Tickle Fights and Dungeon Nights

Dreamy slowly opened his eyes again, a warm light shining against his face. He looked around, immediately on edge after waking up. The room was different, it was a soft, calming yellow in contrast to the dark shadows of the dungeon. He felt the warmth of a blanket on top of him instead of straps and stocks keeping him down.

Upon trying to sit up straight, Dreamy let out a strained, gravely scream, his abs and throat suddenly flaring up with pain, forcing him to lie back down. After many failed attempts, he finally managed to sit upright, rolling the blanket off his body. Dreamy found that he was fully dressed in his familiar blue pajamas. He rolled back the sleeves, seeing thick bars indented around his limbs. He ran his foot against the mattress, making him jolt. He tore off the blanket to look at his bare feet, soles and toes reddened and hypersensitized from abuse. All of it proof that what happened to him wasn’t part of some disturbing nightmare.

Dreamy rubbed his temples and groaned, trying to see if there was some gap in his memory that explained what happened to him. But all he could remember was being tickled until he blacked out.

He looked outside a nearby window, seeing the sun against the horizon. Although without any knowledge of where he was, he had no idea whether the sun was rising or setting.

The tranquil silence was interrupted by the opening of the door, revealing Princess Celestia, wearing her usual flowing white dress and golden accessories, holding a glass full of icy water. He quickly recoiled away out of fear.

“Good evening, Dreamy. You’ve been asleep for quite a while,” she said in a calming voice.

The princess’s serene tone did nothing to ease Dreamy’s tension. He tried to respond, but what came out what a raspy groan. He rubbed his throat, trying to force out his words. “...Am...I dead?” This all felt too surreal to be any sort of living reality.

Celestia shook her head, sitting down next to him. “No, you just...fainted and didn’t wake up until the evening,” she gently rubbed his back, trying to reassure him she meant no harm. She offered him the glass for his sore throat.

Dreamy hesitated, incredibly wary of the Princess due to recent incidents, but he grabbed the glass anyway, chugging down the water, feeling instant relief as it went down. “I’ve...been sleeping for that long?” he said quietly, trying not to cause any more pain to his vocal chords.

“Dreamy, I’m incredibly sorry for what we did to you. Shining Armor and I went too far, and you definitely didn’t deserve such a harsh punishment,” Celestia said with a heavy sigh. “We pushed you past your limits, and you have every right to be angry.”

Dreamy looked up at her in silence. He wanted to say something in anger, or at the very least, sarcasm, but his throat was too sore and his spirit too broken to follow through.

“I’m guessing that just an apology isn’t going to be enough to make up for this, hm?”

“...Yeah…” Dreamy replied, expecting some sort of massive monetary payment to try and forget any of this ever happened.

“Well, how about this? Whenever you’d like, we can go into one of the private dungeons, and you can tickle me and Shining Armor for however long you’d like. How does that sound?”

“Well...I guess that’s fine…” Dreamy said with a small smile. He’d be lying if he said the idea of revenge wasn’t on his mind several times while being tortured. Now that he actually had the opportunity to exact it, he certainly wasn’t going to waste it.

“Good, I look forward to seeing what you can do,” Celestia teased, ruffling his hair.

Dreamy started to relax around the princess now, seeing the playful, caring, fun side of her rather than the ruthless tickler that tortured him to the point of passing out almost a day ago. “A...Aside from that...one thing...I, um...I had a lot of fun…spending time with you...” he admitted sheepishly.

Celestia chuckled, relieved to see Dreamy open up to her. “I had a lot of fun, too. You’re quite the crafty tickler, you know that?”

Dreamy laughed weakly. “T-thanks...you’re very...relentless…and you have an adorable laugh, too...”

The two continued to talk for a while, but Dreamy’s exhausted mental state and weak voice meant that he was in no condition for extended conversation.

Celestia looked out the window for a brief moment, before looking back at Dreamy. “I know that you’re still fatigued from last night, so you’re welcome to stay here as long as you like. And, if you want to have some fun again after you get your revenge...well, I’ll see if I can fit you in my schedule,” she said with a wink. Before Celestia left, she gave the stallion a kiss on the cheek before departing, leaving Dreamy alone once more.

Dreamy sat there in silence with a small blush on his face after Celestia left. He looked out the window again, seeing the sun disappear behind the horizon. Despite not eating anything for what might have been an entire day, the issue of hunger wasn’t a concern for him at the moment. As cozy as the bed he was on was, he’d feel much better in the comfort and privacy of his own room.

He attempted to stand up, but the electrical sensations from the fuzzy carpet that shot through his feet made him retreat back onto the bed. With walking out of the question, the only way back home would be to fly there, and he was far too exhausted for that.

Dreamy sighed, deciding that it would better if he went back to bed, he could eat in the morning when he didn’t feel so fatigued. He slipped under the covers and rolled onto his stomach, making sure that his tender feet couldn’t rub against anything. Dreamy hugged one of the pillows for comfort and quickly fell asleep again.

It wasn’t long until Dreamy was cruising through the skies of Ponyville, lazily spinning through the clouds, gripping onto a particularly fluffy one as he laughed without a care in the world. Despite everything that took a toll on him in recent history, both physically and mentally, he soared through the skies with a newfound energy and enthusiasm.

Suddenly, the sunny day turned dark, and the white clouds turned an ominous gray. Dreamy tried to bail to a safer place, but found that his hands would not leave the cloud he was gripping onto. No matter how hard he pulled away, his hands were stuck, almost like they were glued there. “W-what? What’s going on?” In his confusion, he felt a pair of hands squeeze his sides from behind, making him jolt in shock.

“There you are...I’ve been waiting for you,” a booming voice suddenly echoed around him. It was regal, yet threatening at the same time. Dreamy looked around, trying to find the source, until it manifested in front of him in the form of another pony.

“So...my sister had told me about what you’ve done…you little cheater.”