I used to have a dream
I thought it was real.
But then I woke up and my dream disappeared
Answer me,
Where is it now?
I'm just wondering .... Where is it now?
Thousands of voices, many more than I can hear, help fill the air with their presence. The sounds create a feeling, a knowledge that right here and now, there is no we or them. There is only one word, and that is us. It's the name of a collective mind, a collective presence which we have built up here, in our little village. Because when we're togheter, we're stonger, we're better, and we're suviving better than we did when everypony were on their own.
Once every summer, however, we put extra much energy to mkaing osmething special for everypony, to really inforce the 'us'. This effort turned into what we were doing now, to this ceremony which I loved.
Each one of those voices had been a dream, a love, a loss. And during these nights, just like our minds, they'd been combined. Combined into one dream, one love, one loss.
One after an other, the ponies stood up and left the clearing, blowing out their candles as they did. Once the candles been blown out, their mind left the collective presence, and they once more became their own. But I didn't want to become my own, no, I wanted to stay in this peaceful place and live this peaceful collective excistance forever.
Slowly, I rise from the grass, dusting off my dress and focusing my magic on the candle floating beside me, tightening my magic's grip around it. I quickly join the long row of ponies making their way down the step hill, following an almost nonexsisting path in the grass. Everypony move slowly and carefully, their eyes darting between the candles in their magic grip and the path beneth them. Down below, I see pony after pony blowing out their candles and heading off either to the right or the left, depending on where they're living.
Finally down the hill, I blow out my candle and head to right, following the water. The sound of the ponies still left in the clearings song slowly fade away behind me as I move further into the dark forest which had been my second home growing up.
After about five minutes, I've come so far away from the clearing, so far away from the hundreds of ponies that still had been sitting there with their candles when I left, that it's light no longer reached me. It was dark and I was alone. This fact, however, would normally not have scared me, as I knew that I could find my way back home, with or without light...But tonight was special, and a feeling of uncomfort and dispair had slowly started to build up inside of me, it's pressure on my mind increasing with every hoof step I took forward, away from the clearing where I knew that I could find safety and light. Glorious, warming light.
But as the uncomfort and dispair started to wear me down, started to break me, I also noticed how the surrounding had changed. I could no longer see shadows and out linings indicating bushes and trees. In fact, I could no longer see anything indicating that there actually where a world around me, that anything exsisted beyond the compact raw piece of darkness that I've seemed to have been placed in. I was just about to try and find my way back to the clearing, back to anything that I could trust to be real, when I heard the voice. The, horrible, horrible voice who's owner soon would force me to follow her blindly.
"Equality is all that's worth while. Soon, your pastries will be as good as any ponies, and it'll be fair!"
My eyes shot open, but immidiatly closed again as the bright light from the window stung like hot needles in them and filling my head with intense pain. Inside my head the world spun around and I could still hear my own screams from the dream in my ears, like the other, the real me was standing screaming beside me.
Carefully, I slowly reopen my eyes, blinking a few times as the boring, lifeless rooms that had been my home the last few days became visible. Once having regained sight, I sat up, silently closing my mouth and trying to sort everything out in my head, ignoring the for me very much real scream from my dream still fresh in my memory.
I had dreamed, about something that wasn't a dream, about a mare that was very much real. She was the mare, with the horrible voice, that had brought me here. Had taken me from those I loved, from my parents and siblings, and taken me here, trying to ocnvince me I'd be happier here.
Moments after I thought about the horrible mare with her despicable voice and what she had done to me and so many other ponies, the speakers in the room come to life, and the voice in the dreams once more become reality.
"Good morning Sugar Belle. I hope you slept well, and have had time to consider my offer. I really hope for your own sake the answer this time is yes, because I won't ask an other time. You got an hour before I want the answer."
Directly after she voiced her threat, the speakers fell quiet, not even the normal blabbering about equal ses and it's benefits being played on repeat.
I slowly lean against the wall, starting to humm an old melody I recognise all too well form my life before I was stripped of my cutiemark. After humming for a couple of minutes, I start to carefully try and sing, voicing the song's soothing lyrics.
I used to have a dream
I thought it was real.
But then I woke up and my dream disappeared
Answer me,
Where is it now?
I'm just wondering .... Where is it now?
Author's Note
originally written for writing cloub in a group called Harmonists.