Author's Note

*But everypony involved sure wishes it was.

Yes, believe it or not, I'm actually finishing a scene started in a previous chapter. Shocker, I know.

This Is Not a Nightmare*, Part 2

"I bet almost everypony you've ever met both loves you and hates you with a burning passion," Spitfire declared as she placed a hoof against his chest and shoved. This had the effect of pushing her away from him, as opposed to her intended result, but she still got the foreleg-length distance from him she wanted, so she glared directly into his amber eyes instead of getting distracted. "Being right more often than not has doubtless made an insufferable ass out of you."

"That's racist~ Ahem. That is one of my several reasons for isolating myself, yes. Speaking of burning, I seem to remember dipping into this coma in front of a roaring bonfire within easy spitting distance of a forest and presided over exclusively by a moron who probably couldn't handle preening his own feathers. I know I'm stuck in here until I recover, which I doubt is going to be nearly soon enough to save the day, so I'll have to ask you to go in my stead."

"'In here'? What, is this some kind of- of course this is some kind of dr-" Of course, as was typical of most alert ponies, Spitfire woke the instant she realized that she was dreaming. Also of course, if Torque had not been entirely exhausted and possibly also on the edge of death, he would have woken up some time ago.

"Aaaand, she's gone. Now to figure out how she got in here." Torque looked around, watching his awareness of the dream state manifest as a brilliant light that carved the dark waters surrounding him into smoky-gray canyons.

He levitated, though not by his own conscious will, skyward until he stood upon an ashen mesa and found himself gazing out over a landscape which was marginally less bleak than it had been just a short while ago. Of course, this wasn't the much more pleasant traditional Equestrian vista he was usually rewarded with at the end of his dreams, but since he typically had to be repaid for his heroic efforts by being emotionally discarded and "dying" to get to see that, he was conflicted. His immediate company appeared to be a gnarled and blackened tree until it metamorphosed into the Night Princess herself. Well, at least that answered his question regarding how another pony got into his dream. He would have been more surprised if it weren't for the fact that that was the only answer that question could reasonably have had.

"Princess Luna," Torque began, crossing his right hoof over his chest and bowing until his horn was level with his shoulders. A perfect military bow, the absolute minimum required of a Royal Guard. "To what do I owe the tremendous honor?"

"This is your dream, Mr. Stripe. You can afford to be a little less formal." Luna replied, and the stallion could tell by her tone and body language there was something she was struggling to tell him. Like Spitfire, however, she took an opportunity to distract herself. "While I'm at it, why is this place so desolate? It pains me to say it as the regent of the matter, but I'd almost be happier if you didn't dream at all if this is the kind of environment your mind conjures."

"Princess, please..." Torque closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose with the crook of his front right knee. "I don't wish to be rude, but please get to the point. I have not shared your company in my entire life prior to just now. You're not here on a social call. This damage you see all around us, this is past tense, and also much better than it was a minute ago. You can't save me from it, and you know that. What happened? Who died?"

At that last word, Luna reared her head, her ears first perking sharply then flattening against the side of her head. Tears welled up in her eyes before she shut them tightly and turned her face away from him. Torque was just starting to think that he'd earned a platinum upgrade on his "Unbearable Jerk" internal merit badge (finally putting him on even hoofing with Blueblood, Zephyr, and Lightning) when she finally spoke, her voice at once hollow and laden with poorly-suppressed sobs as she gave him the news nopony would ever want to hear in their entire lives:

"All of them."

"All of... who?" Torque asked, for once in his life genuinely and openly afraid. She hoped he was talking about his estranged family, and whether the one he was adopted from or into, he didn't much care. But deep down inside, he knew better.

"My sister's... Damnit, Spitfire, why did you leave this in my hooves? The One Hundred, Mr. Stripe. They are no more, save for Captain Shining Armor. That's why we're recalling veterans such as yourself. They... they all... killed themselves, after the latest incident with the Changelings."

"What, the wedding? But that was years ago, back when I was still in service! Why would-" Torque stopped and narrowed his eyes. "There has been a more recent incident involving the Changelings."

"Yes!" Luna sob-shouted, following Spitfire in having a much bigger emotional reaction than Torque to something the latter ought to have been having the bigger emotional reaction to. "They captured all of the core Royal Family and half the extended one, but there won't be a retaliatory war with them, because they're... different now. My sister wants us to focus on the prospect of a peaceful future, not revenge. I'm so sorry! All this time, I've never even considered how all of these things going on lately must be making the lot of you feel!"

"In your defense, Princess, we're specifically trained to psychologically register as furniture to you and the rest of the nobility." Torque quipped, trying and failing to escape the telekinesis-assisted nonconsensual hug by the bawling alicorn mare who was as big as he was. "Please release me, you are making this very awkward."

"Awkward? Awkward!? All of your friends are dead you psychotic little stallion!" Luna released him from her forelegs but not her aura, which she used to float him a couple body-lengths away from her and shake him vigorously as she worked progressively up to the Royal Canterlot Voice, which in his dream seemed to be coming from everywhere at once. "YOU SHOULD BE THE ONE CRYING YOUR HEART OUT RIGHT NOW! JUST WHAT THE HAY IS WRONG WITH YOU!?"

"That's a very long and ill-defined list, Your Highness," Torque replied, once he'd been stationary long enough to orient his thoughts. He gestured to their surroundings in an effort to use them to summarize his personality defects, then continued, "After all, sane happy ponies don't make for very good government-contracted killers. Most pertinent to the topic at hoof, however, are the facts that I have fainted from exhaustion and life-threatening trauma; and that I have never been able to 'feel' properly in the first place. Also, I had long suspected that many of the Guard would end up giving up on life in the face of all the shenanigans they've thus far been wholly unable to prevent. I just... didn't think it was going to be all of them, nor so literally. Now, if you don't mind, I'd like to take you up on that offer of 'not dreaming at all'. Today has been a very long and dismal day, and it looks like the future ones are only going to be worse."

"Your wish is granted. Just understand that by my command, I expressly forbid that you die." Princess Luna responded, educating both of them on the notion that it was possible to verbally spit gently. She set him down and instantly he was embraced by a peaceful darkness.