Nothing's More Important

“Hello?” Amelia asked tentatively, as she looked around. She had closed her eyes for only a moment when she sneezed, and now everypony.. everyone was gone. It took a moment to realize how tall she felt, like she had finally stood up after crouching for hours, and that revelation quickly drew her eyes down to her naked, but otherwise human, self.

In some ways, being alone made being naked less bad, but in other ways it made being naked worse. She sat down on her little patch of grass, hugging herself to keep things hidden from anyone who might stumble upon her as she looked around. The dark, moonlit woods seemed all the more daunting now, like they had been twisted into a nightmarish version of themselves.

“Hello?” Amelia called out again, louder this time, and a moment later she heard a nearly identical voice echoing back to her. She looked around for the source. Not seeing it immediately, she turned her head to check out other directions.

When she turned back, the brown, mottled pony face right before her uttered a simple but sudden “boo!” and she promptly fell into the water. It was much deeper than she had thought, at least six feet, judging by the lack of bottom as she tread water.

The pony closed her eyes, nearly falling over laughing, before a pair of pale white arms wrapped around her neck and dragged her down into the water as well. Amelia was not one to let a good prank go unpunished.

The underwater wrestling that ensued might have been dangerous in the real world, but fortunately it’s much harder to actually drown in a dream. It is, however, much easier for the world to warp around you, and as a set of finely clad hooves made themselves known with loud hoofsteps nearby, pony and human looked up in unison from the mudpuddle they were now wrestling in. As they noticed the princess of the night before them, both were a mottled muddy brown.

Luna raised an eyebrow as she looked down at them, keeping her confusion from her face as best she could. “And what manner of nightmare do we have here, hmm?” She didn’t make it particularly clear which of the wrestlers she was addressing, in large part because even her own senses were unclear which was the dreamer, and which merely dreamt. She did keep alert, ready to defend herself on a moment’s notice if one of them proved to be a dangerous creature of dreams, like her own Tantabus.

Amelia opened her mouth to answer, but before she could, the pony beside her began quickly. “This monster is trying to take over my body and take my place in the waking world!” the mare accused. “Help me! I want to be in control of my own body when I wake up!”

“Is that so? What do you have to say for yourself?” Luna asked, lifting Amelia telekinetically, and banishing all the dream mud, which made Amelia all that much more self-conscious.

Being naked and exposed before the princess kept Amelia from meeting her eyes, as she lamely pointed out “it was my body first. And I just came here to talk to you.” She did manage to meet the pony spirit’s gaze, making the mare flinch a bit from her own guilt. “You didn’t have to sneak up on me like that!”

“If you wish to talk, then talk, but I won’t allow a dream to take over its waking host,” Luna declared. The light of magic began to glow from her horn as she began to cast.

“Wait, what are you doing? You don’t understand!” Amelia pointed out, before a wall shimmered into view, separating Amelia from the two ponies.

“Now… what is your name, little pony? You look like one of mine, aside from the lack of wings,” Luna asked, turning her gaze to the lunar earth pony.

The pony spirit quickly cobbled something together, hoping she didn’t delay too long and draw suspicion. “Hidden… Treasure, yeah. Hidden Treasure. It’s so great to meet you, Luna! Thanks for saving me!”

Luna glanced at the wall, wondering whether she was on the wrong side of it. But regardless of the truth, she was confident it would keep the dream from entering the waking world. “Thy gratitude filleth my heart with gladness,” she exaggerated. “I have other dreams to patrol this night. If though wouldst converse with your dream…” she pointed a hoof to the wall, and a telephone appeared upon it, though one with no buttons to push. Moments later, it began to ring. “I wouldst not recommend ignoring it.”

Hidden Treasure looked at it for a few moments, before nodding to Luna. “I will, thank you Luna!” She waved until the princess opened a path for herself, leaving the dream behind. Once she was finally alone, she turned to look for a way to wake herself up, ignoring the ringing phone.

Justin awoke before Amelia, and Alice was waiting for him, with a fish on a bed of lettuce promptly offered up to him. “How did it go?” the wolf asked.

Justin bounded to his hooves, almost toppling over from his energetic bounce. "It was great! I think? My wolf seemed like a nice guy, though he was a wolf." He tapped at his chin. "I think we'll get along alright. He did agree with an important thing." A sly smile spread over his snout. "He thinks we have very fine mares."

“Good,” Alice confirmed as she gave him a nuzzle. “He submitted to you then? The next bit of your training is to learn how to hear his voice without dreaming. It’s usually not too hard once you’ve met in person. But that can wait… you may even master it on your own in a few days. We’ll take it slow for the rest… there’s no need to hurry.”

She glanced over her shoulder at the sleeping pony. “Amelia hasn’t awakened yet, but I’m not worried. Your encounter was unusually fast, and if she took our advice, she’s probably got a lot of talking to do to sort things out with her pony spirit.”

He tilted his head at his sleeping wife, filled with curiosity. "She's lucky in a way. She can be a pony and poof, she can fit right in. Being a wolf is a bit of a stand out position." He wagged his tail. "Not, uh, bad, mind you, but definitely different." He reached up to put a paw on Amelia's closest cheek. "I guess we're really tied, now."

Alice nodded and licked Justin’s cheek. “Until you learn how to control it, you’ll change back into a pony at dawn, and again into a wolf at sunset. So you’ll be able to fit in during the day at least. Just try not to lose track of time and be out in public when you have to change. It might be… alarming for your neighbors. They’ve been so accepting of me though… maybe it’s best to at least let them know?”

Amelia squirmed fitfully in her sleep, looking like she might be having a nightmare or something. Alice frowned at her, before setting a paw on her shoulder to try to comfort her. It didn’t work at first, but after a minute she calmed down. “She must be having a harder time with her spirit,” Alice noted with concern.

Justin moved to her side, joining in support of their shared wife. "She'll make it through. She's one of us, right?" He smiled. "We can do anything, together." He spoke with firm conviction, as if the family pulling through as one was just a natural order of things.

“She is and she isn’t… she’s not a wolf, and perhaps now she’ll never become one.” Alice’s ears drooped for a moment at the thought before she shook it off. “But she’s still our friend and your… our? wife… We’ll support her as best we can. And you’ll get to teach her all kinds of pony things.”

Before the discussion could go further, Amelia groaned a bit, struggling a moment to regain consciousness. She opened her eyes, blinking against the moonlight for a moment before leaping to her hooves with a triumphant laugh.

Justin clopped his forehooves. "See, what'd I tell you? How are you feeling?" He smiled brightly, elated with the recovery of Amelia. With his new ears perked at her, he leaned in to nuzzle gently. "Did you have a nice chat?"

“I feel great!” Amelia claimed, before a suppressed wave of nervousness caught Justin’s attention. “We had a great little chat. No problems! You know how friendly we ponies can be. I just know I’m going to love being a pony now.”

“You know, you’re probably going to change back at dawn too. Still, it’s good to hear you’re getting along so well with yourself,” Alice said, a subtle hint of skepticism in her voice.

“Oh? Right… Do you think you could teach me how to keep from changing back? I mean, the night is still young, right? I think it’d be a lot easier living here as a pony all the time,” Amelia returned. “You have no trouble keeping your form all the time, surely it’s not too hard for you to teach?”

Justin tilted his head, looking at Amelia with some concern. "I'm glad you're enjoying the hoofed life, but you're a human, and there's nothing wrong with that. You don't have to hide from yourself, especially not on my account." He smiled on his alien muzzle, wagging his upturned tail. "Don't feel pressured."

Amelia couldn’t help but let a hint of nervousness creep into her voice. “Well, uh, everything around here is proportioned for ponies anyways,” she excused. “Wouldn’t want to have to bend down all the time. Besides, I’m cuter like this, aren’t I?” She gave a toothy smile, though it withered a bit under Alice’s glare.

“You’re not a very good liar,” Alice pointed out. “Neither is Amy, but she talks faster when she’s trying to get away with something.” The wolf poked at the lunar pony’s ribs roughly with a paw. “What did you do with Amy, pony spirit!?” she demanded accusatorially.

Amelia fell over backwards in her attempt to back away from the wolf, looking to Justin pleadingly for help. “I didn’t!.. I wasn’t!.. I…” she fumbled, not managing to get a coherent excuse together.

Justin advanced on Amelia, nose quivering slightly. "Amelia, what's gotten into you? I mean, yes, you're very pretty as a pony, or a human, or whatever you happen to be." He tapped his cheek lightly with a paw, scratching through the fur. "We're a family, you know that. You weren't sad to be a human before, were you?"

“What? No, I… Justin, you know I love you, right? Can’t you just help me with this one little thing? Get Alice to help me with it.. please?” Amelia begged, her eyes growing wide as she gave her best cute begging looking.

Alice, meanwhile, had backed off a bit to start searching the surrounding grass. She seemed pleased when she plucked a fresh dandelion, carefully, but that just made Amelia that much more nervous when she spotted it.

Justin suddenly jumped forward, pouncing as the wolf he was and tackling his newly-ponied wife to the ground. "We both love you so much." He went in for a kiss. "Let us help you, please."

Amelia was too surprised to return the kiss at first, blushing deeply as she was kissed, before finally easing into returning it, and wrapping her hooves around her mate. Her eyes closed, leaving her unprepared and defenseless for what was to come.

A sharp blowing sound heralded the approach of a fresh wave of gently glowing dandelion spores, washing over Amelia and Justin as one. “I sure hope this works,” Alice said, with less confidence than either could recall hearing in her voice, before they drifted to sleep in one another’s limbs.