I Still Can't Sleep
B_25
Midnight is when the town changes.
I couldn't describe Ponyville after dark even if you gave me a million words. It keeps changing, this little town of ours, from the new ponies flooding in or the next world ending scenario—the bizarre becomes normal if you stay here long enough.
I sure have.
Not many ponies know this, but at exactly midnight, this town changes, but not in the way you expect. Our town is always changing during the day, new houses being built and policies being enforced—sometimes I forget what my home once looked like.
Then, midnight strikes, and I remember it all over again.
This town is always changing, but at midnight, it goes back to how it once was. The ponies, the buildings, the ground itself—all like how I remembered it those many years ago. For, you see, the town changes at midnight.
It changes into the place it's meant to be.
Hours. Days. Maybe weeks.
When was the last time I'd gotten any sleep?
The question plagued me as I ambled down the street, feeling my claws dangle at my sides, weighing my body down like separate anchors wishing their boat got some rest. Darkness surrounded me, interrupted sporadically by the passing street-lamp or lit window of a home. I tended to close my eyes when I walked—those were the few moments of sleep I got.
“A dragon wandering the streets at this hour?” a voice said to me, causing my body to stop and my eyes to open. Cascading water filled my ears, as did a white blur to my eyes. “I am unsure which I would fear more: the unfortunate pony to stumble upon you this late and scream, or the screams of a princess who you're supposed to be with.”
She's changed. Her voice, her blurry face—it's all different from how we met.
“No pony is afraid of me, at least, not anymore,” I replied, rubbing the blurriness from my eyes. I tried to smile at Rarity, who sat on the rim of a water fountain, her ever-lasting beauty illuminated by the bulb atop the fountain. “And what Twilight doesn't know can't hurt her.” I sat down next to her, clasping my claws and letting my forehead fall into them. “I'd just annoy her with all my pacing.”
“Which begs the question,” Rarity prompted, looking over at me with eyes full of concern, “why are you pacing the streets anyway?”
“Can't sleep.” Two words. Two small words to explain the misery of constant consciousness in the waking world. Brevity was not a matter of wit, just the inability to fully express one's self.
“That really does upset me to hear,” Rarity said to me, tone contemplative. “Sleep is what refreshes us, what resets us, what rebirths us.” She let the words linger in the air, before giggling into the midnight. “And, need I remind you, that without sleep, those good looks of yours will begin to fade?”
I laughed. Felt like a while since I'd last did that.
“Sleep has been the only thing on my mind, Rares,” I said back, lifting my head, inhaling deeply. “And the absence of it has been driving my mind crazy.” I looked over and down at her, smiling. “Afraid my concern for myself doesn't go further than that.”
“Well isn't that just a crying shame!” Rarity exclaimed playfully, scooting closer toward me. “I must admit that growth spurt of yours took us all for surprise, especially after all that looking down just to see into your eyes.” She stopped, our bodies inches from touching. “Out from that baby dragon came a handsome stud, but then you went and locked yourself away!”
I turned my head, feeling something prick my heart. “I..I just couldn't handle it.”
“Oh?” Rarity said, and I could feel her breath on my scales, or maybe it was just the wind. “And just what was it you couldn't handle?”
“Change.” I didn't even know that was what I feared, what had kept me locked away. During the day, everything is so busy, and it's easier to hide things from yourself, but late at night, when you're tired, and there's no restriction, all of our neglected thoughts just come tumbling out. “How ponies were going to see me, how the town was going to see me...”
I shot my gaze back at Rarity. “How you girls were going to see me! Everything was going to change, how stuff was when I was a kid would never be the same, so I decided to lock myself away.”
Rarity looked at me for a while, eyes studying how I was hunched over, or maybe the shiver that'd run through me from time to time. In a few moments, she became harder to see, and the light of the street-lamps began to dim.
In the darkness, I heard her speak.
“You must understand, darling, that things must come to change.” All was black and I could not see, yet the warmth of the unicorn was all about me. “It's just a matter of time and nature, things we would be foolish to oppose. Just remember, no matter how much this town changed, I loved you all the same.”
I gasped. There was light. Pouring water filled my ears again.
In the distance, I saw her, the white unicorn with the purple mane, the one that'd stolen my heart when I was young and slowly gave me back the pieces. She trotted back to her boutique, the home of her passion and our memories, a place that made my heart grave at just the thought.
Another drought of drowsiness came upon me, the white mare glowing brighter the further she went, until she finally returned home in the place too bright for me to be able to see. I shook my head and blinked my eyes, the streets dark as they once were, and the Carousel Boutique as bright as I remembered it to be.
I stood up from the fountain, letting my tail swipe across the miniature falls.
It didn't stop the water from flowing, so I began to move on.
Another busy day. Another sleepless night.
Can dragons get away without sleeping?
Not much is known about my kind. I doubt much will ever be revealed. Twilight had placed a big emphasis on me being some great pillar of research and knowledge, but I can't figure out why I can't sleep, then how can we ever hope to uncover the more significant things?
I hardly know who I am, so who am I to speak on behalf of an entire species? Not many dragons are living among ponies, none from birth at least, so my nurture was probably nothing compared to the average dragon. Twilight keeps probing me on how I'm feeling, and I keep telling her just to accept the fact that I'm an outcast, an exception to what's normal, and that my results don't mean a thing.
It was around this time I began to have difficulties sleeping.
“Yo, sleepwalking dragon!” a voice snapped me from my slumber, and I find myself before a familiar shop. I looked around the dark streets, not finding the source to whoever disrupted me. “Up here, yes, up here! You look up all the time. It shouldn't be this hard!”
I stumbled backward and looked up, seeing my company sitting on the roof to the candy shop. “Pinkie?”
“The one and only!” Pinkie said with a wave of the hoof, clutching a muffin as she did so. “What's got you out so late, slick? Another fight with Twilight again?”
“I...no.” I pressed my claws against my head, fighting through the fog clouding my head. Why was I out here again? “I don't know why I'm out here, only that I am.”
Pinkie gazed at me for a while, placing her forehooves back at her side. She'd set the muffin between her legs. “Guess you don't need a reason to take a walk. And besides, fresh air helps you sleep at night.”
“It does?”
“Of course!” Pinkie replied. “All that walking and breathing, you're pretty much getting everything out of your system.” She placed a hoof against her chin in thought. “Then again, that's not the reason why I walk at night.”
I couldn't help but ask: “Why do you walk at night?”
“To think, of course!” Pinkie said with a giggle, pulling back her hoof. “All kinds of thoughts attack me before I sleep, making me feel hopeless underneath my sheets. But if I walk and move, it helps me feel more complete, and I can battle those thoughts during a teeny-tiny stroll.”
My claws dropped from my face as I stepped forward in despair. “So, as long as you walked and got those thoughts in the open air, you could sleep soundly afterward.”
She nodded.
“Maybe that's it,” I said, more so to myself. “I've been walking and walking, trying not to think cause it hurts so much. But maybe that pain is keeping me awake, maybe once I get it out into the open air, I'll be able to close my eyes once again.”
Sleep-deprivation struck me once again with a margarine that made me clutch at my head. I clench my eyes and hear strange sounds, like something's beeping, repeatedly, and that what's keeping me awake.
“Remember Spike,” Pinkie said, her voice vibrating all around me, “sometimes thinking out loud helps us get over the things that have changed, but even if we do or don't, we'll still fall asleep when the time is right.” I heard her gasp in glee. “In those moments before, those short-short moments, it's better to laugh than it is to think.”
My eyes opened to white. Not light, but white, surrounding me like the interior walls of a tunnel, and at its distant end was a darkness that's pitch I couldn't fully see. Then, ripples coursed through the tunnel as the laughter dimmed, and I clutched at my head and fell to my knees.
A few moments later, my eyes reopened, and the streets were just as they should be. I rose, ever slowly, feeling as if I could fall over at any moment. It took me a few seconds to gather my bearings, looking to the sky for the moon to still be in sight, then to the top of the shop, only to see a sign of a pink mare holding a muffin.
I looked in my claw to see I was holding one as well, making me smile as my stomach growled—something it had been doing a lot recently. I held up that muffin in cheers for no special occasion, then began forward once again, tossing the muffin up in the mare as I did so, catching it repeatedly.
It stops hurting after a while.
Why does a lack of sleep make us more confident?
I'm afraid. I've always been afraid. There's so much wrong in this world, and it doesn't help if your best friends go out looking for it. I don't know how they do it, how they can fight with such brave faces, while I sit back clutching at my tail.
“Don't tell me you're wasted!” a voice above me said, and I look up, remembering to open my eyes. Rainbow Dash glides just a few feet above my head. “Never thought I'd see the day when Twi's baby brother is stumbling through the streets.”
“I not drunk, Rainbow Dash.” I looked forward, just so happening to be stumbling in the same direction. “Just tired is all. Tired.”
“Right.” I heard the flap of her wings grow louder, feeling a gust of wind on my back. “And if I totally couldn't hold my liquor, I would make the excuse of being tired as well.”
I looked over my shoulder, glancing at her. “You already know I'm a lightweight. Why would I try to hide it?”
She smiled. “You wouldn't, but you let ponies tease ya anyways.”
I couldn't help but agree, shrugging my shoulders, continuing forward.
“I guess some things never change, do they?” Rainbow said closer than before, and I looked to my right, finding her walking next to me. “Once a goof, always a goof, but that will of yours I'll always appreciate. That's something that can't be taught, y'know?”
“Will?” I said, chuckling. “Didn't know walking while tired was some great show of willpower. Would sleeping make me more impressive than the Wonderbolts?”
“Right now?” she asked. “Yeah.”
I went to retort but found my tongue tied.
“But for now, you should be proud of yourself,” Rainbow continued, and I found it hard to look down at her as she spoke. “You're tired and you can't sleep, but instead of whining and sitting around, you're trying to find something to help you sleep. That dedication is keeping your body running on empty fumes.”
“It's nothing, really,” I said, looking at her finally. Her face was so blurry, yet her grin persisted through the haze. “Compare through what you girls went through. I have a lot of catching up to do. Don't know how you girls did it.”
“Courage,” Rainbow replied with a giggle, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. “Each of us had courage, and that's what got us through all of those trials.”
“Huh,” I said, never expecting such simplicity. “And here I thought you were born unafraid, that you had some competent that I was missing.” I stared into her eyes, paying no mind to whatever was ahead of me. “You always faced every challenge with confidence; I'd never manage that unless I was tired or drunk.”
My body became heavy and my mind sluggish. I could see but did not understand the sights around me. I felt nothing below my feet, but something warm across my back.
“Then you don't have courage,” Rainbow said, unfurling her wings and quickening her pace. “Courage is not the absence of fear, but being brave enough to stand up in the face of it.” She broke into a gallop, flapping her wings which grew by the second, until she flew up into the air. “We all face the same battle against ourselves, and only those with courage are able to stand up.”
I looked up into the sky, where I saw not a pegasi but an angel, one whose body merged with the black sky, and made it blue instead.
“But, in the end,” Rainbow's voice rippled through the sky, surrounding me with her presences, “it takes true bravery to lie back down.”
I didn't know why, where I got the strength nor the energy, but I burst into a sprint forward, down a dirt trail. The blue faded from the sky, but imparted onto to me her last words.
“May you have courage and bravery, Spike.”
Day into night into day.
When do we stop being ourselves?
When you get tired enough, you begin to forget a lot about yourself, about how you're supposed to talk or walk, or maybe you just start to stop caring. Makes you think how much of us our personality is constructed by our thoughts.
I saw a squirrel dying on the dirt trail.
I didn't know what to think at first, what to say or do, as the tall trees on either side of me felt like they were closing in. I didn't have time to think once I saw blood, and despite my body being devoid of energy, I rushed to the side of the animal.
“Oh my, oh dear!' a voice said over my shoulder, one that I did not look back at as I cradled the squirrel in my claws. “The poor little critter must have fallen from one of the branches. Quick, Spike, we have to do something!”
I stroked its head with the back of my claw, giving it any comfort I could manage during my confusion. “W-What should I do?!”
“Keep calm, first of all, and focus.” Any panic faded from Fluttershy's voice, which became more assertive in tone. “We're not going to lose him if you do exactly as I say, okay?”
I nodded my head, hunching over the creature.
“First, you have to close that wound.” Fluttershy walked around me, and letting me see her again. I almost cried, for what, I have no clue. “We don't have any bandages or tools, so you'll have to cauterize the wound.”
“Cauterize!” I said, my other claw grabbing at my chest. I could already feel it warming up. “But I'll hurt them!”
“That's, unfortunately, the price when you try to save someone.” Fluttershy sat down in front of him, staring deeply into his eyes. They showed a sternness that could never be asserted with words. “If you're not prepared to hurt others, then you may never be able to save them—you may never be able to save yourself!”
I clenched my eyes and felt my fest grow hot. Raising my left claw, I blew a flame onto my digit, feeling it burn on my scales as I lowered it to my patient. If I just pressed my finger against the wound, there would be a scream and that would be it—I didn't have to look it in the eyes as I caused it further pain.
But, for whatever reason, my eyes opened. The squirrel looked at me in silent fear, not knowing what had happened nor what was coming next, and his face lit up an agony as my flame burned away at his wound. He screamed and he screamed, and for a moment, I shared his pain, before the screams came to cease, and he then fell asleep.
I went to say something but choked on the words.
“You did well, Spike,” Fluttershy said. Then everything hurt and I wanted it all to end. “He'll live because of you, and that's all that matters.”
“But I hurt him!” I said to no one and nothing, but I could hear whatever I pleased once it was past midnight. “I hurt a lot of ponies! I never mean to, but sometimes it just happens, and I'm a bad dragon because of it!”
“Everypony will end hurting someone in their lives,” Fluttershy said, her voice reaching me through the overwhelming pain. “What makes a pony good or bad is the reason why they hurt. Ponies would have hurt that squirrel by running way, by killing it or even something worse.”
I felt distant warmth in the vacuum of coldness.
“But you came to its aid,” she whispered into my ear, any aggressiveness overtaken by playful giggles. “You didn't even think, whether it would be in your benefit or what would happen if you accidentally killed it. Do you want to know why?”
It didn't matter if Fluttershy could see me or not. I nodded my head.
“Because you're kind, Spike.” Warmth filled my body, a sensation that I had long forgotten, like a blanket wrapping around my body. “And no amount of thinking will strip you of that kindness. Things may begin to get dark, but continued to share that kindness, and you'll ignite a new spark.”
When I came to, there was no squirrel in my claw, only leaves scattered around me. I now knew where I was, where I was heading to, what I would come to see. It felt like the town was beginning again, which only meant the end for me.
Dreams, nightmares, nothingness.
Just what occurs after we close our eyes?
We dream to remember what once was and to forget what now is. We sleep to avoid life, enough of a respite to let us face it again, day in and day out, until the day comes where sleep will become life itself.
I stepped foot onto an apple farm.
“Took you long enough to get here,” a voice to my right said, and I was already smiling softly when I gazed upon Applejack. “Did your butt get lost again?”
“Not at all,” I replied, tilting my head in the direction from which I came. “Ended up running into each of the girls. Had a few words with them before we all meet up here.”
“And darn good timing too!” Applejack said, looking up into the sky. I did the same, seeing the moon sink behind the mountainous horizon. “Though we've only got a few moments to spare.” She looked back at me. “Best we get a move on, partner.”
I nodded.
As we walked forward, something, or someone, began screaming in my head as the world melted around me. It wasn't real, most of this wasn't, and the only things that mattered was that I kept walking forward, toward the thing I'd been running away from.
“I reckon you've come a long way since I first met ya,” Applejack said, looking forward as she talked. “Taller and stronger, those days with you on the farm were the best. You never did speak much, but the way how you worked always showed me what you were feeling.”
“Some days I kicked trees harder,” I said, trying to keep my gaze forward. Forward. Forward. Forward. “Some days I did nothing at all. Only thing I see from that is laziness.”
“Anything but, sugarcube.” I couldn't help it. It'd hurt, it always did when I looked at them now, but I just had to look at Applejack. And this time, I wasn't smiling. “When you kicked harder, it meant you had something on your mind. When you pulled the carts faster, it meant you were trying to escape yourself.” She laughed, stopping as we reached the top of a small hill, and took off her hat. “You may not have been aware of it yourself, but I always knew just how you were feeling.”
I crouched down so that we were on eye-level, feeling my throat become tight.
“I tried to help you the best I did, I swear so.” Applejack rubbed the hat against her chest, then started fondly down at it. “But there was only so much I could bring out from under the surface, only so much I could get ya to be honest about.”
Applejack stepped toward me, and I almost fled out of fright. She put her hat on my head, and stepped out from existence.
“You're a good boy, Spike,” I heard Applejack's voice, even though she was no longer around. I felt something light pelt against my scales, looking up to see the beginning of a downpour. “But you're at such odds with yourself. Be honest with your feelings, Spike, then let them go.”
I felt night coming to an end.
I stood. The endless nights were coming to an end. No matter how far I wandered, no matter how much I wondered, there was no cure nor answer to my insomnia. I'd been trapped in this void of life without any escape, continuing forward despite the absurdity of it all.
I heard hoof-steps, and when I turned around, there she was, Twilight Sparkle. My best friend in the whole world, princess and boss, the one who would be with me always. It'd felt like years since I'd seen her last, but countless, sleepless days would feel like years to anybody else.
Twilight smiled at me, though it soon began to falter. She nodded for me to go forward, one last, final time. I could feel the world become distant as I lost most senses to my body, but the last remnants of my will allowed me to do this act, this discovery that would cure my misery.
I stepped toward the five tombstones before collapsing to my knees.
Rain poured over them all, and in each of their reflections, I saw a part of myself.
And then I wept.
And then I slept.
