Scoopful Of Dreamby IsseusChaptersEnter Sand-MareMiss Sand-Mare, Give Me A DreamDream A Little Dream For MeEnter Sand-MareAsh was floating in the warm, deep waters of almost falling asleep. In the real world, she felt her small body grow heavier, her own breath lighter and shallower. Her hind leg gave a small twitch, her body signaling it was ready for a well-earned rest. And inevitably, like every night, the thoughts came, like nasty little bubbles of thought floating up from the depths of blissful, restful sleepy sea. "You're alone," one of them said as it popped right next to her ear. "They always pick someone else," another said. "Boring!" "Average!" "Nopony will ever notice you." The bubbles kept coming, shaking her back to the realm of the waking. Ash tried her best to ignore the thoughts, concentrating once again to her nightly ritual. One of the few things she remembered of her father was teaching her how to relax herself after a long day of playing and studying. She could almost hear his soothing words. "Relax your hooves, feel them grow warm and heavy. Feel the warmth slowly build up and flow into your body. Feel the sleep flow into every part of you, from your belly to your back, and finally up your neck and into your eyes." Ash did it faithfully every night, and most of the time it even worked, but she knew it wouldn't. Not today. There'd been another couple today, another choice, another family being born, happy tears and hugs, but not for her. Not for the boring little ash-coloured filly that never stood up. She'd been in the line more times than she could remember, or cared to either. It was easier not to care. Ash tried to shake her head a bit to find a better position on her pillow, but all it did was shake her even more awake. With a heavy sigh, she opened her eyes. In the dim light of the bedroom, she could easily make out the bottom of the bed of the foal sleeping above her. All around her, the quiet noises of a shared bedroom in night-time floated to her ears. Tiny snores, the creaking of a bed as another foal tired to find a better position, someone muttering a few words in their sleep. At first it had been awful to try and fall asleep around so many others, but she'd gotten used to it. She'd had to, anyway. Ash sat up and looked around. Her bed was the one furthest from the door, the other seven beds in the room occupying one wall of the long room, the other side reserved for a bookshelf, a few tables, but mostly it was empty space for playing during the day. She could just about make out a few scattered toys littering the floor in clear violation of Mrs. Shallot's wishes of a clean room before bedtime. The door to the hallway outside was slightly ajar, allowing a tiny sliver of dim light to creep into the room. That's where Ash was headed for now. A little night-time trot, maybe a glass of water, something to take her mind off of things. She threw her blanket off and rolled off the bed, landing on all fours. Yawning, she silently crept through the room. She easily dodged the few building blocks on the floor, the most uniquitous trap of a foal's bedroom in the dark. Out the door into the dimly corridor she went. A light was still shining through the window of another door further down the line, probably Mrs. Shallot doing some late-night paperwork that she could finally get done now that there weren't any foals around being, well, foals. That wasn't Ash's destination, though. Instead she crossed the hallway and entered the door with the picture of a filly on it. She prodded the wall in the dark until she hit the light switch, and had to blink as her eyes adjusted to the brighness. There were a few foal-sized stalls on the back wall, but those weren't Ash's destination either. She climbed on one of the stepping stools next to the sinks and turned on the water. A tired filly looked back at her from the mirror. She could basically imagine what it said in her papers somewhere in Mrs. Shallot's office. Ashley Cream. Aged ten or something. Nopony knew for sure, because there were no papers to say otherwise. That's why her birthday was the first day of the year, same as many other foals there. Even her real name had been lost, the one she was now stuck with given just by her appearance: Boring, dark gray coat, a dull cream mane cut short and brushed to the side, just like every other filly there. No cutie mark, because there was nothing special about her. Bleary, reddish eyes, with clear darker patches underneath stared at her from the mirror. She looked tired, but that was nothing new; she always looked like that, even after a full night's sleep. She stuck out her tongue at her reflection and splashed some warm water on her face. Face wet, she instinctively looked around herself before she leaned down and took a long sip straight from the faucet. Ash could feel her thoughts calming down a bit, like her night-time strolls usually did, and she yawned. She jumped down from her perch and returned to the corridor, and back into her shared bedroom. She should have probably waited for a moment for her eyes to adjust to the dark, but she was pretty sure she could remember where everything was. First she had to go around the— THUMP! "Oww!" a strange voice said. "Huh?" Ash replied in confusion. She was sure that there hadn't been anypony there, especially a full-grown mare like the one sitting in front of her, probably knocked onto her rump from their collision. "Sorry," she said in a whisper. Their eyes met, and the mare's grew wide. With a quick movement of a hoof, she pulled something out from behind her back and threw it in the air. It was a sparkling dust that she threw above her, and right before Ash's eyes, the mare vanished. She blinked a few times to make sure her eyes weren't playing tricks on her. "Where'd ya go?" she whispered loudly, but got no answer. She tried to scan the room, but now that her nightvision had returned, she was definitely alone. "What the hay?" she asked to the empty room. If her muzzle wasn't still slightly sore from the bump before, she would have been sure that it was all her imagination. But right then, she heard another yelp of pain ahead of her, followed by a loud crash as the building blocks claimed yet another grown-up victim. The mare had appeared again, this time flat on her face between two of the beds furthest from the door. "A-are you okay, Miss?" Ash asked as she carefully trotted next to her. Around her, she could hear the other foals stir from their sleep from the noise. The mare had pushed herself up and was shaking her head, her white mop of a mane waving around messily. As the colt on the bed next to her sat up, she quickly grabbed Ash with one hoof and stuck the other in one of the several pouches tied to her vest and produced another hoof-ful of that strange dust into the air, this time landing on the both of them. The colt looked right at them, right through them, then around himself in confusion. As Ash watched, the mare holding her dug up yet another hoof-ful of dust, this one the colour of deep black, and blew it gently straight into the face of the colt. The colt blinked a few times, yawned, and laid back down, his head barely hitting the pillow before he was already snoring gently. "Wow, what did you do?" Ash asked. "Sleep dust," the mare answered. Ash's eyes grew wide from realisation. Walking around bedrooms in the middle of the night, blowing dust on foals to make them fall asleep. "You're the Sand-mare!" she said in a loud voice. The mare smiled. "You caught me." There was something else Ash caught too—The glint of long fangs as the mare smiled. She squinted her eyes to have a better look at the mare and could make out long ears with tufts of hair sticking through her messy mane. "Wow, are you a batpony?" The mare's eyes narrowed a bit. "Thestral. We're called thestrals. Calling us batponies is like calling unicorns 'hornponies'" To accentuate her point, she gave a tiny, indignant wave of one of her large bat-like wings. "S-sorry!" Ash quickly blurted out. Then she suddenly realised she'd probably been talking really loudly. She looked around her, but the other foals seemed to have calmed down and fallen back asleep. "Don't worry," the thestral mare said. "They can't see or hear us. I tossed some hiding dust on us both." Without hesitation, Ash crept up to the sleeping colt and talked right into his ear. "You really can't hear me?" she asked loudly, but the colt didn't stir. "YOU CAN'T HEAR ME!?" she shouted, and when the colt refused to even twitch, Ash backed down with a giggle. "That's so cool," she said. As she looked at the smiling mare, another question popped up. "I can see you though." The mare nodded. "Yes. We're both hiding with hiding dust so we can see each other." She smiled. "And no, you can't have any for playing hide-and-seek." Ash deflated a bit. "As if I needed it for hiding," she said. The mare misinterpreted her words as indignation. "So I guess you're really good at hiding?" Ash sighed a bit and looked away. "It's not like I wasn't good at hiding, it's that the other foals usually forget I'm even playing and don't come look for me." "Oh..." was all the mare could say. She looked around her and remembered where she was. "Right" They sat in silence for a few moments. "Well, I guess you should be heading off to bed now too, my little filly," the mare said. "Ashley," Ash said. "But everypony calls me Ash." "Well, Ash, it's bedtime. Is this your bed?" the mare patted the only empty bed in the room. Ash climbed onto her bed, pulled her blanket over herself and lay down. "Are you going to blow sleepy dust on me too now?" "That's the idea," the mare said as she gently tucked Ash in. "Don't worry, you'll think this was just a funny dream in the morning." "Umm..." Ash started. The mare pulled some of the black dust from what Ash now realised was a little pouch tied to a dark blue vest the mare was wearing. "Yes?" the mare answered. "Could I get a little bit of that dust for later? "Having trouble falling asleep?" "Well, yeah. It's just that sometimes when I try to fall asleep, I can't stop thinking about stuff and then I can't fall asleep at all." The mare stroked Ash's mane. "That's more common than you think, but I'm sorry. Sand-mare use only." "Okay," Ash said. "Well, uh, good night?" "Good night, Ash," the mare said, as she gently blew the dust into Ash's eyes. Ash blinked a few times, then let her eyes droop shut, at least happy to be able to fall asleep. A moment passed. Another. Yet another. Ash opened her eyes. She could see the sand-mare walking away from her bed, this time careful not to step on any other toy hazards. "Umm, Miss?" The mare froze and turned around. Ash sat up on her bed. "How long before it starts working?" she asked. The mare returned back to Ash's bedside with what Ash could only think of as 'in a slight rush'. "It should work immediately. Maybe I didn't dose you with enough or something. Hold on." The mare pulled another, yet a lot larger, pile of dust from her pouch, and unceremoniously blew it into Ash's face. Ash blinked a few times, but didn't feel any drowzier than before. She opened her eyes again. "Umm..." The mare's unceremoniously pulled the whole bag, string and all, from her vest and promptly emptied all of its contents onto Ash. After a few moments the dust finally settled and revealed the filly, still bright-eyed and utterly awake. "Anything? Not even a little bit sleepy-weepy?" "Sorry," Ash said. "That much sleep dust should have put a hippopotamus asleep, nevermind a little filly," the mare said. Then she looked at her empty bag and seemed to realise something else. "My boss is gonna be so cross." "Sorry," Ash said again. It was what adults usually wanted to hear from kids anyways. "No, it's not your fault, I mean, I don't think so," the mare said. "This has never happened before." She sat down next to the bad and rubbed her temples with her forehooves. "And now I'm behind schedule, out of dust, and leaving someone awake to boot." From her voice, that last part seemed to be the worst offense by far. "And I even promised Rem I'd cover her shift later on." After a moment she nodded to herself. "Guess I gotta go back to the Dreaming..." she said, and put a hoof onto Ash's shoulder "...and you're coming with me." Ash couldn't believe her ears. "I'm what?" "You're coming with me to the Dreaming. If anything, I can show my boss that sleep dust doesn't work on you so maybe she'll blame the lab ponies for making a bad batch or something." She felt Ash shake under her hoof. "Oh, hey, I didn't mean... It's not a scary place or anything, okay?" "That's..." Ash said, before she launched herself into a huge hug around the mare. "...SO COOL! Can we go already!?" Miss Sand-Mare, Give Me A DreamIt took a moment for the mare to pry Ash off of her neck. She looked almost ready to scold the little filly, but Ash's wide, gleaming eyes and even wider smile made her just shake her head. "Now, Ash, was it?" "U-huh!" Ash said. "My name's Dream Drop. All my friends call me Dee-Dee though." "So, uhh, can I call you Dee-Dee too?" Ash asked carefully. Dream Drop tousled Ash's mane. "Of course." Growing a bit more serious, she let her hoof slide to Ash's shoulder. "Now, Ash, we are going to go into a place where most ponies don't get to visit. It's not a dangerous place as such, but you should stick close to me so you don't get lost, okay?" Ash nodded, trying very poorly to hide her excitement behind a facade of seriousness. "Okay, now, we need to use one of your sleeping friends to actually get to the Dreaming," Dream Drop said as she pulled another pouch from her vest, this one the colour of gold. She pulled one of Ash's forehooves underneath it and poured a tiny pile of black dust onto it. "Just throw that on the colt you tried to wake up before, and we'll get going." Ash looked at the pile of dust on her hoof. It felt like a cool bed with fresh, clean sheets, right before it started to get warm from somepony's body heat underneath a warm blanket. As she looked closer, there were tiny bright specs in the dust, like tiny stars in the distance. She looked at Dream Drop, who gave her an encouraging nod, and threw the dust on the colt. The air in front of them shimmered and seemed to somehow turn sideways, becoming a round portal into deeper darkness than that of the bedroom they were in. Without hesitation, she practically jumped in. What she landed in she couldn't really see, but it made a soft 'thwump' sound as she landed. Behind her, Dream Drop entered too, throwing some of the same dust on the portal to close it. She pulled out a small lantern from one of the larger pouches on her vest. She blew a tiny breath on it, and they were soon bathed in a warm, golden light. Now that Ash could see better around her, she realised she was standing on a dirt road in a dark meadow. As she looked up, she could see the most brilliant display of stars above her, almost taking her breath away. "Pretty, isn't it?" Dream Drop asked. "Yeah!" Ash said as she tried to crane her head around to take in the whole night sky. "There's a lot more stars than I've ever seen!" "This is the first level of the Dreaming. A lot of ponies hang out around here before they fall asleep." Now that Ash looked more carefully around her, she could make out a lot of dark shapes lying on the ground on the soft grass around her. Some of them were snoring restfully, but others yet fitted in their sleep or grunted while trying to find a more comfortable position. "Can they hear us?" Ash asked in a whisper. "Not as long as we stay on the road," Dream Drop said. Ash realised she was right on the edge of the road as she'd been looking closer at one of the sleepers. "Oh, oops," she said as she backed up. "Don't worry about it. Ponies usually just remember tiny glimpses of this place before they fall completely asleep. It's a sort of waiting room. This is where ponies come after we use dream dust on them." "Huh," Ash said. She scratched her forehead with a hoof. "I just usually think I'm sinking into my mattress when I'm falling asleep." "We're close by to that place. Wanna go see?" Dream Drop asked as she fastened the lantern to the front of her vest. She pointed at a fork in the road ahead. "It's called the Dream Sea." "Sure!" Ash said. As they walked along the path, Ash kept turning around to whichever way she could, until she almost bumped into Dream Drop. "Uh, sorry!" "Don't worry about it. I remember being here for the first time too and it was really exciting," Dream Drop said. Her fangs gleamed in the darkness with her smile. For a moment, Ash was reminded of those nightmare faces she and some of the other foals had pulled with a light underneath their chins to try and scare each other on Nightmare Night. Untli Mrs. Shallot had taken their lamp and told them off for being wasteful, anyway. A tiny shiver ran down her back, and she couldn't help but giggle. "We're here," Dream Drop said. In front of them the dirt road ended abruptly, and a large body of water opened in front of them as far as Ash's eyes could see. There were a few small skiffs tied to a short wooden jetty. Dream Drop motioned for Ash to climb aboard as she untied the rope mooring the skiff. As they pushed off, Dream Drop took up a place at the aft, steering the skiff with a single oar, while Ash stood at the fore. As they quietly glided over the mirror-still water, Ash could see ponies all over floating lazily around everywhere, giving deep satisfied sighs as they slowly went under. Ash knew that seeing ponies drown should have felt creepy, but she remembered how she herself felt as she sunk into slumber that she could only smile. One of the ponies next to them, a grown-up stallion judging from his size, was groaning and shaking his hooves above him. As Ash leaned closer, she could make out tiny bubbles rising from the deep, and as they hit the surface, she could hear distant whispers. "You can't afford it," one said. "You spent too much on it," another said. Similar bubbles kept appearing and popping around him. Ash couldn't help herself, and whispered straight into the stallions ear "It's okay, you can think about it in the morning." As she watched, the stallion gave a long sigh and smiled slightly, muttering "...the morning. Yeah," as he relaxed. She turned to look at Dream Drop behind her. Ash really couldn't read the sand-mare's expression. "Did I do something wrong?" she asked. Dream Drop tilted her a bit to the side. "You're a very kind little filly, Ash." Ash could feel her cheeks grow warm from the compliment. "I just, well, I know how nasty it feels not to be able to fall asleep when you can't stop thinking about things, so I guess I just didn't want him to feel like that." She looked around the floating ponies. "A lot of them have those bubbles around them." "Yes. Here they show up as bubbles, or tiny fish tickling their hooves, or as a wind carrying words from somewhere. Back in the meadow they might be uncomfortable rocks under their backs or bugs buzzing in their ear." "Can't we do anything for them?" Ash asked. Dream Drop shook her head. "They all have to find their own solutions to their thoughts. We can't fix their problems for them." "So I shouldn't have said anything to him?" Ash asked, feeling her chest grow cold. The last thing she wanted to do was disappoint her new friend. "You did what you thought was right and only wanted to help. That means a lot." Dream Drop's fangs glinted in the night as she smiled. Ash looked around her, at all the floating ponies in deep thought. Suddenly she spied movement at the edge of vision. A clammy, slimy tentacle wrapped itself around a floating mare's barrel, followed by several more grabbing her from below, and before Ash's eyes, the mare was pulled under the surface. "W-what was that?" she asked. "Well, like I said, ponies need to find their own ways to fall asleep. That mare probably used a sleeping medicine to fall asleep." Ash felt shivers run down her back. "It looked really creepy." Dream Drop shrugged. "It's a solution. You get to fall asleep, but the quality of your sleep will probably suffer from it." "Well I'll never use something like that!" Ash exclaimed. The thought of those clammy tentacles still wouldn't leave her alone. "You never know," Dream Drop said. "Maybe some day you'll be so ill or maybe you get hurt in an accident so bad you just can't sleep." Ash gave that a thought. "I guess so," she finally said. After a moment she continued. "Usually I just sleep a lot when I'm ill." "Best medicine for a fever there is," Dream Drop said. "There's even a special type of sand-mares just for that." "What, really?" Dream Drop nodded. "There's a lot of different things us sand-mares do. For example, I'm a Duster, as in I go around making sure ponies get a chance to fall asleep on time." "So you were doing that when I found you?" Dream Drop looked to the side, and Ash could almost see her blush a bit. "I was waiting for you to come back to your bed." She deflated a bit. "I wanted to make sure I got everypony because last week I missed somepony on my round and boss chewed me out for it real bad." Ash could only nod in sympathy, very used to being scolded for carelessness herself. "I mean, how could I know they were having a sleepover and there was an extra colt there." "So that colt didn't get to sleep at all that night?" Ash asked. "Well, he probably thought it was just his nerves from sleeping at somepony else's house, and one of my co-workers dusted him off later, but I should have been more careful." "So how do you even know how many ponies you need to, um..." "Dust?" "Yeah, that. "I don't really know how it works. Basically, I get this scroll at the start of my shift and it has a list of addresses and the number of ponies there. I just thought they'd made a mistake with that house or something." "I never thought sand-mares were that important," Ash said. "I mean, umm..." she stopped abruptly. "You weren't sure we even exist in the first place?" Dream Drop completed her sentence. Ash looked down at her hooves. "Sorry." Dream Drop laughed a bit. "No problem. It's easier to do our job without everypony trying to catch us sneaking in their bedrooms. And some ponies might get really angry about their privacy and stuff." Ash looked back up at Dream Dust. "I didn't even think of that," she said. "You go into a lot of ponies' homes, so you have to see all kinds of stuff." Dream Drop nodded. "But before you ask, I can't tell you anything about what I see. I have to keep it a secret." Ash's imagination started running around with the idea of what kinds of things sand-mares would actually see in ponies' houses, but she was soon interrupted as their skiff jolted to a stop. "We're here," Dream Drop said. They'd arrived to another little jetty, and she was swiftly tying the skiff up to a post. Ash climbed off the skiff and followed Dream Drop to a small, dark house on the beach. It looked like a tiny cabin, maybe big enough for a little family of ponies to spend a few days during the Summer. For a moment, Ash wondered what it would be like to do something like that, but was again interrupted as Dream Drop opened the door. Warm light and the chatter of a few ponies carried outside. Dream A Little Dream For MeInside the door was something so normal that it took Ash completely by surprise. It was basically a school cafeteria, only scaled up for grown-ups. Tables, chairs, plants, everything in what looked like plastic. It was considerably larger than the cottage could have fit, probably able to seat several dozen ponies. A few ponies were milling around, eating their homemade packed lunches, or whatever they should be called at the middle of the night. Most of them were batponies—thestrals—Ash had to remind herself. "So, you want a soda or some snacks?", Dream Drop asked as she walked past Ash. She rummaged through one of her ubiquitous bags and produced a shiny bit and walked over to a vending machine nearby. "Most folks here drink Colt-a-cola for the caffeine or just drink coffee, but I don't think that's a good idea for somepony your age... Not that you'd have to worry about being unable to sleep." The last part had clearly gone unheard by Ash, who was poking at one of the artificial bushes. "So is all this really inside the, umm, Dreaming?" "Mm-hmm." Dream Drop answered as she pulled a bottle of Para-Sprite from the machine and put it on a table next to them, plopping a straw in the bottle for good measure. "Boss wanted to make a place that was as every-day real as she could for ponies to relax in, and I guess this is what she came up with." She sat down and motioned towards the bottle. "All yours." Ash climbed up to one of the chairs next to the table and pulled the bottle to herself, taking a deep draw from the straw. "Hey, it tastes like the real thing!" Dream Drop shrugged. "It is real. Just don't ask me how it works. Everything here is real, brought from the Waking." "Waking? Is that what you call where I come from?" Ash asked before taking another sip. Dream Drop scratched her chin. "That's where I live too, you know. I have a nice little place in one of the cave communes up North." "Ohh... I kinda thought you lived here," Ash said. "Nope. I just work here. Nopony really lives here, even though some ponies complain that they feel like they do." Ash kept scanning the room while she finished her drink. There were small posters on the walls with sentences like "No sleeping on the job!" and "This is the workplace of your dreams!" A sharp male voice surprised them both. "Hey Dee-Dee! I didn't know it was 'bring your family to work day'." The voice belonged to a young thestral with a bright blue coat and the widest smile Ash had ever seen on someone. And it would have probably been one of the nicest too, if it weren't for the fangs. Those still needed some getting used to. "It's, uhh, it's not," Dream Drop answered. Ash noticed that for some reason her cheeks were growing darker. "It's complicated." "Hey, lil' miss," the young stallion offered a hoof to Ash. "Nice to meetcha. I'm Nap Stack." Ash shook his hoof. "Ashley, but everypony c—" Without letting her finish, Nap Stack already continued. "So Ashley, do you know where fish sleep?" Ash's mouth was left open for a moment until the words caught up with her. She squinted for a moment in deep thought, then shook her hed. "The river bed, of course!" Ash couldn't help but giggle, which conveniently covered the groans coming from Dream Drop. "Okay, okay, here's another one: Do you know—" Dream Drop coughed unnecessarily loudly. "I'm really sorry, Nap, but we need to go. Right now." Nap Stack seemed to deflate a bit. "But I was just getting started..." "I know you were," Dream Drop said as she gently nudged Ash towards one of the exits. "Bye, Mr. Nap Stack!" Ash waved behind her as they stepped through yet another door. They ended up on a long slightly shimmering path through deep darkness that felt slightly chilly beneath Ash's hooves, with only stars above. It was easily wide enough for the two ponies to walk side by side. "He seemed nice," Ash said. "And funny." Dream Drop sighed. "He is very nice, but his jokes stop being funny after you hear them for the thousandth time." "So why did you blush when you were talking with him?" Ash asked innocently. Her answer was a sudden coughing fit from Dream Drop, who for some reason hurried forward on the path to yet another door that seemed to appear out of nowhere. Behind the door they stepped on a high platform above huge, steaming vats of bubbling liquids in all the colours of the rainbow. As Ash was leaning over the rail to get a closer look, something was plopped on her head. When she turned to look a Dream Drop, the mare was also putting on a bright yellow safety helmet. "We have to wear these here. Boss's orders," she said. "So what's in them?" Ash asked, returning to lean over the rail and pointing a hoof downwards. Through the steam she could make out several ponies scurrying around the vats, all of them wearing white lab coats and helmets. "Do I get a coat like that too?" she added. Dream Drop had already walked a few steps forward, only then noticing that her charge was still occupied. "You don't need one unless you work here." She motioned forward with a hoof. "Come on, we can get a better view from over here." Ash quickly trotted after Dream Drop, turning her head to each side, trying to catch everything in the dim light, constantly fighting to keep the oversized helmet from falling over her eyes. There were transparent tubes of the various liquids running everywhere, machines with a lot of different dials and lights on them, and a very important looking machine with a billows that went ´parp´. They soon arrived at a wider platform, suspended in the middle of the room above what looked like a control center. Several important looking ponies were working on dials, twisting knobs and making notes in their clipboards. "This is where we manufacture all the dreams that ponies see at night." Dream Drop said. "Yellow dreams are happy, blue dreams are sad, pink dreams are silly, and so on. Then we mix them up to make specific dreams." Ash looked at one of the tubes which was merrily bubbling next to them. "So that's a dream?" Dream Drop nodded. "We don't know what the dream ends up as exactly, because everypony has their own idea of what is happy or sad." "So why do you make sad dreams? Wouldn't it be better for everypony to just see happy dreams?" "It's a bit complicated, but basically everypony needs every type of dream once in a while." Ash looked at the tubes in deep thought for a moment. "So maybe happy dreams to cheer them up when they've been sad, but also sad dreams when they're really happy so they remember that sad things can happen too? And maybe when they dream of sad things the happy things they do when awake feel even happier?" Dream Drop didn't answer her immediately, and Ash turned to look at her. She was staring at Ash with her mouth slightly open. When their eyes met, she quickly shook her head and nodded. "Something like that, yes." "Wow. Mrs. Shallot must have a lot of really silly dreams because she's always so serious." She prodded one of the pink tubes running next to her and it bubbled merrily at her. "Maybe that's her dream tonight?" "It could be," Dream Drop answered. "Now, let's go meet up with the labponies. They might be able to explain more to you." She looked to the side before adding. "And maybe to me too as well." A stairway soon lead them downwards to floor level and after dodging a pair of ponies pushing a sloshing barrel, they ended up at yet another door. "Now remember, no touching anything in here, okay?" Dream Drop said. After Ash gave her a very serious nod, she pushed the door open. If the previous room had been full of tubes, then this room went overboard with them. Glasses and bottles of various sizes were bubbling and steaming on various tables around the room. The smell of various chemicals wafted in the air, some of them reminding Ash of shampoo and downy pillows. Several ponies were working around, covered from head to hoof in protective gear, from rubber boots to goggles and surgical masks. Dream Drop leaned over a counter. "Hey, Deep Dive, got a minute?" One of the labponies, a skinny Earth Pony with a dull brown coat and a mane apparently styled after an explosion walked over to them. As he removed his mask, a small stubble of a beard was revealed from underneath, but he left his goggles on. "I thought you were doing the rounds tonight?" "I was, but then I met with Ash here..." she pointed at the filly next to her, who gave the stallion a wave of her hoof "...that didn't fall asleep from sleep dust." Deep Dive scratched the back of his neck. "You think it was a bad batch of dust?" "I did, but it worked just fine on the other ponies, so maybe there's something else going on here?" "Hmmm..." Deep Dive said. He pulled a pouch very much like the ones on Dream Drop's vest from underneath the counter. "Ash, was it? Could I bother you to come over here and sit down for a moment?" He motioned for a soft-looking chair that looked very much out of place in the middle of all the laboratory equipment, especially because there was another pony asleep on it. "We use it to test new batches we make, and the one I have here was just checked to work, thanks to Hopper here." He prodded the pony on the chair in the side. "Hey, Hopper, time to get back to work!" After a few grumbles about five more minutes, Hopper climbed up from the chair and sauntered out the door. Ash climbed up into the chair and lay back, feeling herself sink comfortably into a snuggly position. Dream Drop sat on a simple small chair next to her and took the safety helmet off of Ash's head to let get get comfortable. Deep Dive took a tiny pile of the dusty sand in the pouch and gently blew it over Ash's face. It had a scent of deep, moist forest at dusk, and a hint of minty freshness to it. She blinked her eyes a few times as the sand sparkled on her coat, but just like before, nothing else happened. "Curious," Deep Dive said. "Are you sure you haven't been drinking loads of coffee or something? Or anything else that might keep you awake?" Ash shrugged. "We aren't allowed to drink coffee because Mrs. Shallot says it's only for grown-ups. She drinks a lot of it, though." "Then it might be genetic," Deep Dive said. "Do you know if your—" he started, but had his head quickly pulled to the side as Dream Drop whispered something to his ear. "Uhh... nevermind," he said. He scratched his stubbly beard, looking at Ash with a tilted head. After a while, his mouth turned into a smile. "I think I have an idea. I'll be right back." He soon vanished from Ash's view behind the laboratory equipment, his figure twisting weirdly as he walked bahind the various curved glass surfaces. "Hey, Dee-Dee, what's 'genetic' mean?" Ash asked Dream Drop fidgeted awkwardly with her hooves. "You don't need to worry about it." "Umm, okay," Ash said. She let her gaze wander around the laboratory, looking at the bubbly liquids dance in their pipes as they went on their merry way, before turning to look Dream Drop straight in the eyes. "Is there something wrong with me?" she asked. Dream Drop leaned over her and stroked her mane. "Not as far as I know, no. You might be special in some way, but I don't think it's anything dangerous." After she saw Ash smile, she continued. "I'm pretty sure the labponies can figure it out." As if on cue, Deep Dive returned, balancing a metal tray in her mouth. When he set it down, a shiver ran down Ash's back as she saw the small syringe and the needle on it. "I need to check a few things, and the best way to do it is to take a little blood sample." "Do we have to?" Ash asked, still looking at the needle hesitantly. Deep Dive nodded and smiled. "Don't worry, it's just a tiny little pinch, you'll hardly notice it." Ash swallowed the lump in her throat down and tried to put on a brave face. "O-okay," she said, only slightly stammering. Deep Dive got to work on Ash's forehoof, putting a little tournique around it. Then he picked up the syringe. "Here we go. It'll be over before you know it" Ash watched as the needle slowly got closer, and turned to look at Dream Drop. She took a hold of Ash's other forehoof and held it tightly, all the while smiling. There was a tiny sting that made Ash go "Eeep," but it was over almost immediately, and when she turned to look, Deep Dive was already putting a little plaster on her forehoof. "All done," he said. "Now I'm going to run some tests on this. It'll take a while so maybe you should check back here later?" Dream Drop nodded. "I'm supposed to cover for a friend over at the carnival square, so we'll be back after that." "Wait, carnival?" Ash asked, immediately forgetting to prod at her plaster. "We're going to a carnival?" "I told you that I promised to take care of Rem's shift earlier, right? She's a friend of mine who works at the dream carnival tonight." Ash was out of the chair and bouncing all over happily. "Carnivaal carnivaal I'm going to a carnivaal," she sang her made-up song, until there was a loud thump and the jingling of glass above her. As her eyes shot up, she saw a complicated assortment of glass bottles and tubes that were teetering close to the edge, but apparently right at the last moment decided not to fall onto her head. She turned to look at Dream Drop with a sheepish look on her face. "Uhh, sorry." Dream Drop plopped Ash's helmet back on. "Let's go before you do something expensive, okay?" Ash nodded, and followed Dream Drop to the door, waving goodbye to Deep Dive as she went. Author's Note Next time: the conclusion to Ash's travels in the Dreamlands!
Enter Sand-MareAsh was floating in the warm, deep waters of almost falling asleep. In the real world, she felt her small body grow heavier, her own breath lighter and shallower. Her hind leg gave a small twitch, her body signaling it was ready for a well-earned rest. And inevitably, like every night, the thoughts came, like nasty little bubbles of thought floating up from the depths of blissful, restful sleepy sea. "You're alone," one of them said as it popped right next to her ear. "They always pick someone else," another said. "Boring!" "Average!" "Nopony will ever notice you." The bubbles kept coming, shaking her back to the realm of the waking. Ash tried her best to ignore the thoughts, concentrating once again to her nightly ritual. One of the few things she remembered of her father was teaching her how to relax herself after a long day of playing and studying. She could almost hear his soothing words. "Relax your hooves, feel them grow warm and heavy. Feel the warmth slowly build up and flow into your body. Feel the sleep flow into every part of you, from your belly to your back, and finally up your neck and into your eyes." Ash did it faithfully every night, and most of the time it even worked, but she knew it wouldn't. Not today. There'd been another couple today, another choice, another family being born, happy tears and hugs, but not for her. Not for the boring little ash-coloured filly that never stood up. She'd been in the line more times than she could remember, or cared to either. It was easier not to care. Ash tried to shake her head a bit to find a better position on her pillow, but all it did was shake her even more awake. With a heavy sigh, she opened her eyes. In the dim light of the bedroom, she could easily make out the bottom of the bed of the foal sleeping above her. All around her, the quiet noises of a shared bedroom in night-time floated to her ears. Tiny snores, the creaking of a bed as another foal tired to find a better position, someone muttering a few words in their sleep. At first it had been awful to try and fall asleep around so many others, but she'd gotten used to it. She'd had to, anyway. Ash sat up and looked around. Her bed was the one furthest from the door, the other seven beds in the room occupying one wall of the long room, the other side reserved for a bookshelf, a few tables, but mostly it was empty space for playing during the day. She could just about make out a few scattered toys littering the floor in clear violation of Mrs. Shallot's wishes of a clean room before bedtime. The door to the hallway outside was slightly ajar, allowing a tiny sliver of dim light to creep into the room. That's where Ash was headed for now. A little night-time trot, maybe a glass of water, something to take her mind off of things. She threw her blanket off and rolled off the bed, landing on all fours. Yawning, she silently crept through the room. She easily dodged the few building blocks on the floor, the most uniquitous trap of a foal's bedroom in the dark. Out the door into the dimly corridor she went. A light was still shining through the window of another door further down the line, probably Mrs. Shallot doing some late-night paperwork that she could finally get done now that there weren't any foals around being, well, foals. That wasn't Ash's destination, though. Instead she crossed the hallway and entered the door with the picture of a filly on it. She prodded the wall in the dark until she hit the light switch, and had to blink as her eyes adjusted to the brighness. There were a few foal-sized stalls on the back wall, but those weren't Ash's destination either. She climbed on one of the stepping stools next to the sinks and turned on the water. A tired filly looked back at her from the mirror. She could basically imagine what it said in her papers somewhere in Mrs. Shallot's office. Ashley Cream. Aged ten or something. Nopony knew for sure, because there were no papers to say otherwise. That's why her birthday was the first day of the year, same as many other foals there. Even her real name had been lost, the one she was now stuck with given just by her appearance: Boring, dark gray coat, a dull cream mane cut short and brushed to the side, just like every other filly there. No cutie mark, because there was nothing special about her. Bleary, reddish eyes, with clear darker patches underneath stared at her from the mirror. She looked tired, but that was nothing new; she always looked like that, even after a full night's sleep. She stuck out her tongue at her reflection and splashed some warm water on her face. Face wet, she instinctively looked around herself before she leaned down and took a long sip straight from the faucet. Ash could feel her thoughts calming down a bit, like her night-time strolls usually did, and she yawned. She jumped down from her perch and returned to the corridor, and back into her shared bedroom. She should have probably waited for a moment for her eyes to adjust to the dark, but she was pretty sure she could remember where everything was. First she had to go around the— THUMP! "Oww!" a strange voice said. "Huh?" Ash replied in confusion. She was sure that there hadn't been anypony there, especially a full-grown mare like the one sitting in front of her, probably knocked onto her rump from their collision. "Sorry," she said in a whisper. Their eyes met, and the mare's grew wide. With a quick movement of a hoof, she pulled something out from behind her back and threw it in the air. It was a sparkling dust that she threw above her, and right before Ash's eyes, the mare vanished. She blinked a few times to make sure her eyes weren't playing tricks on her. "Where'd ya go?" she whispered loudly, but got no answer. She tried to scan the room, but now that her nightvision had returned, she was definitely alone. "What the hay?" she asked to the empty room. If her muzzle wasn't still slightly sore from the bump before, she would have been sure that it was all her imagination. But right then, she heard another yelp of pain ahead of her, followed by a loud crash as the building blocks claimed yet another grown-up victim. The mare had appeared again, this time flat on her face between two of the beds furthest from the door. "A-are you okay, Miss?" Ash asked as she carefully trotted next to her. Around her, she could hear the other foals stir from their sleep from the noise. The mare had pushed herself up and was shaking her head, her white mop of a mane waving around messily. As the colt on the bed next to her sat up, she quickly grabbed Ash with one hoof and stuck the other in one of the several pouches tied to her vest and produced another hoof-ful of that strange dust into the air, this time landing on the both of them. The colt looked right at them, right through them, then around himself in confusion. As Ash watched, the mare holding her dug up yet another hoof-ful of dust, this one the colour of deep black, and blew it gently straight into the face of the colt. The colt blinked a few times, yawned, and laid back down, his head barely hitting the pillow before he was already snoring gently. "Wow, what did you do?" Ash asked. "Sleep dust," the mare answered. Ash's eyes grew wide from realisation. Walking around bedrooms in the middle of the night, blowing dust on foals to make them fall asleep. "You're the Sand-mare!" she said in a loud voice. The mare smiled. "You caught me." There was something else Ash caught too—The glint of long fangs as the mare smiled. She squinted her eyes to have a better look at the mare and could make out long ears with tufts of hair sticking through her messy mane. "Wow, are you a batpony?" The mare's eyes narrowed a bit. "Thestral. We're called thestrals. Calling us batponies is like calling unicorns 'hornponies'" To accentuate her point, she gave a tiny, indignant wave of one of her large bat-like wings. "S-sorry!" Ash quickly blurted out. Then she suddenly realised she'd probably been talking really loudly. She looked around her, but the other foals seemed to have calmed down and fallen back asleep. "Don't worry," the thestral mare said. "They can't see or hear us. I tossed some hiding dust on us both." Without hesitation, Ash crept up to the sleeping colt and talked right into his ear. "You really can't hear me?" she asked loudly, but the colt didn't stir. "YOU CAN'T HEAR ME!?" she shouted, and when the colt refused to even twitch, Ash backed down with a giggle. "That's so cool," she said. As she looked at the smiling mare, another question popped up. "I can see you though." The mare nodded. "Yes. We're both hiding with hiding dust so we can see each other." She smiled. "And no, you can't have any for playing hide-and-seek." Ash deflated a bit. "As if I needed it for hiding," she said. The mare misinterpreted her words as indignation. "So I guess you're really good at hiding?" Ash sighed a bit and looked away. "It's not like I wasn't good at hiding, it's that the other foals usually forget I'm even playing and don't come look for me." "Oh..." was all the mare could say. She looked around her and remembered where she was. "Right" They sat in silence for a few moments. "Well, I guess you should be heading off to bed now too, my little filly," the mare said. "Ashley," Ash said. "But everypony calls me Ash." "Well, Ash, it's bedtime. Is this your bed?" the mare patted the only empty bed in the room. Ash climbed onto her bed, pulled her blanket over herself and lay down. "Are you going to blow sleepy dust on me too now?" "That's the idea," the mare said as she gently tucked Ash in. "Don't worry, you'll think this was just a funny dream in the morning." "Umm..." Ash started. The mare pulled some of the black dust from what Ash now realised was a little pouch tied to a dark blue vest the mare was wearing. "Yes?" the mare answered. "Could I get a little bit of that dust for later? "Having trouble falling asleep?" "Well, yeah. It's just that sometimes when I try to fall asleep, I can't stop thinking about stuff and then I can't fall asleep at all." The mare stroked Ash's mane. "That's more common than you think, but I'm sorry. Sand-mare use only." "Okay," Ash said. "Well, uh, good night?" "Good night, Ash," the mare said, as she gently blew the dust into Ash's eyes. Ash blinked a few times, then let her eyes droop shut, at least happy to be able to fall asleep. A moment passed. Another. Yet another. Ash opened her eyes. She could see the sand-mare walking away from her bed, this time careful not to step on any other toy hazards. "Umm, Miss?" The mare froze and turned around. Ash sat up on her bed. "How long before it starts working?" she asked. The mare returned back to Ash's bedside with what Ash could only think of as 'in a slight rush'. "It should work immediately. Maybe I didn't dose you with enough or something. Hold on." The mare pulled another, yet a lot larger, pile of dust from her pouch, and unceremoniously blew it into Ash's face. Ash blinked a few times, but didn't feel any drowzier than before. She opened her eyes again. "Umm..." The mare's unceremoniously pulled the whole bag, string and all, from her vest and promptly emptied all of its contents onto Ash. After a few moments the dust finally settled and revealed the filly, still bright-eyed and utterly awake. "Anything? Not even a little bit sleepy-weepy?" "Sorry," Ash said. "That much sleep dust should have put a hippopotamus asleep, nevermind a little filly," the mare said. Then she looked at her empty bag and seemed to realise something else. "My boss is gonna be so cross." "Sorry," Ash said again. It was what adults usually wanted to hear from kids anyways. "No, it's not your fault, I mean, I don't think so," the mare said. "This has never happened before." She sat down next to the bad and rubbed her temples with her forehooves. "And now I'm behind schedule, out of dust, and leaving someone awake to boot." From her voice, that last part seemed to be the worst offense by far. "And I even promised Rem I'd cover her shift later on." After a moment she nodded to herself. "Guess I gotta go back to the Dreaming..." she said, and put a hoof onto Ash's shoulder "...and you're coming with me." Ash couldn't believe her ears. "I'm what?" "You're coming with me to the Dreaming. If anything, I can show my boss that sleep dust doesn't work on you so maybe she'll blame the lab ponies for making a bad batch or something." She felt Ash shake under her hoof. "Oh, hey, I didn't mean... It's not a scary place or anything, okay?" "That's..." Ash said, before she launched herself into a huge hug around the mare. "...SO COOL! Can we go already!?"
Miss Sand-Mare, Give Me A DreamIt took a moment for the mare to pry Ash off of her neck. She looked almost ready to scold the little filly, but Ash's wide, gleaming eyes and even wider smile made her just shake her head. "Now, Ash, was it?" "U-huh!" Ash said. "My name's Dream Drop. All my friends call me Dee-Dee though." "So, uhh, can I call you Dee-Dee too?" Ash asked carefully. Dream Drop tousled Ash's mane. "Of course." Growing a bit more serious, she let her hoof slide to Ash's shoulder. "Now, Ash, we are going to go into a place where most ponies don't get to visit. It's not a dangerous place as such, but you should stick close to me so you don't get lost, okay?" Ash nodded, trying very poorly to hide her excitement behind a facade of seriousness. "Okay, now, we need to use one of your sleeping friends to actually get to the Dreaming," Dream Drop said as she pulled another pouch from her vest, this one the colour of gold. She pulled one of Ash's forehooves underneath it and poured a tiny pile of black dust onto it. "Just throw that on the colt you tried to wake up before, and we'll get going." Ash looked at the pile of dust on her hoof. It felt like a cool bed with fresh, clean sheets, right before it started to get warm from somepony's body heat underneath a warm blanket. As she looked closer, there were tiny bright specs in the dust, like tiny stars in the distance. She looked at Dream Drop, who gave her an encouraging nod, and threw the dust on the colt. The air in front of them shimmered and seemed to somehow turn sideways, becoming a round portal into deeper darkness than that of the bedroom they were in. Without hesitation, she practically jumped in. What she landed in she couldn't really see, but it made a soft 'thwump' sound as she landed. Behind her, Dream Drop entered too, throwing some of the same dust on the portal to close it. She pulled out a small lantern from one of the larger pouches on her vest. She blew a tiny breath on it, and they were soon bathed in a warm, golden light. Now that Ash could see better around her, she realised she was standing on a dirt road in a dark meadow. As she looked up, she could see the most brilliant display of stars above her, almost taking her breath away. "Pretty, isn't it?" Dream Drop asked. "Yeah!" Ash said as she tried to crane her head around to take in the whole night sky. "There's a lot more stars than I've ever seen!" "This is the first level of the Dreaming. A lot of ponies hang out around here before they fall asleep." Now that Ash looked more carefully around her, she could make out a lot of dark shapes lying on the ground on the soft grass around her. Some of them were snoring restfully, but others yet fitted in their sleep or grunted while trying to find a more comfortable position. "Can they hear us?" Ash asked in a whisper. "Not as long as we stay on the road," Dream Drop said. Ash realised she was right on the edge of the road as she'd been looking closer at one of the sleepers. "Oh, oops," she said as she backed up. "Don't worry about it. Ponies usually just remember tiny glimpses of this place before they fall completely asleep. It's a sort of waiting room. This is where ponies come after we use dream dust on them." "Huh," Ash said. She scratched her forehead with a hoof. "I just usually think I'm sinking into my mattress when I'm falling asleep." "We're close by to that place. Wanna go see?" Dream Drop asked as she fastened the lantern to the front of her vest. She pointed at a fork in the road ahead. "It's called the Dream Sea." "Sure!" Ash said. As they walked along the path, Ash kept turning around to whichever way she could, until she almost bumped into Dream Drop. "Uh, sorry!" "Don't worry about it. I remember being here for the first time too and it was really exciting," Dream Drop said. Her fangs gleamed in the darkness with her smile. For a moment, Ash was reminded of those nightmare faces she and some of the other foals had pulled with a light underneath their chins to try and scare each other on Nightmare Night. Untli Mrs. Shallot had taken their lamp and told them off for being wasteful, anyway. A tiny shiver ran down her back, and she couldn't help but giggle. "We're here," Dream Drop said. In front of them the dirt road ended abruptly, and a large body of water opened in front of them as far as Ash's eyes could see. There were a few small skiffs tied to a short wooden jetty. Dream Drop motioned for Ash to climb aboard as she untied the rope mooring the skiff. As they pushed off, Dream Drop took up a place at the aft, steering the skiff with a single oar, while Ash stood at the fore. As they quietly glided over the mirror-still water, Ash could see ponies all over floating lazily around everywhere, giving deep satisfied sighs as they slowly went under. Ash knew that seeing ponies drown should have felt creepy, but she remembered how she herself felt as she sunk into slumber that she could only smile. One of the ponies next to them, a grown-up stallion judging from his size, was groaning and shaking his hooves above him. As Ash leaned closer, she could make out tiny bubbles rising from the deep, and as they hit the surface, she could hear distant whispers. "You can't afford it," one said. "You spent too much on it," another said. Similar bubbles kept appearing and popping around him. Ash couldn't help herself, and whispered straight into the stallions ear "It's okay, you can think about it in the morning." As she watched, the stallion gave a long sigh and smiled slightly, muttering "...the morning. Yeah," as he relaxed. She turned to look at Dream Drop behind her. Ash really couldn't read the sand-mare's expression. "Did I do something wrong?" she asked. Dream Drop tilted her a bit to the side. "You're a very kind little filly, Ash." Ash could feel her cheeks grow warm from the compliment. "I just, well, I know how nasty it feels not to be able to fall asleep when you can't stop thinking about things, so I guess I just didn't want him to feel like that." She looked around the floating ponies. "A lot of them have those bubbles around them." "Yes. Here they show up as bubbles, or tiny fish tickling their hooves, or as a wind carrying words from somewhere. Back in the meadow they might be uncomfortable rocks under their backs or bugs buzzing in their ear." "Can't we do anything for them?" Ash asked. Dream Drop shook her head. "They all have to find their own solutions to their thoughts. We can't fix their problems for them." "So I shouldn't have said anything to him?" Ash asked, feeling her chest grow cold. The last thing she wanted to do was disappoint her new friend. "You did what you thought was right and only wanted to help. That means a lot." Dream Drop's fangs glinted in the night as she smiled. Ash looked around her, at all the floating ponies in deep thought. Suddenly she spied movement at the edge of vision. A clammy, slimy tentacle wrapped itself around a floating mare's barrel, followed by several more grabbing her from below, and before Ash's eyes, the mare was pulled under the surface. "W-what was that?" she asked. "Well, like I said, ponies need to find their own ways to fall asleep. That mare probably used a sleeping medicine to fall asleep." Ash felt shivers run down her back. "It looked really creepy." Dream Drop shrugged. "It's a solution. You get to fall asleep, but the quality of your sleep will probably suffer from it." "Well I'll never use something like that!" Ash exclaimed. The thought of those clammy tentacles still wouldn't leave her alone. "You never know," Dream Drop said. "Maybe some day you'll be so ill or maybe you get hurt in an accident so bad you just can't sleep." Ash gave that a thought. "I guess so," she finally said. After a moment she continued. "Usually I just sleep a lot when I'm ill." "Best medicine for a fever there is," Dream Drop said. "There's even a special type of sand-mares just for that." "What, really?" Dream Drop nodded. "There's a lot of different things us sand-mares do. For example, I'm a Duster, as in I go around making sure ponies get a chance to fall asleep on time." "So you were doing that when I found you?" Dream Drop looked to the side, and Ash could almost see her blush a bit. "I was waiting for you to come back to your bed." She deflated a bit. "I wanted to make sure I got everypony because last week I missed somepony on my round and boss chewed me out for it real bad." Ash could only nod in sympathy, very used to being scolded for carelessness herself. "I mean, how could I know they were having a sleepover and there was an extra colt there." "So that colt didn't get to sleep at all that night?" Ash asked. "Well, he probably thought it was just his nerves from sleeping at somepony else's house, and one of my co-workers dusted him off later, but I should have been more careful." "So how do you even know how many ponies you need to, um..." "Dust?" "Yeah, that. "I don't really know how it works. Basically, I get this scroll at the start of my shift and it has a list of addresses and the number of ponies there. I just thought they'd made a mistake with that house or something." "I never thought sand-mares were that important," Ash said. "I mean, umm..." she stopped abruptly. "You weren't sure we even exist in the first place?" Dream Drop completed her sentence. Ash looked down at her hooves. "Sorry." Dream Drop laughed a bit. "No problem. It's easier to do our job without everypony trying to catch us sneaking in their bedrooms. And some ponies might get really angry about their privacy and stuff." Ash looked back up at Dream Dust. "I didn't even think of that," she said. "You go into a lot of ponies' homes, so you have to see all kinds of stuff." Dream Drop nodded. "But before you ask, I can't tell you anything about what I see. I have to keep it a secret." Ash's imagination started running around with the idea of what kinds of things sand-mares would actually see in ponies' houses, but she was soon interrupted as their skiff jolted to a stop. "We're here," Dream Drop said. They'd arrived to another little jetty, and she was swiftly tying the skiff up to a post. Ash climbed off the skiff and followed Dream Drop to a small, dark house on the beach. It looked like a tiny cabin, maybe big enough for a little family of ponies to spend a few days during the Summer. For a moment, Ash wondered what it would be like to do something like that, but was again interrupted as Dream Drop opened the door. Warm light and the chatter of a few ponies carried outside.
Dream A Little Dream For MeInside the door was something so normal that it took Ash completely by surprise. It was basically a school cafeteria, only scaled up for grown-ups. Tables, chairs, plants, everything in what looked like plastic. It was considerably larger than the cottage could have fit, probably able to seat several dozen ponies. A few ponies were milling around, eating their homemade packed lunches, or whatever they should be called at the middle of the night. Most of them were batponies—thestrals—Ash had to remind herself. "So, you want a soda or some snacks?", Dream Drop asked as she walked past Ash. She rummaged through one of her ubiquitous bags and produced a shiny bit and walked over to a vending machine nearby. "Most folks here drink Colt-a-cola for the caffeine or just drink coffee, but I don't think that's a good idea for somepony your age... Not that you'd have to worry about being unable to sleep." The last part had clearly gone unheard by Ash, who was poking at one of the artificial bushes. "So is all this really inside the, umm, Dreaming?" "Mm-hmm." Dream Drop answered as she pulled a bottle of Para-Sprite from the machine and put it on a table next to them, plopping a straw in the bottle for good measure. "Boss wanted to make a place that was as every-day real as she could for ponies to relax in, and I guess this is what she came up with." She sat down and motioned towards the bottle. "All yours." Ash climbed up to one of the chairs next to the table and pulled the bottle to herself, taking a deep draw from the straw. "Hey, it tastes like the real thing!" Dream Drop shrugged. "It is real. Just don't ask me how it works. Everything here is real, brought from the Waking." "Waking? Is that what you call where I come from?" Ash asked before taking another sip. Dream Drop scratched her chin. "That's where I live too, you know. I have a nice little place in one of the cave communes up North." "Ohh... I kinda thought you lived here," Ash said. "Nope. I just work here. Nopony really lives here, even though some ponies complain that they feel like they do." Ash kept scanning the room while she finished her drink. There were small posters on the walls with sentences like "No sleeping on the job!" and "This is the workplace of your dreams!" A sharp male voice surprised them both. "Hey Dee-Dee! I didn't know it was 'bring your family to work day'." The voice belonged to a young thestral with a bright blue coat and the widest smile Ash had ever seen on someone. And it would have probably been one of the nicest too, if it weren't for the fangs. Those still needed some getting used to. "It's, uhh, it's not," Dream Drop answered. Ash noticed that for some reason her cheeks were growing darker. "It's complicated." "Hey, lil' miss," the young stallion offered a hoof to Ash. "Nice to meetcha. I'm Nap Stack." Ash shook his hoof. "Ashley, but everypony c—" Without letting her finish, Nap Stack already continued. "So Ashley, do you know where fish sleep?" Ash's mouth was left open for a moment until the words caught up with her. She squinted for a moment in deep thought, then shook her hed. "The river bed, of course!" Ash couldn't help but giggle, which conveniently covered the groans coming from Dream Drop. "Okay, okay, here's another one: Do you know—" Dream Drop coughed unnecessarily loudly. "I'm really sorry, Nap, but we need to go. Right now." Nap Stack seemed to deflate a bit. "But I was just getting started..." "I know you were," Dream Drop said as she gently nudged Ash towards one of the exits. "Bye, Mr. Nap Stack!" Ash waved behind her as they stepped through yet another door. They ended up on a long slightly shimmering path through deep darkness that felt slightly chilly beneath Ash's hooves, with only stars above. It was easily wide enough for the two ponies to walk side by side. "He seemed nice," Ash said. "And funny." Dream Drop sighed. "He is very nice, but his jokes stop being funny after you hear them for the thousandth time." "So why did you blush when you were talking with him?" Ash asked innocently. Her answer was a sudden coughing fit from Dream Drop, who for some reason hurried forward on the path to yet another door that seemed to appear out of nowhere. Behind the door they stepped on a high platform above huge, steaming vats of bubbling liquids in all the colours of the rainbow. As Ash was leaning over the rail to get a closer look, something was plopped on her head. When she turned to look a Dream Drop, the mare was also putting on a bright yellow safety helmet. "We have to wear these here. Boss's orders," she said. "So what's in them?" Ash asked, returning to lean over the rail and pointing a hoof downwards. Through the steam she could make out several ponies scurrying around the vats, all of them wearing white lab coats and helmets. "Do I get a coat like that too?" she added. Dream Drop had already walked a few steps forward, only then noticing that her charge was still occupied. "You don't need one unless you work here." She motioned forward with a hoof. "Come on, we can get a better view from over here." Ash quickly trotted after Dream Drop, turning her head to each side, trying to catch everything in the dim light, constantly fighting to keep the oversized helmet from falling over her eyes. There were transparent tubes of the various liquids running everywhere, machines with a lot of different dials and lights on them, and a very important looking machine with a billows that went ´parp´. They soon arrived at a wider platform, suspended in the middle of the room above what looked like a control center. Several important looking ponies were working on dials, twisting knobs and making notes in their clipboards. "This is where we manufacture all the dreams that ponies see at night." Dream Drop said. "Yellow dreams are happy, blue dreams are sad, pink dreams are silly, and so on. Then we mix them up to make specific dreams." Ash looked at one of the tubes which was merrily bubbling next to them. "So that's a dream?" Dream Drop nodded. "We don't know what the dream ends up as exactly, because everypony has their own idea of what is happy or sad." "So why do you make sad dreams? Wouldn't it be better for everypony to just see happy dreams?" "It's a bit complicated, but basically everypony needs every type of dream once in a while." Ash looked at the tubes in deep thought for a moment. "So maybe happy dreams to cheer them up when they've been sad, but also sad dreams when they're really happy so they remember that sad things can happen too? And maybe when they dream of sad things the happy things they do when awake feel even happier?" Dream Drop didn't answer her immediately, and Ash turned to look at her. She was staring at Ash with her mouth slightly open. When their eyes met, she quickly shook her head and nodded. "Something like that, yes." "Wow. Mrs. Shallot must have a lot of really silly dreams because she's always so serious." She prodded one of the pink tubes running next to her and it bubbled merrily at her. "Maybe that's her dream tonight?" "It could be," Dream Drop answered. "Now, let's go meet up with the labponies. They might be able to explain more to you." She looked to the side before adding. "And maybe to me too as well." A stairway soon lead them downwards to floor level and after dodging a pair of ponies pushing a sloshing barrel, they ended up at yet another door. "Now remember, no touching anything in here, okay?" Dream Drop said. After Ash gave her a very serious nod, she pushed the door open. If the previous room had been full of tubes, then this room went overboard with them. Glasses and bottles of various sizes were bubbling and steaming on various tables around the room. The smell of various chemicals wafted in the air, some of them reminding Ash of shampoo and downy pillows. Several ponies were working around, covered from head to hoof in protective gear, from rubber boots to goggles and surgical masks. Dream Drop leaned over a counter. "Hey, Deep Dive, got a minute?" One of the labponies, a skinny Earth Pony with a dull brown coat and a mane apparently styled after an explosion walked over to them. As he removed his mask, a small stubble of a beard was revealed from underneath, but he left his goggles on. "I thought you were doing the rounds tonight?" "I was, but then I met with Ash here..." she pointed at the filly next to her, who gave the stallion a wave of her hoof "...that didn't fall asleep from sleep dust." Deep Dive scratched the back of his neck. "You think it was a bad batch of dust?" "I did, but it worked just fine on the other ponies, so maybe there's something else going on here?" "Hmmm..." Deep Dive said. He pulled a pouch very much like the ones on Dream Drop's vest from underneath the counter. "Ash, was it? Could I bother you to come over here and sit down for a moment?" He motioned for a soft-looking chair that looked very much out of place in the middle of all the laboratory equipment, especially because there was another pony asleep on it. "We use it to test new batches we make, and the one I have here was just checked to work, thanks to Hopper here." He prodded the pony on the chair in the side. "Hey, Hopper, time to get back to work!" After a few grumbles about five more minutes, Hopper climbed up from the chair and sauntered out the door. Ash climbed up into the chair and lay back, feeling herself sink comfortably into a snuggly position. Dream Drop sat on a simple small chair next to her and took the safety helmet off of Ash's head to let get get comfortable. Deep Dive took a tiny pile of the dusty sand in the pouch and gently blew it over Ash's face. It had a scent of deep, moist forest at dusk, and a hint of minty freshness to it. She blinked her eyes a few times as the sand sparkled on her coat, but just like before, nothing else happened. "Curious," Deep Dive said. "Are you sure you haven't been drinking loads of coffee or something? Or anything else that might keep you awake?" Ash shrugged. "We aren't allowed to drink coffee because Mrs. Shallot says it's only for grown-ups. She drinks a lot of it, though." "Then it might be genetic," Deep Dive said. "Do you know if your—" he started, but had his head quickly pulled to the side as Dream Drop whispered something to his ear. "Uhh... nevermind," he said. He scratched his stubbly beard, looking at Ash with a tilted head. After a while, his mouth turned into a smile. "I think I have an idea. I'll be right back." He soon vanished from Ash's view behind the laboratory equipment, his figure twisting weirdly as he walked bahind the various curved glass surfaces. "Hey, Dee-Dee, what's 'genetic' mean?" Ash asked Dream Drop fidgeted awkwardly with her hooves. "You don't need to worry about it." "Umm, okay," Ash said. She let her gaze wander around the laboratory, looking at the bubbly liquids dance in their pipes as they went on their merry way, before turning to look Dream Drop straight in the eyes. "Is there something wrong with me?" she asked. Dream Drop leaned over her and stroked her mane. "Not as far as I know, no. You might be special in some way, but I don't think it's anything dangerous." After she saw Ash smile, she continued. "I'm pretty sure the labponies can figure it out." As if on cue, Deep Dive returned, balancing a metal tray in her mouth. When he set it down, a shiver ran down Ash's back as she saw the small syringe and the needle on it. "I need to check a few things, and the best way to do it is to take a little blood sample." "Do we have to?" Ash asked, still looking at the needle hesitantly. Deep Dive nodded and smiled. "Don't worry, it's just a tiny little pinch, you'll hardly notice it." Ash swallowed the lump in her throat down and tried to put on a brave face. "O-okay," she said, only slightly stammering. Deep Dive got to work on Ash's forehoof, putting a little tournique around it. Then he picked up the syringe. "Here we go. It'll be over before you know it" Ash watched as the needle slowly got closer, and turned to look at Dream Drop. She took a hold of Ash's other forehoof and held it tightly, all the while smiling. There was a tiny sting that made Ash go "Eeep," but it was over almost immediately, and when she turned to look, Deep Dive was already putting a little plaster on her forehoof. "All done," he said. "Now I'm going to run some tests on this. It'll take a while so maybe you should check back here later?" Dream Drop nodded. "I'm supposed to cover for a friend over at the carnival square, so we'll be back after that." "Wait, carnival?" Ash asked, immediately forgetting to prod at her plaster. "We're going to a carnival?" "I told you that I promised to take care of Rem's shift earlier, right? She's a friend of mine who works at the dream carnival tonight." Ash was out of the chair and bouncing all over happily. "Carnivaal carnivaal I'm going to a carnivaal," she sang her made-up song, until there was a loud thump and the jingling of glass above her. As her eyes shot up, she saw a complicated assortment of glass bottles and tubes that were teetering close to the edge, but apparently right at the last moment decided not to fall onto her head. She turned to look at Dream Drop with a sheepish look on her face. "Uhh, sorry." Dream Drop plopped Ash's helmet back on. "Let's go before you do something expensive, okay?" Ash nodded, and followed Dream Drop to the door, waving goodbye to Deep Dive as she went. Author's Note Next time: the conclusion to Ash's travels in the Dreamlands!
