The Gift of Growth

Night 2

The formerly cursed woods were certainly not still and quiet at night. Wind and crickets and owls and bugs and even the occasional timberwolf made sure the air was filled with a steady foreboding ambiance. The sounds were difficult to ignore (and more than a little scary if it was your first night camping in the wild since you were a teenage colt begrudgingly on vacation with your parents).

Still, at least the tent was worth every bit that must have been spent on it! The floor of it was padded and comfy, and it was compact on the outside, roomy on the inside, likely built for a hyper or two to have room to spare. The resulting magical internal size difference made it feel like there was a portal between the tent’s fabric walls and the daaaaangerous forest. Trace couldn’t shake the feeling that all this had been a concession to keep him out of his house – as if Mist Melody was saying from the past, “Fine, I know you’re going to be a big baby about it, so here, have the most luxurious tent I can afford!” Still, it was a concession he was grateful for now that he was officially in this.

So somehow, despite his nerves, Trace managed to curl up in his sleeping bag and doze off, his mind full of the books he’d skimmed that afternoon.

A short while later, the door to his tent unzipped open from the inside.

Trace – or rather Trace’s body, his eyes glowing with pinkish-purple magic – stepped out into the forest clearing in the stallion’s pajamas, grinning as if to reveal a nonexistent fang.

The campsite’s fire had long since lost its embers, so the only light came from the faint beams of moonlight that shone through the tree canopy. Poles carrying wells of pheromone-based repellent were placed at the edges of the clearing, keeping the camp clear of magical pests. Trace’s cart was parked nearby, carrying the bulk of his non-camping supplies, with a sheet tied over it to protect it during the night.

Trace – or rather Mist Melody in Trace’s sleepwalking body – walked over to the cart. His movements were a little sluggish. After all, they were not entirely the result of conscious motor control! Nonetheless, he – or rather she – was able to manipulate the average-looking earth stallion’s body with enough dexterity to untie one of the ropes and reach into the cart to pull out a few items. Specifically, some spare paper and a quill (extra items that Mist Melody had planted in Trace’s mind as a last-minute mental suggestion).

There was a stool near the campfire, which Mist-in-Trace’s-body sat down upon. He/She tapped the point of the quill against the paper, thinking about what to write.

She managed to get a few items written, but she didn’t finish before she was interrupted.

The light of the moon intensified, painting the clearing a haunting gray. Silver, unrelenting silver filled the night. No other creature in the forest reacted to this change – for you see, it wasn’t actually happening in reality, only in Mist’s sleepwalking perception.

She was, of course, shielded to the nines. Even, or perhaps especially, when only her mind was present. One pony, nonetheless, held the key to all of Mist Melody's locks: body, mind, and soul.

From the light of the moon, a ghostly figure descended into the clearing. Judging from the wings, the horn, the crown, and the sheer massive size, there was only one pony it could be.

Trace’s enchanted pink eyes beheld the figure. “Princess Luna?” Mist Melody asked – not aloud in reality, in case Trace’s ears would hear it and wake him up, but in the dream half of this channeled experience.

“Mist Melody,” the ghostly Princess Luna replied, her tone and facial expression immediately implying that this was a business visit, not for pleasure. She wasn’t nude, though not armored either – she was wearing a simple royal gown that downplayed her features, combined with a magical glamour to mask some of the more intimidating (or arousing) parts of her natural aura. This was apparently a night for comforting regular ponies in need, not going to war in the shadows on their behalf.

Naturally, Mist Melody was a little confused. She and the Princess enjoyed something of an informal, intimate relationship, but she never imagined that the Unbound Moon herself would check in with her in person. Even less so after only a couple of days, especially in such a complicated way. “Come to check up on me? I thought you were going to let me handle this myself.”

Princess Luna sighed. Uh-oh. That was the ‘I-am-disappointed-in-my-student’ sigh. Mist was in trouble for something. But Luna beat around the bush and looked at the clearing first. “I will admit, this has been an opportunity to sate some minor curiosity,” she said, taking in every detail. The faintly glowing ghostly Princess drew one immensely powerful foot across the ground in the very center of the clearing. Her limb did not disturb the soil, but it did cause some manner of magical lines to briefly glow beneath the dirt, crossing like a vertex of a very, very large grid. “Upon an intersection of earthley, no less,” Luna observed. “You certainly have stacked the deck.”

“I’ve only got three weeks…” Mist pointed out. She used Trace’s face to pout at the Princess before shrugging his shoulders and saying defeatedly, “Alright, what is it? Why are you here?”

Luna’s lips smacked as she paused and searched for the words she wanted to use. “Councilpony Leaf… noticed something amiss in his dream last night.”

Mist Melody winced, hard. “Fuck.” She recovered for a moment and demanded, “Okay, how?”

“A book in his mental library had been left slightly crooked.”

“...fffffFUCKING mind palaces!” Mist cried out, rubbing Trace’s forehead in frustration. “Ugh, I hate mind palaces. Wonderful resources, but – rrrrgh!”

Luna broke out into brilliant, full-bodied laughter, setting her Z-cups off into a jaunty jiggling beneath her royal raiments. “Similar to the first night I caught you, is it not?” she said amidst her giggling.

“Okay, that one,” Mist rebutted, pointing a finger at the Princess, “was more of a mind penthouse, and that’s being reeeaalll generous.”

But eventually, Mist’s indignation couldn’t hold up, and she started to laugh a little too.

When they both managed to calm down and collect their virtual breath, Luna said in a much more conversational tone, “You covered your tracks well. He does not know who invaded his sleeping mind, hand-copied a page from one of his memorized books, and attempted to cover up the evidence of said copying… but he has brought it to my attention. I have promised him that I will find the perpetrator and, if necessary, apply discipline.”

“Mmm. Discipline,” Mist Melody echoed, waggling Trace’s eyebrows. Given the smirk on Luna's lips, she felt it'd be permitted.

“The sort of discipline I might delegate to my High Priestess.”

Trace’s face fell. “Awwwwww,” Mist moaned. She really didn’t like the Archmage of Illusions’ schtick. There was no denying Trixie’s mastery of the craft, nor her worthiness for the position, nor her ability to absolutely mindfuck her lessers in the bedroom (and provide loving care afterward). Mist didn’t even mind the illusory mindfucking part – quite the opposite, in fact. She just… wasn’t a fan of that particular rollercoaster ride, least of all its conductor. “But I had your permission for that, though!”

Luna smirked playfully at the possessed earth pony. “You still deserve a little something for getting caught.”

“Caught by the most anal – okay, fine. Fine.” Trace’s hands went up in surrender. “Once this is over, I’ll accept my ‘discipline’ with grace. And only a little bitching.” She looked down to the paper on her lap and, after a moment’s thought, added another item to the list.

“Did you at least talk to Tree Hugger like I asked?” Luna said.

Mist looked up and replied, “Oh, yeah. She was actually kinda helpful, which was a nice change a pace from all the other ponies you pointed me to.” She sighed and added, “Just… the advice Tree Hugger gave me… wasn’t for this part. It was for the part in the future. The Akashic one.”

That got a chuckle out of the Princess. “Yes, I suppose that is the risk you run with her.” She glanced over at the cart. “So the page you copied is…?”

“In the tent.” Trace’s glowing eyes looked pointedly at Luna. “You gonna confiscate it?”

“Oh, no. I… trust your judgment.”

Which was coded Princess-speak for ‘that document, though archaic and perhaps inconsequential, is still technically illegal to possess, so you better make sure that you two are the only souls that ever lay eyes on that copy.’

“I understand,” Mist replied professionally. A flash of inspiration came to her, and she scribbled down one more item to the list on the paper. Then Trace’s body stood up, walked back to the tent, and carefully placed the paper face-up on the inside to guarantee that Trace would see it first thing in the morning.

The specter of Luna observed this passively, then said, “Well, my curiosity is sated. I’m quite impressed with your preparations.”

Mist stood up straight, a squareness of nature that somehow managed to get Trace to a facsimile thereof, and sighed. “I’m glad you like it. Truth be told, I’m kinda improvising my butt off here.”

“Then you are fortunate you have so much buttock to work with,” Luna replied, a wide grin growing across her muzzle.

“Ahaha, aha…” Mist smirked and waggled a finger back at her. “You’re one to talk.”

With a great flap of her wings, Luna took into the air by a few feet. The faint light in the clearing brightened once more, as if to reabsorb her ghostly form back into the moon itself. “I bid you good hunting, little Melody.”

Mist in Trace’s body grinned back. “Same to you, Princess.”

Luna nodded, then disappeared. The vision ended.

Trace’s body stepped back into the tent, closed the door behind it, then carefully got back into the sleeping bag and rolled onto the side he’d originally been sleeping on, as if nothing had happened.

Though before she ended the possession, Mist left a little smirk on Trace’s face. She could feel the hardening bulge being contained by Trace’s briefs.

Remote-piloting a pony’s sleeping body via dream magic was an incredibly complex feat. Having a conversation with another dreamwalker’s projection at the same time without waking up the host, even more so.

Going from possessing a sleepwalking pony to simply entering their dreams… That was as easy as falling.

Mist Melody let Trace’s dream-world materialize around her. Using her capabilities as a dreamshaper, she also created a casual outfit for herself: A pair of too-tight daisy dukes and a t-shirt with DJ PON-3’s logo on it (a souvenir from one of her late-night concerts) – both stretched obscenely by Mist’s hyper endowments. She left her feet bare, though, to let her sharp-nailed toes breathe a little.

Trace’s dream was taking place at night in some kind of tiki hut village surrounded by trees. The buildings were generic, not sensibly placed, and somewhat blurry to look at, for they weren’t the focus of the dream. The real action was taking place in the village square.

In the center of the village was a great big totem pole reaching far into the night sky. A ring of fire illuminated the lowest parts of the pole, each segment sporting a gnarled visage that was vaguely reminiscent of a significant antagonistic figure of Trace’s life. If Mist looked all the way up to the top, she might have even found a likeness of herself. But again, the totem pole was not the clearest part of the dream.

The real stars of the dream were the zebra dancers.

Eight mares, taller than Mist herself, swinging their exaggerated hips and enormous titties to a resounding, heart-pounding drum beat coming from nowhere yet all around. Heat far more than fire seared off every sway and thump. The dancers were clad only in grassy headdresses and skimpy loincloths that made no attempt at wrapping around anything naughty, letting the cloth drape loosely and swing with every wild motion, revealing their scrumptious treasures with every alternate step. Their ultra-thin waists and racetrack curves were silhouetted and highlighted by the firelight, creating an enchanting display of flesh as they danced vigorously all around the totem pole.

And sitting upon a tree stump between Mist and the dancers, distant enough to be ignored but close enough to see every detail, was Trace, eyes wide open and mouth forming a little ‘o’ shape. He was dressed in a safari explorer’s outfit, complete with pith helmet like a mini Daring Do. His cargo shorts were dented by the presence of a throbbing erection.

Mist smirked and walked up behind him silently, shifting her weight carefully on her toes. When she was standing behind and to the side of him, she casually said, “You know–”

“GAAAH!” Trace started, jumping nearly out of his skin. Proof once again that Luna was right about everything: nervy stallions were adorable.

Without missing a step, Mist continued, “–this is really more of a Pony-Islander thing than a Zebrican thing, but…” She shrugged playfully, baring her fangs at Trace. “Eh. I still dig it.”

Trace’s head zipped back and forth between Mist and the zebra mares. “What are– What–” And then it all hit him again, and he put a hand to his forehead. “...Right. Dream.”

Mist crouched beside Trace. As she lowered down, her powerful thighs flexed next to his body, which he tried valiantly not to ogle. “We really gotta get you some lucid dreaming training,” she said to him. “It would make these little introductions go a lot faster, and you’d be having way more fun in scenarios like this one instead of just going with the flow.” She openly admired all the hyper zebra girls still conducting their... stimulating ritual. “Y’know, getting in there instead of sitting back here because you feel like all that female bounty is sacred and unattainable. Still, though – you sure your special talent isn’t as a glassblower? Because those are some mighty hourglasses you’ve created.” She actually wolf-whistled at the display. “Damn.”

Flashes of pink tinged Trace’s brown cheeks as he focused down on his shoes and adjusted his shorts to make his bulge less noticeable. “I-I was just reading the books you sent me, since I’d set up the camp and there wasn’t much else to do…”

“Ooooh, getting a head start, are we? Good, very good!” A powerful hand clasped Trace’s shoulder and shook him around a little bit. Mist’s grin seemed like it would be impossible to remove now. She looked back up at the dancing scene. “So, I take it you peeked at the songbook and got those exotic zebras all up in your head, huh? And the forest is here ‘cuz you can’t stop worrying about where you’re camping, and you probably couldn’t build up the nerve to jack off so you went to bed frustrated and horny… Tell me, what’s the totem pole for?”

Trace shrugged helplessly, wishing he could maybe die from embarrassment and get it over with. The best he could do was keep talking about mundane things to calm himself down. “I… I figured the book on languages and that weird paper with the runic text were connected. Took me a while, but I think I managed to find the right reference… It really is ancient, and a bitch to translate – the grammar doesn’t seem the same, a lot of the words have multiple meanings, and… Well, anyway, there was this one series of runes that kept showing up over and over again, so I looked for the translation… and from what I can tell, it says ‘totem.’ The runic word for ‘totem’ shows up over and over again on those pages.”

Mist did a quick and quiet little fist-pump on the side Trace couldn’t see.

“So that’s why you got me those wooden blocks and the carving knife, right?” Trace muttered and looked up at Mist (who even crouching was much taller than him sitting). “The runes are some kind of instructions, and you want me to carve some kind of wooden totem.”

Mist brought her hands together and gave the earth stallion a little golf clap. “I’m very impressed, Trace. Good initiative! Yeah, you were going to find out in the morning – that’s one of the daily jobs I’m gonna have you do. Keep translating the rest of that page, and try to make a totem that represents yourself. You’ve got enough blocks to make about one or two attempts per day.”

“Wait, totems that represent… me?” Trace asked.

Mist nodded. “Yeah, that’s what I want you to do. Now, what do I mean by that? Do I want you to make a little doll version of Trace? Something more symbolic?” She winked at him. “That’s for you to figure out.”

“So I keep making totems until… what?”

“Until you figure out what they mean.”

Trace threw his hands up and growled out of his throat. “Great.”

“Don’t worry, you’ll have plenty of other stuff to do that’s way more fun.” Mist grunted and stood up to her full imposing height. “But that’s for the morning. Whaddaya say we take the rest of this night to just enjoy ourselves, hmmm?” She reached down to offer her hand to Trace.

Her hand made him flinch a little bit, and he just sat there looking up at her speechlessly.

“Suit yourself,” she said.

The hyper thestral jogged toward the dancing zebras, her great endowments bouncing without a care in the world with each step. The dream-dancers seemed to welcome her naturally into the fold, making a space for her as she joined the ring and got to shaking what her momma gave her.

No matter how hard he tried, Trace couldn’t resist watching. And the more he watched, the more impossible it was not to notice that Mist was making a lot of moves for his benefit. Swishing her short purple tail across the back of her daisy dukes, shaking her lush butt at him, flexing her glutes, flexing her biceps and pressing them against the sides of her huge t-shirt-bound breasts, shaking her butt at him some more...

Trace’s whole body trembled with adrenaline, arousal, bewilderment, and more than a little anger. He stood up abruptly, knocking the pith helmet off his head in the process. “What in Tartarus is your problem?!” he shouted across the village square.

The dancing came to an abrupt halt. Mist turned around and didn’t move, giving Trace a half-lidded ‘Seriously?’ kind of look.

For a moment, Trace’s sudden case of backbone buckled, and he regretted speaking up against this pony that could probably pummel him into the dirt. But he recovered swiftly. “With the… With the flirting and the… the innuendo and the constant sexualization!” he sputtered, building momentum with every word. “What, do you have some kind of sick fetish for desperate losers down on their luck?!”

The zebra dancers faded into transparency. They had lost all importance in the dream. Mist sighed and rubbed her thumb against her forehead.

“I know why you’re really doing this,” Trace continued, pointing an angry finger at the hyper thestral. “You’re using my libido against me to pull my strings, make me do what you want. On top of all the other power you have over me.”

Mist threw her head back and let out a frustrated “Uggggggh.” She shot a look at Trace that struggled to stay calm and patient. “Buddy… I’m not using your libido against you, I’m using it for you.”

“How the heck does that work?” Trace demanded, waving his arms wildly. At the same time, the village scene wavered for a moment and the distant forest branches bristled.

The thestral took a couple steps closer and gestured vaguely around them. “Because your sex drive is tangled up in all this!” she explained. “The Sunny Days incident didn’t just ruin your career and your sense of self-worth. It convinced you that your fetishes make you an evil person, so you always feel guilty indulging in them! All I’m trying to do is be supportive. Because hey, as long as you’re sane about practicing it, there’s nothing wrong with sizeplay and powerplay. I like it too!”

Trace felt equal parts shameful and incensed. “Well– Well great! You get to live in a sexual utopia where all your kinky dreams come fucking true! But the rest of us, we mere mortals down on Planet fucking Epona, don’t get any of those luxuries! Down here, if we want that shit, we gotta make do with the table scraps of all the porn and erotica starring you guys!!”

Before he was even done, Trace knew he was just venting a deranged rant. And yet the words kept tumbling out, needing to be exorcised from his body, even if they were vile and hateful and wrong. He sat back down and wrapped his arms around his trembling stomach, feeling sick of himself.

He didn’t even notice Mist approaching until she was towering above him, looking down past the enormous swells of her souvenir t-shirt. There was a dismissive, vaguely pitying expression on her muzzle. “If I didn’t know any better,” she said softly, “I’d take all of that shit personally. But I do. I said something similar to Princess Luna.”

Surprised, Trace looked up.

Mist took a deep breath and sighed. “I kinda wanted to save this for later. It might be too much of a clue… and I guess I don’t like talking about it. But you deserve to know a little bit of it.”

The thestral sat down on the ground in front of Trace’s stump, crossing her powerful legs just a few inches away from his average ones. She still had a few inches of height on him, and the backlighting of the distant fires cast her body in a stark silhouette, punctuated by her golden eyes. But there was also some warmth to her all of a sudden, and her unique scent (that Trace was still having trouble placing) had an inviting effect upon him rather than disarming.

Somewhat grumpily (and cutely), Mist placed her chin on her fist. “Six years ago,” she began, “I was on the same path as you. On my way to rock-bottom. I got on the bad side of ol’ Moonbutt herself, but… instead of arresting me, she kinda captured me and– well, I guess it was an arrest of sorts, but the point is, she did the same thing for me that I’m doing for you now.”

“The same… thing?” Trace said weakly, his emotions scattered to the wind by this sudden show of honesty from Mist. He looked around at the forest questioningly.

“No, not– not exactly the same. She didn’t make me go camping like this. I mean, y’know, she helped me find what I was missing, what I needed to get out of my garbage life and avoid a stint in Tartarus.” She let out a heavy breath. “I hated it at first. I hated her.”

“You… hated Princess Luna?!” Truth told, Trace didn’t have a high opinion of the royalty himself, but it was surprising to hear one of Luna’s own guards say such a thing – weren’t the royal institutions in direct service to the Princesses supposed to be basically religious cults?

“Well, more like resented. I… had ideas about how the world worked back then, and…” She stopped and shook her head. “Y’know what, I’ve said enough. The point is: I’m paying forward the favor that was done for me. That’s why I’m really doing this.”

“Luna helped you… and now you’re helping me…?”

“Yep. Simple as that.” Mist cleared her throat and pounded her clavicle with her fist a few times. “Guh, now I’ve gotten all sappy. Look what you did to me.”

It took a few more brain cycles to put all the pieces together, but after it all clicked, Trace put his face in his hands and groaned. “Y’know, if you’d just led with all that…”

“If I’d led with that...” Mist argued, “if I’d taken the time to sloooowly earn your trust and talk you into doing all this… we wouldn’t be at the camping stage until like day 10. We’ve only got 21. And the point I’m trying to reach with you? ...It took me two years. I kinda have to hit the ground running here. I needed to shock your system, take you out of your miserable comfort zone. And yeah, pull your strings a bit.”

Trace nodded. At long last, he finally had the answer to the question ‘Why me?’ Finally, Mist Melody’s actions towards him made some kind of sense. “Alright, alright,” he said, much more calmly than in pretty much any other interaction they’d had up to this point. Somewhat sarcastically, he added, “I’ll behave.”

The thestral didn’t seem totally satisfied, though. “All that crap you said about normals vs. hypers… You know that’s not true, right?”

“I know, I know…” Trace groaned. “I lashed out.”

“Hyper and normal ponies hook up on the regular,” Mist remarked. “Frankly, out of all the ponies I’ve seen fuck, those are probably some of the most loving relationships out there. But I get it. That’s the sort of thing you feel like saying when the walls have been closing in for years and your only cellmate is Miss Rosie Palms.”

Despite himself, Trace actually chuckled a bit at that. “Pretty much.”

Mist regarded him for a second, and then scooted forward closer to Trace. So close that her legs pressed up against his, the heat of her massive body warmed his dream, and her outthrust chest invaded a great deal of his personal space.

“Go ahead,” she said. “Cop a feel.”

Trace’s brain stopped working for a second.

“C’mon, there’s a wall of ice between us, and I already said I wanna help you with your sexual problems too. How many years has it been since you had a partner? Touch my boob. Get it over with.”

Trace gulped and looked up at Mist’s golden eyes – for probably only the third or fourth time since this whole dream started. “The teasing’s never going to stop, is it?”

She stuck her tongue out at him. “Only if you be a spoilsport and stop making it so fun.”

Trace beheld the shirt-covered Q-cups before him, took a deep breath, defensively shut his eyes… and gently caressed the nipple bulge on his right-hand side. It was… amazingly soft to the touch.

“Mmmm,” Mist hummed pleasurably, and licked her lips. “That wasn’t so bad, was it? Wanna go a bit further?”

Reluctantly, Trace removed his hand from her body and scooted back. “To be honest…”

“I understand.” Mist Melody finally scooted back and stood up. “Tell you what – you do your daily exercises and clear my challenges, and not only will I tell you more of my personal story, I’ll even throw in some extra special training.” She looked down at him past her peaks and bounced her eyebrows.

“I’ll… think about it,” Trace mumbled, blushing and holding back a nervous smile.

“I’m sure you will.” Mist turned around and began to saunter away. The dream of the zebra village began to dissipate – without the two of them keeping it coherent, Trace’s subconscious mind was getting ready to move on to some other scene.

Before she left, something about what she said struck Trace as odd. “Wait! What do you mean ‘challenges’?”

“You’ll find out in three days,” she said with one last wiggle of her hips. “Train hard!”