Romp

Twilight expected to swallow.

Instead, she received a roundhouse kick to the face.

The first thing she noticed was her head snap to the side from the impact, throwing her off balance. Then came the muffled sound of her body collapsing once again, barely audible through the ringing in her ears. She choked when her barrel slammed into the ground, forcing her to spit out the griffon.

Lying motionless on her side, her head felt as if it were spinning at an alarming rate. She attempted to peer out at the world, but found her vision blurred with blue and dotted with stars from the side she was hit. There wasn’t pain, so much as a distant throbbing in the back of her skull. Briefly, she found it incredible that Rainbow, as small as she was, could deliver such a powerful blow. But as the ringing in her ears began to fade, her thoughts did too.

And for a while, all was still and silent.

__________

Some time passed before Twilight felt the slow rise and fall of her chest, lungs drawing in deep breaths of cool air on nothing more than instinct. The smell of upturned dirt and freshly ground bark filled her nostrils, and the slimy sensation of mud clung to the edge of her muzzle. Very slowly, she rolled her weight to the side and propped a foreleg against the ground. The now familiar feeling of foliage falling from her coat was mildly discomforting – somewhere in the dimmed recesses of her mind, she knew that meant the dream was not over.

That bit of information acted as a spark to restart Twilight’s overwrought brain, which wanted to do anything but function beneath the pulsing ache in her head. Nevertheless, pushing herself upright with a groan, she did what she could to process what just happened.

First off, there was the matter of the dream…

“…Twilight…”

She had gone after Gilda in hopes of ending Rainbow’s nightmare…

“…Yo, Twi…”

But then Gilda started talking about—

“Hey Twilight! Wake up already!”

Nngh… Rainbow Dash?

Twilight gave her head a gentle shake and cracked open her eyes. At first, there was nothing but a world of bright white. Then she began to make out colors. There was brown and green, some amber along the top, and… a whole lot of blue.

“Twilight,” a raspy voice called from somewhere above.

Twilight rubbed a hoof against her eyes and took a moment to let the throbbing in her skull settle. When she was ready, she looked out at the world – and blinked rather hard at the sight in front of her.

Standing over the mare, hooves nestled deep within the scattered remains of the jungle, stood Rainbow Dash, smirking down at her from a thousand feet off the ground. “‘Sup.”

The breath in Twilight’s lungs caught. If it hadn’t been for her own relative size, her first instinct would have been to run. But instead…

“R-Rainbow Dash?” she sputtered, eyes wide with disbelief. “How did you…?”

“Do the giant thing?” Rainbow said, returning an obviously cocky smirk. “Luna told me this was basically both our dreams now, so I could do whatever the hay I wanted.” She took a step forward, crushing under hoof a lone tree that had briefly survived the destruction. “So when you decided to get all stubborn on me, I decided to make this my dream again.” She reached out to her with a muddy hoof, letting her smirk fall to a softer smile. “And help a friend.”

“But… what…” Twilight closed her eyes and shook her head again before looking back up at her. When Rainbow shot her a grin, she reached out and grabbed hold of her hoof.

“So,” Rainbow said, carefully pulling Twilight to her hooves. Once she was steady, she brushed a hoof against the mare’s withers, knocking a dozen or so trees off her shoulders. “I didn’t knock the egghead out of ya, did I?”

Twilight breathed a dry chuckle. “Uh, n-no. Sorry. I, uh… mmm…” Rubbing a hoof against her head, she said, “Just hurts pretty bad, that’s all.”

Rainbow’s smile quickly faded. “Yeah. Unfortunately, I don’t think that’s cause I hit you.”

“Mmnh… then what is it?”

“Well…” Rainbow looked over at the setting sun, which seemed to have no intentions of actually setting. “Does it feel like a pounding in the back of your head?”

Twilight nodded, wincing in the process.

“Which isn’t where I hit you, right?”

“Right,” she muttered, rubbing more intensely against her temple.

“Then it’s probably because of something Princess Luna told me. ‘Cause I feel it too.”

Twilight stopped mid-rub and widened her eyes at Rainbow. “The dream fusion?”

Rainbow, much to her dismay, gave a single nod. “Eeyup.”

Several questions popped into Twilight’s mind, but only one of them seemed pertinent. “Where’s Princess Luna?”

“About that.” Rubbing her neck, Rainbow said, “Thing is, you got so caught up with Gilda that she couldn’t talk to you, so she sent me after you instead. Said once you conquered your fears or whatever, she could end the dream.” She dropped her hoof into the mud and said, “But since you decided to nom on Gilda, that plan didn’t exactly work out. So I just, y’know, tried to take care of it myself.”

Twilight blinked a couple of times. “By punching me?”

“Well, you were about to swallow Gilda! I mean, I guess you could call it ‘swallowing your fears,’ but I don’t think that’s exactly what Princess Luna had in—”

“I know, I know,” Twilight said, dragging a hoof across her face. “I get it. Just… where is she now?”

“Well, I called for her after I knocked you out, but she hasn’t shown up.” Rainbow shrugged. “Seems like same with you, she either can’t talk to me, or finally decided to give up on this nutty dream altogether.”

Twilight sighed. “Alright then.” Out of habit, she began to deconstruct the information she had available to assess the situation. But one problem presented itself up front that prevented any logic or reason from working. “How in the world do we wake up?”

Rainbow’s eyes darted to the side. She cleared her throat and turned to face where she was looking. “Not sure, but… you might wanna ask a certain griffon that question.”

Twilight blinked. With a good bit of hesitation, she turned her head and followed her line of sight.

Off a short distance from the two, silhouetted against the amber sun, hovered a sticky, icky, dripping griffon – several times smaller than them, but with a scowl that quickly made her ill.

__________

“You know,” Gilda started with a low, haughty tone, “I think we’ve gone from silly, to stupid, to just plain bizarre in a matter of minutes.” She wiped a glob of saliva off one of her arms and shot her glare at Twilight. “And here I thought Rainbow Dash was the biggest loser around.”

Twilight and Rainbow Dash both gawked at the griffon. “How?” Twilight mumbled, cringing back from the sight. “How are you still here? You’re supposed to be a projection of our imaginations!”

Gilda sighed. “I don’t have a clue what you’re talking about.” She slicked the plumes along her head back into place and flung her talons free of drool. “But I do know I’m sick of this.”

Rainbow Dash narrowed her eyes, stepping in front of Twilight. “Sick of what, exactly?”

“You two!” Gilda shouted, meeting Rainbow’s gaze. “Neither of you can make up your minds! What you want or what you don’t want – like, c’mon! It can’t be that hard!”

Rainbow opened her mouth to argue the point, but hesitated when Twilight placed a hoof on her shoulder. “Rainbow,” she murmured close to her ear, keeping a careful watch on Gilda, “there’s no point to this. Unless we can find Luna or a way out of this dream, arguing with her isn’t going to fix anything.”

“Yeah,” Rainbow said, leaning a little closer, “but the Princess said she could only wake us up if you took care of your fears.”

“Well, then you probably should have told me that to begin with instead of knocking me out,” Twilight grumbled.

“Oh, right,” Rainbow grumbled back. “Says the pony who turned into a giant to fix my problems.”

“I was just trying to help!”

“And what d’you think I was trying to do?”

“Well it certainly didn’t—”

“WORDS!” Gilda screamed with flared wings and arms stretched out. “I’M SO SICK OF ALL THESE WORDS!” Hovering higher into the air, she shouted, “If you two can’t make up your minds, I’ll do it for you!”

Beyond the echo of Gilda’s angry words, the shrill whistle of magic pierced the air. The amber sun behind the griffon flickered orange, casting the landscape in a dark light before melting into the horizon. A red aura burned around Gilda’s silhouette, matching the blood-like hue the sky had swiftly turned. When the aura consumed her in a solid mass, a white spot formed at its center – then ruptured with a clap of thunder, forcing Twilight and Rainbow Dash to shield their eyes and flatten their ears.

When the light died down, leaving nothing but rolling thunder, the two dared a peek.

Two brown wings stretched before the scarlet horizon, a mile in span and blackened at the ends, mated to a griffon who stood equal in their height. Two sets of mammoth talons dug into the detritus of the jungle, snapping the husks of what vegetation remained, while two lion’s paws squared off into the mud. A black coronet with red woven lace hugged the griffon’s midriff, upon which was strapped a single brown whip and a matching muzzle. Crouching low, Gilda bent her head and narrowed her eyes, meeting the gaze of the two ponies that stood wide-eyed before her.

Twilight and Rainbow Dash shared a mutual gulp.

“So…” Rainbow Dash leaned in close to her friend. “Whose fears is she supposed to be, again?”

“GYAAH!”

And Gilda slammed into the two with a set of cottage-sized fists.