Not All Who Dream Despair
King Wikey of Spikeyfell, First of His Noble Name and Lord Protector of Spiquestria, ruled his realm from the Throne of Literary Imperium, whose dog-eared pages and worn binding sat on the protruding pink terrace of his glorious alabaster palace. For as far as he could see, Spiquestria stretched before him, a land of elegantly carved gingerbread manors and castles seated atop rolling hills of ice cream. His subjects, happy in their subjugation to their devilishly gorgeous ruler, roamed the land without want or fear or care, pressing their faces into the ground periodically and sucking icy, minty sustenance from them through tightly puckered lips.
A grin split King Wikey's long, scaly muzzle. My dominion. My kingdom. None would ever think to challenge the magnanimous and handsome King Wikey, for Spiquestria is paradise, and nospikey would deny the gift of paradise. He dug his scepter into the floor of his palace, scooped a thick lump of ice cream from it, and brought it to his face. His prehensile tongue wrapped around the lump and sucked it into his mouth with a most elegant and noble schlorp. "Hum Drum!" he called. "Hum Drum, your king demands that you attend him!"
Clawed feet scrabbled against the marbled dairy floor as Hum Drum, his page and spikeservant, shuffled toward him on stubby baby dragon legs. "Yes, King Wikey?" said Hum Drum as he presented himself to the king. His red cape stood in stark contrast to his shining white scales and the blue striped spines running from his head to his tail, and his deep, masculine voice in no way suited his diminutive reptile body. King Wikey laughed, as he often did when he glimpsed the ridiculous Hum Drum. His subjects laughed with him, though they were identical to him except in coloration. All were supplicants to the mighty King Wikey, and all were united in embracing their inferiority toward him, but none were lower than lowly Hum Drum, and even the gummy worms that crawled beneath the chocolate earth found him ridiculous. All remained laughing until the sun had set and the moon - cherry-pie red and (needless to say) carved from solid ice cream - had risen.
"Hum Drum, my servant," said King Wikey, "your king demands his bowl of succulents. You will call on Princess Succulestia and fetch it for him!"
"Oh, yes, your majesty," gushed Humdrum, rapturously joyful at the thought of bringing his ruler his most beloved delicacy. "Your faithful Hum Drum lives only to serve his glorious purple majesty."
"Silence, infant, for thy king doth realize such. Away with you now!" And with a puff of green flame, he dispatched an ecstatically screaming Hum Drum to the Succulence Ranch. "Ah," moaned King Wikey as he reclined in his throne, "'tis goodeth to be the king. Eth."
"Yes," said a female voice behind his throne, "you do seem to enjoy yourself splendidly."
King Wikey's throne whirled, for he was King Wikey and his throne could whirl if he desired it, and he beheld a blue pony with swirling starfields trailing from her mane and hiney. "Ah, Princess Lunebottom of the Woken Realm," said King Wikey. "You honor me with your august presence. Care you for a dollop of floor?" King Wikey dug his scepter into the floor again and held out its contents for Lunebottom's inspection.
Lunebottom stared at it, nonplussed, and shook her head with a disarming smile. "Perhaps not tonight, your grace. I'm afraid I must watch my, er, Princessley figure."
"Ah, quite." King Wikey nodded sagely. "Your hiney does seem to be more engorged than when last we spoke. Is it not so, subjects?" he called to the throng gathered below, oblivious to Lunebottom's indignant blush.
"Feed us, King Wikey!" they cheered. "Let us eat cake!"
"Cake you shall have. Cake for all!" And King Wikey dug deep into the brilliant pink carpet unfurling from the Throne of Literary Imperium and flung armfuls of cupcakes to the blissful masses below.
Princess Lunebottom trotted to the rail surrounding the terrace and gazed at the happily gobbling populace. "Goodness, they love you," she said softly. "I always forget how much they love you."
"But of course!" boomed King Wikey. He thumped his chest with a scaly hoof. "I am King Wikey, the good and the glorious, he whose face graces the hinies of everyspikey who has earned their Spikey mark. Who could not love somespikey so wonderful?"
Lunebottom glanced up, high above the terrace, to the tower looming above them - King Wikey's ultimate refuge, his place of safety and contentment, with its two sapphire windows and rolling roof of coiled purple licorice. For reasons King Wikey could not fathom, a melancholy smile spread across Lunebottom's face. "Who indeed?" she mused.
The adoring masses below quieted, and the sky above seemed to darken. King Wikey looked at his royal visitor, the esteemed Princess Lunebottom of the Woken Realm, and suddenly felt very small, and very sad. "Princess? Are you okay?" To his own splendiforous ears, his voice sounded meek and childish and just a tad girly.
But Princess Lunebottom quickly recovered and smiled beatifically at the king. The sky brightened; the populace roared and stomped applaudingly, and chanted their glorious ruler's name. "Forgive me, your grace," said Princess Lunebottom, impeccably polite as always. "I must away now. It seems there is little for me to do here tonight."
"Ah! Let me not keep you!" King Wikey extended his forelegs for a royal hug of farewell, and Princess Lunebottom accepted it with gusto. "Perhaps when next you visit," he declared, "we may discuss how you might acquire your Spikey Mark. It is high time you achieved yours, Princess - why, even humble Hum Drum has already celebrated his Spikeceñera!" He rotated his body to give Lunebottom a profile view of his royal body and lifted his haunches just enough for her to glimpse his own Spikey Mark. It was the same Spikey Mark as the rest of his subjects: A little purple baby dragon with a ladykilling grin, winking and pointing his fingers like guns at the beholder.
"I look forward to it." Princess Lunebottom, unfailingly courteous, bowed deeply. "Until next time, your grace." In a flash of shimmering blue starlight, the Princess vanished, and King Wikey was once again alone on his bright pink terrace.
Until a flash of green flame appeared, and pitiful Hum Drum appeared before him again. "Your succulents, my liege!" He offered the bowl to King Wikey, who accepted it, lazily flicked Hum Drum from his terrace, and glanced inside the bowl at his most beloved of treats: scrolls of dank, musty parchment, bound in red ribbon and stamped with a seal in the shape of a sunburst.
"You... l-look so... delicioussss..."
King Wikey shoved his muzzle into the bowl and greedily slurped every last one of them down, snarfing and belching as he ate.
Luna emerged from Spike's dream with a giggle and a sigh. This dream of Spike's always left her feeling... well, uncertain of how to feel. There was something funny, and charming, and so very Spike, about it all - the world themed around desserts, the recreation of Equestria in his own image, the throne made of worn-out library books, as though his mind were proclaiming "knowledge is power!" in a way that only he would understand and appreciate. It made her laugh - laugh with him, charmed by it all, not at, never at. It was not for her to judge her subjects' nighttime fantasies, and she would never make light of what somepony (or somedragon, or somespikey, as it were) conjured in their slumber.
But the dream was tinged by sadness, too. Spike ruling over a nation of other Spikes, who all had little pictures of Spike as their cutie marks. Spike heaping abuse upon Hum Drum the Power Ponies' sidekick whose part he'd once played (although why he looked and talked like Shining Armor was something she hadn't yet been able to interpret). Spike as a scaly dragon-pony, unique among his subjects, towering above them from a mighty fortress where he could soak in their adoration and affection, yet never mingle among them. A fortress shaped like Rarity's face. And that sadness, that suppressed sense of isolation and loneliness and self-abuse, was also very Spike, she feared.
She could never bring herself to linger for long.
Still, perhaps she'd consider taking him up on that offer the next time she passed through. In all the times she'd visited that dream, she had yet to learn what, exactly, went into a Spikeceñera.
With a chuckle and a shake of the head, she spread her wings and dove again into the dreamscape.
Author's Note
An idea I had after writing Schoolfilly's Whimsy and realizing how much fun dream sequences are. And the idea seems like a natural one - surely, there must be nights where Luna finds dreams that aren't full of emotional turmoil. You gotta figure that she'd hate punching in at work every night if that were the case.
I'll update this as ideas for it come to me, which could be often, could be rare, most likely will be never.
For those of you wondering: I envision the palace being a tower shaped like Rarity's neck and head, with her mouth open and tongue sticking out and the Throne of Literary Imperium sitting at the tip of the tongue. Yes, Luna is fully aware of the Freudian implications of Spike living in an edible Rarity-palace.
