~ Arc III ~
Dulci Somnii

I wasn’t sure where I was when I opened my eyes, or what time it was. That should have panicked me, as I knew I needed to be back to work, but I just didn’t care anymore. I slowly raised my head out of the soft, cool cradle of my pillow and glanced around.

It was then I realized I wasn’t in my room, this wasn’t my bed, and I was in trouble, in exactly that order.

My first clue was the blanket of stars up above me, sparkling gently in the night sky. Upon observing this, I blinked, realizing that my little futon had never felt this soft, comfy or. . . wet? Glancing down, I realized I was laying on a cloud. It was then that my brain decided to remind me that one could not lay on a cloud, at which point physics kicked back into gear, and I dropped through the heavy bank of moisture and began to plummet towards the spinning earth below.

Yeah, that was about when I figured out I was in trouble.

“SHIIIIITTTT!!!!” I screamed as I fell blindly through the darkness, wind whipping through my hair and whistling in my ears. The screams of terror were ripped from my throat and lost to the night sky and the merciless pull of gravity.

As I fell, and my body panicked and flailed to no avail to find a way to halt my descent, my brain seemed irrationally calm, thoughts moving steadily along through it. How did I get here? Where was here? How had I been sitting on that cloud?

. . . . . . . . . .

It was that thought that made me stop struggling, my screams dying away and a frown curling my brow. That was . . . a very, very good question. How had I been atop that cloud when I woke up? And how did I get from my bedroom to here? Such a blatant disregard for the laws of physics and reality would only make sense if I was. . . .

With a sudden jolt, I simply stopped falling. I glanced down and realized that I could not see anything beneath me, aside from an expanse of stars, shimmering and glinting, the same as were above my head, and all around. I turned about and blinked as my eyes landed upon an innocuous sight; a door, apparently floating in midair. It was painted a deep blue colour, and had what looked like stars dotting it, as well, and a small window, shaped like a crescent moon. The sight brought a sense of familiarity, as though I had seen it before, but for the life of me, I could not place where.

Feeling an insatiable urge, I stepped forward slowly, the sensation of doing so when there was nothing apparently beneath me rather unnerving, and came to a stop in front of the door. This close, I saw that the stars weren’t painted on, but instead glimmered just like those in the sky around me. I slowly reached out a hand, and hesitated before the doorknob. With a surreal sort of logic, the sort that comes along with dreaming, it occurred to me that it might be rude just to barge in through this door, and so instead, I raised my hand and knocked three times. Each one echoed for no apparent reason through the empty air around me, as though the sound was bouncing off of the million and one stars twinkling softly in the darkness.

With a soft click and hushed sound of moving air, the door opened of its own accord, yawning wide to reveal darkness on the other side. For the first time, I felt a sense of foreboding. Probably due to the horror-esque feel of the moment, and I took a step back, swallowing hard as I looked into the darkness. “H. . . Hello?” I asked, like every moron in every horror film ever.

There was no response, only silence from the other side. I stared into those shadows, eyes straining to see something, anything, that might give me a hint as to what lay on the other side, but the blackness was impenetrable.

I was starting to think that maybe I should turn about and leave well enough alone, and pondered on how I had the wherewithal in a dream to think that at all, when I heard something. Or, at least, I thought I did. It was a soft sound, not even a whisper, just a breath of air. It came from within the dark, on the other side of the door. I felt a shot of adrenaline blast through my system, and swallowed past a lump of fear in my throat. I took another step backwards, biting my lip. “Who’s there?” I asked, steeling my voice to sound manly and brave. It came out as more of a squeak, but I count it as a victory that I was able to say anything at all.

For a long moment, there was silence, and I slowly leaned forward, focused on listening to the darkness beyond the doorway. As seconds ticked by in my head, I began to think I had simply imagined it, and again wondered what kind of dream this was that it would feel so real, so visceral, and wherein I could think so clearly.

Fyre. . .

I jumped at the faint but very real sound of my name that drifted as though on a fog out of the doorway. I took a step back, swallowing hard, eyes wide, and ground my teeth to keep from screaming, as my pulse pounded in my chest and my veins screamed with an overflow of adrenaline.

Fyre. . .

“Who are you?!” I snapped in a panic as I staggered back from the door. Something in my head, a small voice of reason, was trying to tell me that, through the distortion, there was something very familiar about the voice, feminine, strong and powerful, yet kind and empathetic at once. But at the moment, I was a bit too preoccupied with hyperventilating to notice. This was only made worse when my attempted retreat from the door was suddenly halted and I looked down to find myself encompassed in a deep blue aura that sent tingles all over my skin. I screamed in raw panic.

Fyre? The voice seemed almost concerned now, and was quickly losing it’s distortion. However, at that moment the aura went from tingling to sending little pinpricks through my flesh, and I started moving towards the door, against my will. This of course did not help the panic, and I began struggling, my ability to reason quickly flying out the window. . . if there had been a window, that is. Although, I guess there was one on the door. . . Actually, never mind.

The aura attempted to pull me through the door, into that yawning maw of blackness on the other side, and I could just see some gigantic monster waiting to eat me. Maybe that’s why it was so dark! Maybe this was literally just the mouth of a monster, and I had been yelling down it’s freakin’ throat for the last five minutes! I screamed, and managed to reach out an arm and grab the frame of the ‘door’ with one hand. How I got the hand free from the aura, I didn’t know and didn’t care. I latched on and clung for dear life. The aura pulsed for a moment with something I could only describe as impatience, and gave me a sharp tug.

Fyre, let go of the door. There was that voice again, sounding all familiar and comforting, clearly trying to get me to drop my guard so it could eat me!

“No!” I snapped. Ha! That showed it!

”Let go of the door, Fyren.”

That time the voice was less comforting and more. . . yeah, definitely impatient. Geez, was I about to die at the hands of the Elder God of Fat Chicks? Nommed liked a twinkie! What a sucky way to die! Ah, Hel no!

“Fuck off, you eldritch abomination!” I shouted at the top of my lungs into the gaping blackness on the other side of the door, which was looming closer in spite of my grip on the door.

”Fyren! You are going to break your fingers, now let go!”

“I said, fuck. Off!” Damn, this thing was persistent! And what did it care if my fingers were broken, it was just going to eat me, anyway!

One of these days, I’ll learn to calm down and think rationally in these situations, I swear.

. . . . . . . . . .

I felt the darkness on the other side of the door shift, heard it draw in a deep breath in frustration and consternation. There was a small flicker of blue light on the other side of the door, somewhere in all the darkness, and then. . . .

”FYREN LOKIEIÐR, YOU WILL RELEASE THAT DOOR FRAME THIS INSTANT, OR I SWEAR ON MY SISTER’S NAME, I WILL DRAG YOU IN HERE, BROKEN FINGERS OR NOT!!!”

Now THAT voice was familiar on a whole other level. The volume was such that it whipped my hair back from my face, and caused me to lean backwards, in spite of the tight grip of the magical aura that surrounded me. In such a moment, my mind went blank, and my fingers released the door frame without my conscious approval, and, like a whip, I was snatched through the portal and into the darkness.

I fell apart, literally, as I seemed to tumble in all directions at once, spinning around and around without end, like a sock in a dryer. But, even though the sock may feel as though it’s journey is without end, eventually, it does come to a stop, and, like that sock, I smacked hard into the earth without warning, and lay there with a groan.

The first thing I noticed upon opening my eyes was the grass, soft and green under the moonlight that shone down from above. Then, I saw the shoes. They weren’t shoes as I normally would think of them, but that is what they were, nonetheless, and I knew this. They were made of silver, and shaped in such a way that they gracefully fitted the hooves of their owner with curves and spirals, looking like something from a Druid’s wet dream.

I ran my eyes up the shapely, slender forelegs, covered in fur that was a rich shade of midnight blue, up to the chest, strong and covered with a breastplate of blackened steel, marked in argent with a crescent moon and stars. Past that, up her graceful neck, to her face, beautiful in the light of the stars and moons that she had planned and placed with meticulous care in the night sky. Her wings were flared out above and behind her, framing her and making her seem even taller than she was.

“You are a very, very vexing mortal, Fyren Lokieiðr.” Princess Luna said, her tone sounding none too pleased, and I gulped, staring up at her, utterly enraptured. In all my time in Equestria, I had never actually gotten to meet either of the royal sisters, although Twilight had told me that they were both very interested in my circumstances and wished to meet me. I had wound up being dropped back onto Earth Prime before the chance had arisen. To suddenly and without warning find myself lying on the ground before one of them, and the one to whom I granted the title of ‘Best Princess’, no less, was a shock to the system. The fact that I had spent the last week growing more and more certain that nothing of my time in Equestria had been real probably didn’t help, either.

And so, looking up in those piercing blue eyes, that gorgeous face, that flowing mane which held all the stars in the sky in it’s flowing locks, I could find but one thing, and one thing only to say.

“Whut?”

Author's Note

And here we are, folks! Back where we belong! I’m sorry for the delay, and all the broken promises, to those who’ve been following my blogs up to this point. I’m going to stop making promises regarding stories. My muse is fickle, and often tied to my emotional state. If I get really depressed, she tends to simply leave me all together. I might have ideas that I find interesting, but none of them stick around, or else I start them, and then lose interest. I will however state that, as I said, this story is not over. It’s gonna be weird, and random, and I have no idea what the future holds for it, but, for now, look forward once more to weekly updates. ;)