A Candle's Last Gaspby stinkyFeetChaptersMeetingIntroductionsConfrontationLifeBuildingMeetingIn the unconscious plain, where all dreams take place, Luna trekked forward, comprehending a world to which she had only recently gained access. Her physical body sat crosslegged, meditating in the highest tower of the newly constructed Castle of the Two Sisters. At the extent of her vision, in this mysterious realm, she could sense something she only knew was not "right". Curious, she headed towards it, through the swamps of spousal arguments and over the jagged rocks of masonry inspirations. She arrived at the source, the dream of an individual pony. It was larger and shimmered more brightly than any of the other dreams. The "odd"ness eminating from it gave her goosebumps. She tried to penitrate the membrane, and enter the dream, but it was far too strong for her. She understood that there must be a very peculiar mind that can house such a dream. Luna touched the membrane and felt how strongly it adhered to itself, and only itself. She traced its rippling surface with a hoof, and tried to make her hoof the same as the membrane, shaping it to match the dream. It worked, the membrane sucked in Luna's hoof, and, then, the rest of her. In the dream, a colt rested in a field after a hard days labor, watching the clouds drift by. Luna took the form of a crow, circling high above, just another unimportant detail of his dream. The colt abruptly stood up. Though Luna wouldn't know, he had sensed her intrusion. The skies darkened. He could feel somepony else's presence. The field cracked apart and water surged up from underneath. The tumultuous current carried him away and he couldn't keep his head above water. Luna tried to repress herself in his dream, interacting as mildly as possible. Still, she watched the pony get swept away and drowned by the water. His panic from drowning warped the entire dream, twisting her form as thunderstorms swept through the sky. The sense of oddness that originally attracted her to the dream propagated through the air. She tried to disappear, to simply exit the dream, but found herself unable. She decided her only option was to calm the pony. With the colt overwhelmed with the water, Luna discarded her disguise for her familiar form, herself as princess, complete with royal barding. Her eyes glowed from her powerful magic and she conjured a galleon to which she would ride to his rescue. She took the helm, and steered the ship, with its billowing sails. She slowed it's descent before it plunged into the water with a giant splash. She grabbed a rope, tied it into a lasso, and lassoed the drowning colt. She heaved, and pulled him out of the water and onto the deck. The colt coughed up water and, in a moment, regained his senses. He looked up at her with gratitude. Then he realized she wasn't part of his dream. He stared at her, and the dream ebbed with his fright. The concept of someone intruding here, the foreignness of it, he didn't know how to process it. Frozen, his jaw slowly opened and he screamed a scream that echoed throughout the sky and the water and the ship. It pierced Luna's ears, reverberating through and inside her. She tried to escape the dream, but it was not a normal dream. It was far to strong to be simply exited. The power of the dream in this pony's mind was not something she could surmount. The colt's shock and fear shred her to piece, and ejected her from his dream with great force. In the castle's tower, she would be lying unconscious in a pool of her own vomit and urine. Her mind was trying to put reason behind what she had just experienced by creating, for her, a nightmare. IntroductionsA week later, Luna returned to the membrane of the pony's dream. She had to find out more. She had noticed that the it never went away. The pony never stopped dreaming. Luna had practiced leaving particularly vivid dreams. She accomplishes this by changing herself so that she doesn't fit in with the dream anymore, and she becomes rejected by it. It required focus and control, but wasn't beyond her abilities. She had also practiced becoming aware if she finds herself in a nightmare again. She was prepared. She pressed a hoof against the membrane, and altered herself to fit in with it. With a pop, it absorbed her inside. She took the form of an owl this time, flying high in the air. She was just another part of the colt's dream. Nothing bad happened this time. It was her intention to find out more about him, maybe enough to locate his physical form. It was night. To the west were mountains, underneath her was a forest, and to the east was the ocean. She could make out the species of trees in the forest and recognized them as native to Maryland. With her owl's eyes she saw a small cabin, lit by candlelight, where the treeline ended and a small farm began. She flew down and landed on the windowsill. She could see the colt inside, bent over a table, writing, tallying finances, and doing arithmetic with his abacus. The pony glanced at her. In an instant, he had materialized her inside and returned her to her pony form, Princess Luna. Luna scowled at the control he showed over her, and redid her form, making it crisp instead of the blurred form from his memory. "Greetings." Luna smiled. More sternly, she added, "When a Princess visits, it's customary to bow." The colt looked back at her lazily. "You aren't a princess here, but you're still welcome. I'd brew up some tea, but I must finish this first. It's not as though you were invited. Even still, I'm sorry for earlier." His tallied numbers on his abacus and scribbled on his ledgers. Luna looked over his shoulder. Everything was in the red, he was losing more bits than he was making, but other than that, the numbers conveyed to her no meaning. "What's your name? Where is this?" Luna demanded, but did not recieve an answer. She looked around his home. It was obvious that he lived alone. Littered about were selections of seeds, and various tools for farming. After getting tired of waiting she intruded on the Colt's work. "What was with the water?" She demanded, frustrated. The Colt tried to ignore her. "What water?" Luna pressed hard. "The water you were drowning in." The Colt focused harder on the numbers, drowning her out. "I command you to tell me your name!" Luna shouted. The dream shrank down to nothing more than the clicking of an abacus, and she could no longer fit inside of it. ConfrontationThe colt panicked, afraid of drowning in the currents again. Luna grabbed the colt's shoulders and flew upwards, carrying him to safety. They landed on the deck of her galleon. Free from the threat of drowning, the dream waters calmed and they were gently sailing through a vast fresh water ocean. "You were found floating in Horseshoe Bay." Luna informed him. The scent of ocean brine picked up in the air, and Baltimare could be seen in the distance. Luna directed the colt, and he gingerly lowered the sails. The ship cut through the water with little resistance, and in moments, they were ready to dock in Baltimare. Luna didn't trust the calm waters, and changed course. They sailed further along the coast. The colt manned the rigging, Luna's direction simply giving him action through which he could channel his eagerness, even if it wouldn't have worked in reality. The coast reflected the colt's knowledge of the land, a mental projection of what he remembered it to be. Luna picked up on where it was wrong. There was a river that was supposed to feed into a bay that was not there. She turned the ship into where she knew the river aught to be. The colt froze with the rigging as Luna sailed the ship right into the beach. Instead of the ship wrecking, it broke through the shore, shattering it like glass. The shattered false shore gave way to a river. The weather became savage, with wind gusting and skies blackening with storm. The waters became rougher, and the fat ship would not be able to make it up the river. Luna and the colt moored the ship, and Luna flew the colt to shore. "You need to relax. You need this. We need to see what happened here." Luna commanded the colt over the thunder. The colt closed his eyes and the weather calmed. He still looked as though he was going to barf. They traveled up the delta by foot, but it was slow going. The mud would not give way. With each step, the ponies would sink up to their torsos. "It's hard going because you're making it hard for us. You don't want to see where we're going. We need to see it for you to get undamaged. Your mind is damaged, unable to even work your body. We need to make it whole again. When we do that, you will be able to farm, to help ponies, to live. You want to make it up this river with me." The colt stared off towards where they were heading, glassy eyed. "I know it's what he have to do." Luna shook her mane and neighed in agitation. "We're close. You need this." With those words, and Luna's urging, the colt found the strength to power on. He knew it was what he had to do, and he couldn't admit to her that he was scared. Her pressure gave him strength. He relaxed and willed the surface of the mud became hard. It became hard like glass, and they were able to stand on it. The dream pulsed and felt odd again. Luna headed forward, and the colt followed. The dream pulsed a second time and the oddness became overwhelming. The colt's body dropped to the ground, limp, and the dream faded. His mind tattered before Luna. LifeAs the world and the pony faded, Luna reached out and grasped the last piece of his tattering mind. He was powerless to stop her. In the emptiness, Luna looked at what it was the colt couldn't face. He was tasked with looking after the daughter of a close friend. While the two of them played in a river, a large swell came. He was strong enough of a swimmer to resist the gush of water, but the young filly was not. He swam after her, but was unable to reach her. She was washed far away from him. The river had such strength the he could not return to the shore, and he did not have the will. The rapids battered him against rocks and drowned him until he finally lost consciousness. He could not bear the thought of facing his friend, or his wife, or even his own children. He tried to imagine all the ways he could go on living, like living alone in that shack, but he knew he could not do that either. He had the will to live and to help those he loved, but could not reconcile that with the guilt and shame of what he had done. As the princess stood there with the last bit of the colt, I knew it was my time. I revealed myself to the colt, gathered him together, and carried him into death. The alicorn, Luna, was trapped with him. When she saw me she understood what had drawn her to the dream. She felt my presence and she felt me as a threat. I guided the colt past the threshold, then the alicorn and I stared at one another regarding each other. The alicorn was in the colt's mind, not her own. When the colt died, she died with him. "A cheap trick to get me!" she spat at me, but I was far above such motivations. It was simply her time. "My task is sacrosanct. You intruded, and held onto a dying spirit as it passed into my responsibility." I took her. She fought me. A hundred imagined dream spells hit me, but it mattered not. Her mind was fading into nothingness, and soon it would be gone. In the highest tower of the Castle of the Two Sisters, Celestia knelt beside Luna casting ever spell she knew, searching desperately for a way to heal Luna's dying body. She had not Luna's innate abilities, but she managed to warp the entire dream plane with her blundering strength. I had not expected it, and Princess Luna slipped through my grasps and back into her body. Luna was very lucky. She did not escape the colt's mind in time, but her sister managed a way for her to return at the last minute. I would make sure to prevent that, next time. Luna looked at at the ceiling of her meditation chamber, Celestia crying over her. Luna focused on what she had just scene, going over it in her mind so she wouldn't forget. Luna walked in the plane where all dreams met, taking in the vast scenery. It had been a week's time since the colt's death. She had much on her mind. Princess Luna now felt that guilt, for she understood her part in the colt's death. She intruded upon his kingdom, where all mortal ponies consider themselves safe, and made it not safe for him. She didn't allow the pain of his actions to heal, the shock to wear off, or for his own mind, damaged by impact, to repair itself. Instead she took the only thing that was holding him together, his indomitable will to live, and smothered it with what he was not ready to face. She bumbled through his dreams and destroyed everything along the way. She didn't recognize his shame. She did not even feel overwhelmed with guilt over her hand in the colt's death. She is very old, and has made many mistakes before. What, to a younger pony, would seem like the end of everything has already been experienced by her many times. She knows that it doesn't cause an end, it just goes on, and becomes but a memory. A mere building block into a better person who would not make such a mistake again. BuildingA few nights later, Luna, again, popped into the colt's dream. She took the form of herself, and flew high in the sky. She came, this time, with the knowledge of who the colt was, but still didn't know his name. The colt was in the Baltimare hospital, unconscious for days. Normally he would have been left for dead, but the hospital was experimenting on him. They were forcing water and nutrients past his epiglottis, but they assumed he was too brain damaged to ever recover. His health was getting worse, and though they said he was a fighter, it was doubtful he would last much longer. Luna's thought was that she could wake him. Luna circled above the forest beneath her. It was night here, but the full moon shown as brightly as her sister's sun. The colt would never know what insult his subconscious bore her. Luna spotted rustling in the forest, and could feel the colt's presence there. She flew down to where he was. The earth pony was making slow progress, cutting through the undergrowth with a machete. Luna walked up behind the colt, and touched her horn to the ground, casting a spell. In front of him, undergrowth moved to the side or shriveled into brown dust. The colt's path had been cleared. The colt dropped his machete to the ground and faced Princess Luna. "Why are you here? Is your purpose to torment me? Your highness, is this how you entertain yourself, to hound the dreams of lowly peons? Or are you a part of myself, seeking just vengeance for a crime I can't remember?" Luna stood regally, unmoved by his outburst. She lowered her head and bowed before him. The colt wouldn't recognize it, but it was a bow she would give to the ruler of a foreign land, or expect from a visiting ruler. "In this land, you are King. However, before you command me away, I bring a message you must hear." She paused for dramatic effect. "You are dying, and if you don't wake up, you will soon be dead." The colt stared at her looking for any sign of deceit. He looked at his front hooves, then collapsed into the dirt, which was, then, mud, then, dirt again. "I know. I've known. I don't want to die. I completed those ledgers. I know of those who need me, and those who I owe much. I can't abandon them. Princess, are you here to help me, to make me whole again?" Luna considered. In her heart she had nothing but sympathy for the damaged colt, and had some idea of what she could do to help him. She stepped forward, and with the colt beside her, she pressed her horn against the recently formed dirt path. As if it was flesh with a blade being drawn against it, the path split open. Water gushed out from underneath and soon the whole forest was sinking.
MeetingIn the unconscious plain, where all dreams take place, Luna trekked forward, comprehending a world to which she had only recently gained access. Her physical body sat crosslegged, meditating in the highest tower of the newly constructed Castle of the Two Sisters. At the extent of her vision, in this mysterious realm, she could sense something she only knew was not "right". Curious, she headed towards it, through the swamps of spousal arguments and over the jagged rocks of masonry inspirations. She arrived at the source, the dream of an individual pony. It was larger and shimmered more brightly than any of the other dreams. The "odd"ness eminating from it gave her goosebumps. She tried to penitrate the membrane, and enter the dream, but it was far too strong for her. She understood that there must be a very peculiar mind that can house such a dream. Luna touched the membrane and felt how strongly it adhered to itself, and only itself. She traced its rippling surface with a hoof, and tried to make her hoof the same as the membrane, shaping it to match the dream. It worked, the membrane sucked in Luna's hoof, and, then, the rest of her. In the dream, a colt rested in a field after a hard days labor, watching the clouds drift by. Luna took the form of a crow, circling high above, just another unimportant detail of his dream. The colt abruptly stood up. Though Luna wouldn't know, he had sensed her intrusion. The skies darkened. He could feel somepony else's presence. The field cracked apart and water surged up from underneath. The tumultuous current carried him away and he couldn't keep his head above water. Luna tried to repress herself in his dream, interacting as mildly as possible. Still, she watched the pony get swept away and drowned by the water. His panic from drowning warped the entire dream, twisting her form as thunderstorms swept through the sky. The sense of oddness that originally attracted her to the dream propagated through the air. She tried to disappear, to simply exit the dream, but found herself unable. She decided her only option was to calm the pony. With the colt overwhelmed with the water, Luna discarded her disguise for her familiar form, herself as princess, complete with royal barding. Her eyes glowed from her powerful magic and she conjured a galleon to which she would ride to his rescue. She took the helm, and steered the ship, with its billowing sails. She slowed it's descent before it plunged into the water with a giant splash. She grabbed a rope, tied it into a lasso, and lassoed the drowning colt. She heaved, and pulled him out of the water and onto the deck. The colt coughed up water and, in a moment, regained his senses. He looked up at her with gratitude. Then he realized she wasn't part of his dream. He stared at her, and the dream ebbed with his fright. The concept of someone intruding here, the foreignness of it, he didn't know how to process it. Frozen, his jaw slowly opened and he screamed a scream that echoed throughout the sky and the water and the ship. It pierced Luna's ears, reverberating through and inside her. She tried to escape the dream, but it was not a normal dream. It was far to strong to be simply exited. The power of the dream in this pony's mind was not something she could surmount. The colt's shock and fear shred her to piece, and ejected her from his dream with great force. In the castle's tower, she would be lying unconscious in a pool of her own vomit and urine. Her mind was trying to put reason behind what she had just experienced by creating, for her, a nightmare.
IntroductionsA week later, Luna returned to the membrane of the pony's dream. She had to find out more. She had noticed that the it never went away. The pony never stopped dreaming. Luna had practiced leaving particularly vivid dreams. She accomplishes this by changing herself so that she doesn't fit in with the dream anymore, and she becomes rejected by it. It required focus and control, but wasn't beyond her abilities. She had also practiced becoming aware if she finds herself in a nightmare again. She was prepared. She pressed a hoof against the membrane, and altered herself to fit in with it. With a pop, it absorbed her inside. She took the form of an owl this time, flying high in the air. She was just another part of the colt's dream. Nothing bad happened this time. It was her intention to find out more about him, maybe enough to locate his physical form. It was night. To the west were mountains, underneath her was a forest, and to the east was the ocean. She could make out the species of trees in the forest and recognized them as native to Maryland. With her owl's eyes she saw a small cabin, lit by candlelight, where the treeline ended and a small farm began. She flew down and landed on the windowsill. She could see the colt inside, bent over a table, writing, tallying finances, and doing arithmetic with his abacus. The pony glanced at her. In an instant, he had materialized her inside and returned her to her pony form, Princess Luna. Luna scowled at the control he showed over her, and redid her form, making it crisp instead of the blurred form from his memory. "Greetings." Luna smiled. More sternly, she added, "When a Princess visits, it's customary to bow." The colt looked back at her lazily. "You aren't a princess here, but you're still welcome. I'd brew up some tea, but I must finish this first. It's not as though you were invited. Even still, I'm sorry for earlier." His tallied numbers on his abacus and scribbled on his ledgers. Luna looked over his shoulder. Everything was in the red, he was losing more bits than he was making, but other than that, the numbers conveyed to her no meaning. "What's your name? Where is this?" Luna demanded, but did not recieve an answer. She looked around his home. It was obvious that he lived alone. Littered about were selections of seeds, and various tools for farming. After getting tired of waiting she intruded on the Colt's work. "What was with the water?" She demanded, frustrated. The Colt tried to ignore her. "What water?" Luna pressed hard. "The water you were drowning in." The Colt focused harder on the numbers, drowning her out. "I command you to tell me your name!" Luna shouted. The dream shrank down to nothing more than the clicking of an abacus, and she could no longer fit inside of it.
ConfrontationThe colt panicked, afraid of drowning in the currents again. Luna grabbed the colt's shoulders and flew upwards, carrying him to safety. They landed on the deck of her galleon. Free from the threat of drowning, the dream waters calmed and they were gently sailing through a vast fresh water ocean. "You were found floating in Horseshoe Bay." Luna informed him. The scent of ocean brine picked up in the air, and Baltimare could be seen in the distance. Luna directed the colt, and he gingerly lowered the sails. The ship cut through the water with little resistance, and in moments, they were ready to dock in Baltimare. Luna didn't trust the calm waters, and changed course. They sailed further along the coast. The colt manned the rigging, Luna's direction simply giving him action through which he could channel his eagerness, even if it wouldn't have worked in reality. The coast reflected the colt's knowledge of the land, a mental projection of what he remembered it to be. Luna picked up on where it was wrong. There was a river that was supposed to feed into a bay that was not there. She turned the ship into where she knew the river aught to be. The colt froze with the rigging as Luna sailed the ship right into the beach. Instead of the ship wrecking, it broke through the shore, shattering it like glass. The shattered false shore gave way to a river. The weather became savage, with wind gusting and skies blackening with storm. The waters became rougher, and the fat ship would not be able to make it up the river. Luna and the colt moored the ship, and Luna flew the colt to shore. "You need to relax. You need this. We need to see what happened here." Luna commanded the colt over the thunder. The colt closed his eyes and the weather calmed. He still looked as though he was going to barf. They traveled up the delta by foot, but it was slow going. The mud would not give way. With each step, the ponies would sink up to their torsos. "It's hard going because you're making it hard for us. You don't want to see where we're going. We need to see it for you to get undamaged. Your mind is damaged, unable to even work your body. We need to make it whole again. When we do that, you will be able to farm, to help ponies, to live. You want to make it up this river with me." The colt stared off towards where they were heading, glassy eyed. "I know it's what he have to do." Luna shook her mane and neighed in agitation. "We're close. You need this." With those words, and Luna's urging, the colt found the strength to power on. He knew it was what he had to do, and he couldn't admit to her that he was scared. Her pressure gave him strength. He relaxed and willed the surface of the mud became hard. It became hard like glass, and they were able to stand on it. The dream pulsed and felt odd again. Luna headed forward, and the colt followed. The dream pulsed a second time and the oddness became overwhelming. The colt's body dropped to the ground, limp, and the dream faded. His mind tattered before Luna.
LifeAs the world and the pony faded, Luna reached out and grasped the last piece of his tattering mind. He was powerless to stop her. In the emptiness, Luna looked at what it was the colt couldn't face. He was tasked with looking after the daughter of a close friend. While the two of them played in a river, a large swell came. He was strong enough of a swimmer to resist the gush of water, but the young filly was not. He swam after her, but was unable to reach her. She was washed far away from him. The river had such strength the he could not return to the shore, and he did not have the will. The rapids battered him against rocks and drowned him until he finally lost consciousness. He could not bear the thought of facing his friend, or his wife, or even his own children. He tried to imagine all the ways he could go on living, like living alone in that shack, but he knew he could not do that either. He had the will to live and to help those he loved, but could not reconcile that with the guilt and shame of what he had done. As the princess stood there with the last bit of the colt, I knew it was my time. I revealed myself to the colt, gathered him together, and carried him into death. The alicorn, Luna, was trapped with him. When she saw me she understood what had drawn her to the dream. She felt my presence and she felt me as a threat. I guided the colt past the threshold, then the alicorn and I stared at one another regarding each other. The alicorn was in the colt's mind, not her own. When the colt died, she died with him. "A cheap trick to get me!" she spat at me, but I was far above such motivations. It was simply her time. "My task is sacrosanct. You intruded, and held onto a dying spirit as it passed into my responsibility." I took her. She fought me. A hundred imagined dream spells hit me, but it mattered not. Her mind was fading into nothingness, and soon it would be gone. In the highest tower of the Castle of the Two Sisters, Celestia knelt beside Luna casting ever spell she knew, searching desperately for a way to heal Luna's dying body. She had not Luna's innate abilities, but she managed to warp the entire dream plane with her blundering strength. I had not expected it, and Princess Luna slipped through my grasps and back into her body. Luna was very lucky. She did not escape the colt's mind in time, but her sister managed a way for her to return at the last minute. I would make sure to prevent that, next time. Luna looked at at the ceiling of her meditation chamber, Celestia crying over her. Luna focused on what she had just scene, going over it in her mind so she wouldn't forget. Luna walked in the plane where all dreams met, taking in the vast scenery. It had been a week's time since the colt's death. She had much on her mind. Princess Luna now felt that guilt, for she understood her part in the colt's death. She intruded upon his kingdom, where all mortal ponies consider themselves safe, and made it not safe for him. She didn't allow the pain of his actions to heal, the shock to wear off, or for his own mind, damaged by impact, to repair itself. Instead she took the only thing that was holding him together, his indomitable will to live, and smothered it with what he was not ready to face. She bumbled through his dreams and destroyed everything along the way. She didn't recognize his shame. She did not even feel overwhelmed with guilt over her hand in the colt's death. She is very old, and has made many mistakes before. What, to a younger pony, would seem like the end of everything has already been experienced by her many times. She knows that it doesn't cause an end, it just goes on, and becomes but a memory. A mere building block into a better person who would not make such a mistake again.
BuildingA few nights later, Luna, again, popped into the colt's dream. She took the form of herself, and flew high in the sky. She came, this time, with the knowledge of who the colt was, but still didn't know his name. The colt was in the Baltimare hospital, unconscious for days. Normally he would have been left for dead, but the hospital was experimenting on him. They were forcing water and nutrients past his epiglottis, but they assumed he was too brain damaged to ever recover. His health was getting worse, and though they said he was a fighter, it was doubtful he would last much longer. Luna's thought was that she could wake him. Luna circled above the forest beneath her. It was night here, but the full moon shown as brightly as her sister's sun. The colt would never know what insult his subconscious bore her. Luna spotted rustling in the forest, and could feel the colt's presence there. She flew down to where he was. The earth pony was making slow progress, cutting through the undergrowth with a machete. Luna walked up behind the colt, and touched her horn to the ground, casting a spell. In front of him, undergrowth moved to the side or shriveled into brown dust. The colt's path had been cleared. The colt dropped his machete to the ground and faced Princess Luna. "Why are you here? Is your purpose to torment me? Your highness, is this how you entertain yourself, to hound the dreams of lowly peons? Or are you a part of myself, seeking just vengeance for a crime I can't remember?" Luna stood regally, unmoved by his outburst. She lowered her head and bowed before him. The colt wouldn't recognize it, but it was a bow she would give to the ruler of a foreign land, or expect from a visiting ruler. "In this land, you are King. However, before you command me away, I bring a message you must hear." She paused for dramatic effect. "You are dying, and if you don't wake up, you will soon be dead." The colt stared at her looking for any sign of deceit. He looked at his front hooves, then collapsed into the dirt, which was, then, mud, then, dirt again. "I know. I've known. I don't want to die. I completed those ledgers. I know of those who need me, and those who I owe much. I can't abandon them. Princess, are you here to help me, to make me whole again?" Luna considered. In her heart she had nothing but sympathy for the damaged colt, and had some idea of what she could do to help him. She stepped forward, and with the colt beside her, she pressed her horn against the recently formed dirt path. As if it was flesh with a blade being drawn against it, the path split open. Water gushed out from underneath and soon the whole forest was sinking.
