructed from what appeared to be mahogany and covered in the strange fur-like substance she still couldn’t manage to identify. Daring decided to sit back down until she felt less dizzy, lest she fall again.

            Daring sank into the chair sideways and took the opportunity to cast her eyes around the room that she was in; she was slowly regaining control of her eyelids at this point and was not blinking as frequently. Leaning her head back against a fluffy section of the chair and taking a slow, steady breath, she was quite surprised to see that she was inside what appeared to be a grand library or the large study of somepony who was very rich and likely very intelligent as well. The dome-shaped ceiling seemed to hover about thirty feet above Daring and was appeared to comprised of one large sheet of glass that had designs and patterns welded into it by some means (probably magic) to make it look as though several dozen pieces involved in the construction.

            Daring was momentarily taken aback at the beauty of the night sky and all of its stars as she stared through the ceiling…there was not a cloud in the coal black void situated above her, and the full moon was out and shining down on the library with all its luminescent splendor, casting strange, radiant beams with the ability to both unnerve and mystify across the smooth floor and the tops of shelves. The remainder of the room (that Daring could see) was mostly filled with gargantuan bookcases which nearly climbed to the glass ceiling, and they were all  crammed to what looked like their maximum capacity with books of all shapes and sizes: fat tomes containing thousands of pages to extremely tiny, nearly hidden manuals possessing only a few pieces of parchment, ancient writings nearly crumbled with age to books that looked like they had been bought fresh from the store that day, along with scrolls, blueprints, canvases, trinkets, and even a stone tablet which was crammed sideways into a shelf slightly too small for it and appeared to be on the verge of cracking. Obviously having run out of room on the shelves, whoever owned this eccentric archive had also created several dozen piles of what Daring could only define as ‘organized clutter’: stacks of miscellaneous items that were all related in some way, most of which were forced into cubbyholes or crawlspaces in order to leave the paths in between bookcases clear, although in a few overly-crowded locations the piles had spilled out from their hiding places and formed small barriers between shelves, which could be a slightly dangerous hazard to somepony if they were completely blind. The bookcases and piles of clutter sat on the left and right sides of the chamber, while a clear space (something that Daring was astonished to see considering how many items were lying about) perhaps ten feet wide lay in the middle of the room and housed very little save the chair that Daring was seated in, a thick oak table positioned a few feet in front of the chair (which Daring suddenly realized she had been dangerously close to cracking her head on earlier), and a very large hearth which housed a blazing, crackling fire (the source of the smoke that had been causing such aggravation moments ago) up against the room’s rough stone wall. Daring couldn’t be sure, but she thought she saw the flames flicker different colors as they burned.

            Daring continued to examine the room from a seated position until she convinced herself that she had sat there for long enough, and very slowly she got to her hooves, taking care not to repeat her earlier accident. Though she was still a bit groggy, she was pleased to see that she was not feeling as tipsy as she had earlier, and she took a couple steps away from the chair until she was standing directly in front of the oak table. Now that she had mostly recovered, her next mission was to find out where in Celestia’s name she was.

            As Daring stood, her limbs quivering gently, she came to the realization that everything in the room was designed for somepony much larger than she was; she had only been taking up about half of the chair’s surface as she sprawled out in it, and the oak table in front of her came up to her mouth, which meant that she had to stand up on her hind legs and place her forelegs on the table itself in order to get a decent look. On the surface sat a large paper scroll with a few sentences written on it in blank ink along with a sleek griffon feather quill resting next to an inkwell, a miniature mechanized globe that contained a map of the known world carved on it which spun around endlessly inside the frame of a gyroscope, and a book which appeared to be slightly older than Celestia herself with crumbling pages caked in an extremely unpleasant mold-like substance entitled, ‘Embracing Dementia: A Sane Pony’s Guide to Delving into Madness’. As she read the title, and read it again, Daring felt a strong desire to kick the book into the large fireplace, but it soon subsided. She pushed it roughly to the side, tying not to touch the moldy parts, in order to drag the scroll closer to her so that she could read it. Though Daring was fluent in three languages and familiar with half a dozen more, some of which were completely unknown throughout the Realm, she could not make heads or tails of what was written on the scroll, concluding it to be either written in an esoteric foreign tongue she had not yet studied or, more likely considering the sloppiness, the random scribblings of a madpony.

            Rolling the scroll up and placing it next to the quill and inkwell, Daring turned away from the table and looked behind the chair she had been seated in, finally gazing upon the other half of the room. It possessed the same layout as the part she had already observed: bookcases and piles of organized clutter, but to her great delight there was also a large double door at the end of the room about a hundred feet away. Daring was truly impressed by the size and scale of the library and would ordinarily have taken an hour or six to explore the area thoroughly, but at this point she wanted nothing more than to exit and find out exactly where she was, preferably without running into the owner of the scroll and the odd book.

            As Daring began to trot down the clear pathway towards the door, she got her first glimpse of the paintings. They were large, exquisitely detailed canvases covered in colored oils of all sorts positioned on the walls in between bookshelves in such a way that Daring had not been able to notice them while sitting in the chair, and she soon wished that it had stayed that way. She observed that the paintings had some relation to the piles of items they were located near and, she assumed, the books belonging to that section of the library: for example, a picture of a large galleon crewed by weathered sailor ponies was located above a couple of piles overflowing with rusty navigational equipment and faded star charts, and a portrait of a massive, bloody battle between two pony armies was hanging above a collection of loose weapons and a full set of pony body armor. The paintings were not disturbing at first; in fact, Daring found them slightly entertaining to look at and certainly masterpieces in their own right, but as she continued to walk towards the end of the room, they became increasingly detailed and unnerving. A painting of an imposing brown griffon wearing a black hood and pushing a red-hot piece of metal in the shape of a crescent moon against the flank of an imprisoned pegasus who was clearly screeching in agony was located by piles of religious and spiritual objects, and a canvas depicting a group of depressed-looking earth ponies working in what appeared to be a mass grave filled to the brim with their dead fellows was in a section dedicated to the study of the Pre-Classical era and the War of the Three Tribes. Daring found that the paintings got more and more disturbing the closer she got to the door, and eventually she forced herself not to look at them and to instead keep her eyes fixed on her destination. The slight sense of anxiety she had felt earlier was gone and replaced by what was nearly full blown panic; even the calming sensation that the scented smoke had given her had dissipated. Though Daring Do had gotten herself into much more dangerous situations, an overwhelming sense of ominous dread was filling the pony in such a way that she was having quite some difficulty keeping herself composed. She kept her head together, however, and stalwartly advanced towards the door, ignoring a large pile of torture equipment lying a few feet to her right.

            After walking what seemed like the length of Equestria and back, Daring reached the double door and grasped one of the two doorknobs (which were, for some reason, in the shape of chubby pony heads with their tongues sticking out rudely), jiggling it in both directions until she heard something click and then pulling the door open triumphantly. In the second that followed, unfortunately, all of Daring’s hope evaporated: the door opened to a wall of solid stone, the same stone that comprised the wall of the rest of the room.

            Daring released the doorknob and began to pound on the stone with her hooves as though hoping it would suddenly crumble and reveal the exit, or perhaps that she would melt right through it and find herself in a secret chamber. When this did not happen, she whirled around and stared back into the middle of the library at the large chair, breathing very quickly and fluttering her wings in anxiety. As if her situation was not bad enough, another sensation was beginning to wash over her, a new but still very troubling feeling: something else was in the room with her.

            Daring looked up at the glass ceiling desperately and decided what she would do; spreading her wings wide, Daring took off into the air, her body positioned in such a way that she would strike the glass ceiling with her front hooves at an angle. She could still see the moon and stars still shining brightly above her invitingly, and prepared to crash into the ceiling in the hopes that it would shatter. She was not staying trapped in this room at the whim of whatever insane pony had taken her here, even if it meant getting cut up by a few shards of glass or bruising her hooves. She was going to free herself.

            The bright fire that had been blazing was suddenly snuffed out, casting the room into complete darkness save for the moonlight coming through the ceiling. At the same time, a voice began to talk to her…a smooth, unnaturally deep male voice which sounded impeccably calm.

            “Don’t bother with the ceiling Miss Daring, it’s not going to shatter no matter how many times you kick it. You see, nothing actually exists outside of this room at the moment, in your current state of mind…save for the two of us.”

            Daring barely noticed the voice at first as she was so focused and slammed into the glass hard with her two powerful front hooves. Instead of shattering as glass of this thickness should have, however, the kick did nothing except send a vibration down Daring’s body, starting from her hooves and slowly running through the rest of her. When it got to her wings after a few moments, she lost control and began to drop from the sky, landing painfully on top of one of the bookcases and sending a cloud of dust shooting up into the air. The fall was only a few feet, but it still left Daring feeling disoriented and in pain, and she let out a groan as she folded her wings and shook her head vigorously.

            “I suppose I can’t count on you taking my word on anything during our first meeting,” commented the voice from the floor below “Or pay any attention at all, for that matter.” Finally comprehending the presence of the voice for the first time, Daring jumped so high that she nearly hit the ceiling again, and then peered off the edge of the bookcase she was on in an attempt to find the source. By the light of the stars coming from above her, Daring could see what appeared to be the vague outline of a very large pony (or maybe a small horse) immersed in a cloud of shadowy darkness. Daring Do saw the figure’s head tilt slowly up at her and she quickly looked away, slinking to the middle of the bookshelf and feeling thankful that she had landed somewhere where the figure could not reach her.

            “W-who…what are you?” Daring gasped out, peering over the edge of the bookcase again apprehensively.

            “When I was living, I was known as Nehmesh Hearthwarmer, and I was the most knowledgeable and acclaimed historian in all of Equestria, so they say…well, technically Equestria wasn’t founded until after I was dead, so perhaps I should say the land that would eventually be named Equestria. The library that we are in now was my private study, though it was unfortunately reduced to nothing but a pile of smoldering ash as of a few hundred years ago. I hope you are not offended by the clutter; when one seeks to learn everything there is to know, a bit of a mess is inevitable.”

            Daring could detect a vague hint of nostalgia and longing in Nehmesh’s voice and watched (her eyes had now adjusted to the darkness and she was able to see the library fairly clearly) as the shadowy pony began to walk down the aisle between bookcases, absent-mindedly checking the spines of books and humming a tune Daring recognized as an old holiday carol to himself as if he had completely forgotten about her. The more she watched him, the less fear she felt welling up inside of her, and after a few minutes of being completely ignored by the wandering spectral pony, Daring decided that perhaps this creature wasn’t as malevolent as it appeared and decided that a conversation might be more beneficial to her if it was had on level ground…though she was prepared to soar back onto the top of the bookcase if need be.

            Daring landed out in the open section of the library several dozen feet behind Nehmesh, who was flipping through the pages of a worryingly dusty tome entitled ‘Macabre Dabblings in Modern Eqvine Ælchemy’, ignoring a few loose pages that slid from the book and drifted lazily to the floor as he skimmed it.

            “This was always a favorite of mine. Such wit!” Nehmesh laughed. Daring paid no attention as she hesitated for a second as though considering her words, and then spoke slowly and clearly.

            “Is this a dream?”

            “Of a sort,” said Nehmesh attentively as though the two had been talking the entire time, placing the book snugly back in its hole on the shelf and turning towards Daring while keeping his distance, obviously sensing how uncomfortable she was, “The more accurate term would be ‘vision’. You see, in a dream, you are simply letting yourself go, allowing your stressed mind to wander where it may, but that is not the case here.” Nehmesh stopped talking for a second and let out a long breath of air, then continued. “Do not be too alarmed when I tell you this, child, but you are being watched. And I don’t mean by me.”

            Daring frowned and peered around the library uneasily.

            “Oh, he’s not in here. He is currently keeping an eye on your unconscious body as you slumber below the deck of The Seahorse en route to the Ungrazed Lands…a rather frivolous sounding expedition if you ask me, but who knows, maybe you’ll find something of note down there.” He cleared his throat quickly and began to repair the situation before Daring even had a chance to voice her discomfort, “You mustn’t worry now, your observer has no wish to harm you…in fact, it is of utmost importance to him that you remain completely intact…and he has informed me that he will speak to you in person when he thinks the time is right. But as of now, he has sent me to act as a messenger to help guide you through the days ahead…and believe me Miss Daring, you will need my help.”

            Daring did not respond, nor had she mentally processed anything after what Nehmesh had said about her being watched below the deck of The Seahorse. Daring had entered this library-or rather, awoken in it-with no recollection of where she had been or how she had ended up here, but as Nehmesh uttered these words, all of her memories came flooding back into her mind: the royal expedition to the mysterious islands beyond the Realm of the Alicorns which were known by the common folk as the Ungrazed Lands, the loyal crew consisting of some of her best and most trusted friends and colleagues  that was planning on exploring the new lands with her and documenting their discoveries, and even the horrible storm the night before which had showered the ship with rain and created such turbulent seas that half of the crew ended up losing their dinners over the side of the ship. The startling renewal of all her memories, coupled with the information that someone she was unaware of who evidently had the power to command dreams was watching her, was a bit overwhelming, and she said nothing to Nehmesh, instead staring passed him and towards a large picture of some airborne griffons on the wall.

            “Enjoying the painting, are we?” Nehmesh turned around and absentmindedly began to speak in an entirely different tone: that of an aging old collector who was eager to convince his skeptical guest that the apparent junk littering his room was actually a collection of priceless treasures, “Yes, yes, yes, the artist was a good friend of mine, a sweet lass by the name of Summer Sonnet, I believe. Massively talented mare that one, deserved a much better fate than peddling wares in the cheapest  unicorn marketplaces while all three tribes were at each other’s’ throats!” Nehmesh turned back towards Daring and began to lazily walk towards her as he rambled, but when he noticed that she did not back up…or even react…as he drew nearer, he realized that it was not the painting that she was fascinated with.

            “Oh, I see what’s happened.” Nehmesh looked down at his hooves solemnly as though a very depressing realization had just entered his mind. “I can’t believe myself; my very first meeting and I’ve already gone and broken one of the biggest rules. I never was much good at following directions, I’m afraid. I wonder if that has anything to do with why they executed me…”

            Nehmesh was making futile attempts to provoke a response from Daring, and though she ignored them, she came to her senses on her own within a few moments with enough energy to make Nehmesh jump. “I need to wake up!” she said loudly, kicking her back left leg with her other hind leg as though hoping this would cause her enough pain to snap her out of the trance she believed she was in.

            “You will in good time,” said Nehmesh, pleased that Daring was responding again. “It was foolish of me to tell you that you were being watched; I’m afraid I have a talent for making things sound much more morbid and dramatic than they really are. He’s not really…erm…physically there, he just…he…”

            There was a long pause as Nehmesh stumbled over his own words.

            “Just trust me when I tell you that you are not in any danger from him; in fact, he will be protecting you until he declares that he is ready to meet you face to face, and probably for a good time after that as well.”

            “Who is he?” Daring blurted out the moment Nehmesh was finished speaking. The shadows around Nehmesh’s body flickered briskly as he turned back towards a bookshelf, brushing his hoof against a massive leather-bound book entitled ‘The Blood of the Six Pointed Star’.

            “I’m afraid I’m not allowed to tell you just yet, Miss Daring, we must have patience. I’ve already broken one of the rules I was given: don’t inform Daring Do that we know where her physical body is located, and I don’t plan to disobey anymore…if I do, he may very well find somepony else to be his messenger to you, and that wouldn’t suit my purposes well at all.” Nehmesh then paused and took a long, deep breath, and Daring braced herself, knowing she was likely in for a full explanation.

            “You see, I’ve been asleep since the day I was brutally executed for treason against the crown by the unicorns--by my own people--during the War of the Three Tribes, all long before the time of the alicorns that now govern your happy little Realm, but it turns out that my ‘employer’ possesses the power to awaken beings from their sleep, at least in a…a more spiritual sense. My bones still litter the courtyard in the ruins of the unicorns’ ancient castle, but at the same time, I am here.” He glanced up at Daring Do as if searching her face for approval, and quickly added, “And don’t mind the shadows, they’ve been following me around since the day I foolishly decided to peek my curious snout into that forbidden tome of dark magic.  Now that I think of it, perhaps that was why they decided to have me executed…”

            Daring leaned against one of the bookcases and sighed; this strange pony did seem to have an affinity for rambling. She cleared her throat loudly, which stopped Nehmesh halfway into describing the horrific magic spell that the unicorn inquisitor had used to disintegrate his insides while leaving his skin intact for a clean death.

“I’m sorry,” she said hesitantly, “But this still doesn’t make much sense. Even if I do believe some ‘otherworldly’ creature is stalking me and sent a scatterbrained old ghost to speak for him, you still haven’t told me why! What does he want with me, and why would he want to control my dreams?” Daring sounded somewhat frantic and ruffled her mane violently with her front hoof. “I have to wake up!”

            “Very well. Since it’s obvious you are not enjoying our talk, I’ll leave and let continue about your business. But be warned: though neither he nor I mean you any harm, he intends to send me to you to give you advice whenever he deems it necessary, and I will have no choice but to obey him. It’s either that or go back to sleep, and I just woke up!”

            Nehmesh’s body slowly began to fade away, as did the room around Daring Do. She realized that she was finally regaining consciousness, for real this time, and suddenly felt foolish: there were so many more questions that she had wanted to ask, but she had been so concerned about this unexplainable state that she had forgotten to inquire.

            “Miss Daring, the next time we meet and every time afterwards, you will need to be paying attention. This meeting was, in theory, a way to introduce myself to you in a casual and non-threatening way, a technique which I obviously need to improve upon. We’ll end up back here most of the time, but occasionally, he will send us to other locations as they were in the past: they will also have information which I’m certain you will find quite helpful if you listen to it and learn from the mistakes that hundreds of thousands of others have so foolishly made. Yes, I believe the entire Realm might be able to benefit from what you see.” Nehmesh’s voice suddenly became somber and serious as the room continued to fade, leaving Daring with nothing to look at besides the faint outline of Nehmesh’s body and the legion of shadows that surrounded it.

            “The Madness is on the move, Miss Daring, and it will overpower your alicorn rulers without effort, considering that it was the One who created them. The Realm of the Alicorns will be decimated, Daring Do, and everything you know will be just as this library is: a distant memory, lingering behind in the most impractical of places while nature overtakes its foundation once and for all.”

            This simple statement prompted perhaps two dozen more additional questions off the top of Daring's head, each seeming more vitally important than the last. Suddenly the destruction of the Realm was being brought up, and Nehmesh didn’t seem like the kind of pony to play practical jokes. She shouted out to Nehmesh, demanding that he restore her to the dream state so that she could find out more, but he slowly shook his head…something that Daring could barely make out at this point. Daring cursed, her real eyes flickering as her consciousness began to dance back and forth between Nehmesh and her physical body.

            “Oh, and one more thing before I take my leave, Miss Daring. It seems that you ‘civilized’ folk prefer to keep your sanity intact, and I regret to announce that I must advise you otherwise. The Madness feeds off of sanity, you see, the sanity of the strong willed and bright minded most of all, and, frankly, the only way you can possibly seek to protect yourself from this foe is to reduce what it has to consume. I understand that this may seem a ridiculous proposition, but when the time comes, you will thank me.

            “See you tomorrow.”

            With these final words, the dream dissipated entirely and Daring’s eyelids popped open, the rough scent of salty sea air and rotting seaweed smashing against her nose while the assorted snores of her dozing comrades filling her ears. Her heart pounding out of her chest, Daring quietly lay her head back down on the hard wooden floor upon which she had been forced to sleep, her mind filling with confusion and doubt as the conversation in the vision began to cycle rapidly through her head.