Sandman: The Dream Hunter
Canterlot, Dream's Pov
Roaming into the hallway of what felt like an eternity, I peered at the multicolored glass windows. Passing through, the one thing in my mind sparks an recognition of those similarities those windows have in common. Nostalgic, they were Delirium's favorite color. She's rather an endless, but she bears an duty for that purpose: to induce insanity and oblivion when she sees fit. For whatever reason, the personality she expressed was of an teenage girl with an bubbly, random attitude. The solar princess once told a tale of an reality warping entity, the lord of chaos.
I felt miffed, an idea of my sister become mutual with the entity will upset the universal balance. Shaking my head at such an ludicrous ideal my sister would make at future times, I approached before the red doors to the dining room, disembarked as I was greeted with friendly gestures of Equestrian Royalties.
"I hope the hallways does not trick your mind into getting lost, Morpheus." Princess Luna with a smirk, ignoring the soft chiding look from her sister across the table.
"Not at all, Luna. The essence of my ruby navigates for me." I said, earning the princess of love's attention.
"The glowing one?", having a silly thought at the dragons attempting to consume such a thing as the crimson red stone. "I think the dragons would have the wrong idea getting their grasp at your gem." Cadence commented.
I raised my eyebrow at that statement in amusement, "This gem is no mere ruby, princess of love. This Dream stone is an conduit of oneiric energy, warping the reality of astral realm. Where I rule for eternity."
Rubbing the glowing ruby with a finger, "Should a Dragon get a hold of this due to their primal instinct of devouring this, not only this would give the user to warp dreams; but to drove one mad and even to disorient individuals into the levels of chaos discord would not understood how potent that outcome would be." I explained cryptically, seeing the stunned reactions from the princesses.
"I... should notify the ambassadors from the dragon kingdom about this. That dream stone to be trifled with is very concerning, Dream." Celestia said with a slight worried tone, "Do keep a firm security on that dream stone, I do not want my ponies to have ill tendencies at the thought of altering fabric of dreams."
I nodded, pleased with her wisdom. "Well spoken, Solar one. I made the stone, created from the fabric of my being long ago. Powered by my spirit it was made to manipulate dreams by its fabric, of the world I rule. The ruby contains too much of me, of my power." I said.
"The damage would do more harm than good, spending energies to upset the sleeping cycle into night terrors. Not only that, but death can be reality once they ran into precarious scenarios from their nightmares." Luna added with a uneasy look.
I looked at her, feeling impressed by her knowledge of oneiromancy. "Your assessments, as well as your duties, taught you a few signs that dissonance will stop at nothing to make countless demises." I commented.
She smiled in acknowledgement, the chefs brought in foods with their catering carts. Setting them on the table in front of their rulers before they do so in front of me, looking intrigued with a delicate look of an Grecian-like dish. I thanked the chef, who nodded in welcome as he trailed off with his fellow chefs.
I eat the gyro-like meat, which isn't goat. But the consistency of alligator's was new. Gladly, it bears no gammey taste. The flavor had an nice Greek dressing aroma coming from the meat and consume more of it, reminding of his days with a lover he I to be bonded with cooked for me. Even I don't need food to nurture my physical appearance regarding my status, her food was good.
"Do you have the time? To tell us a story?" Cadence asked.
"Aye, ever since we found you, you embody such an tale to share."
Wiping my mouth with a napkin with grace, eyes glinting like stars within my abyss sclera. "Very well, what genre do you want me to convene the story?"
Celestia had a idea and smiled at me, knowing her choice of an topic. "How about romance?" She suggested.
"And Thriller, too." Luna added.
Sipping the rich wine mixed with grape and cherry, set my cauldron down as I clasped my hands softly.
"So be it, for I will speak a tale of an Monk and the Fox. From where I'm from, it was called....The Dream Hunters.
Japan, Third Person
A monk lived in solitude beside a temple on the side of a mountain.
It was a small temple, and the monk was a young monk, and the mountain was not the most beautiful or impressive mountain in Japan.
The monk tended the temple, and he passed his days in peace and quiet until the day that a fox and a badger passed the temple and spied the monk hoeing the little plot of yams which fed for much of the year.
The Badger looked at the monk and the temple, and he said, "Let us make a wager. Whichever of us succeeds in driving that man from the temple will keep the place as a home; for it had been many years since pilgrims or travellers came to this temple, and it will be a finer place by far to live than a badger's set or a fox's den."
And the fox smiled with her sharp teeth, and blinked her green eyes, and she swished her brush and she looked down the hill at the temple and at the monk, then she looked at the badger and she said, "Very well. A wager it is."
"Each of us will take it in turns," said the badger. "I shall go first."
Down in his little garden plot the monk hoed his yams, then he went down on his knees and he weeded the wild onions and the ginger plants and the little patch of herbs: then he cleaned the mud from his hands and knees, and he went into the living quarters at the back of the temple, to prepare for that evening's devotions.
That night, the moon hung full, huge and silver, in a night sky the colour of a ripe plum; and the priest heard a mighty commotion outside his door.
There were five men in the courtyard, richly dressed and mounted on five great horses. They were hairy men. Their leader held a great curved sword.
"Who serves in this temple?" He called, in a voice that sound like the thunder. "Let him show himself!"
The monk came foward, into the moonlight, and he bowed deeply. "I am the unworthy guardian of this temple," he said, simply.
"And a skinny, unimpressive runt of a priest you are," boomed the leader. "But who among us can account for the will of the gods? Truly was it said that those who seek after fortune find it as elusive as grasping a rainbow, while those who disdain good fortune and the world often find it beating upon a gong outside their door."
To this speech the young man said nothing, but he raised his head a little; and looked at the horsemen in the moonlight with sharp eyes that missed nothing at all.
"Well, do you wish to know what your good fortune is?"
"Certainly," said the monk.
"Know then that you have been sent for by none other than the Emperor himself. You are to travel as fast as you can to the imperial palace, where the Emperor wishes to speak with you and to confirm that you are indeed the person of whom the augurs and diviners have told him, and then you will be raised from obscurity and appointed to minister to the needs of the imperial court --- a position which brings with it great fortune and mighty estates.
"However, know also that if you do not present yourself at the Imperial Palace before the next Day of the Monkey, then the auguries go from good to very bad, and the Emperor shall, regretfully, be forced to issue your death warrant. Therefore wait not a single moment, but depart this place before dawn, or risk the Emperor's severest displeasure."
The horses stamped their feet in the full moon's light.
The monk bowed low once more.
"I shall leave instantly," he said, and the five horsemen grinned, and the moon-light gleaming from their eyes and their teeth, and from the metal bridles and decorations of their horses, "but, before i leave, i have one question to ask."
"And what would that be?" Asked the leader, in a voice like a tiger's roar.
"Why the Emperor would sent a badger to tell me to come to the Imperial Court," said the monk, who had observed that, while the first four horses had the tails of horses, the last horse of all had the tail of a badger. And with that the monk began to laugh, and he walked back into the temple to begin his evening devotions.
There was a clattering from the courtyard as the riders rode away, and from the mountainside came the Yip! Yip! Yip! Of a fox, high and vicious and amused.
"Why would those two wanted the temple for themselves?" Celestia asked
Sipping his drink, "Not only they're tired of living in their natural habitat," set his cup down, "but they are quite enough of the tolerance they have to muster for mankind to hunt them. Understandably they are sprites, but pointless of slaying them. In Japan, a fox and a badger are an sign of mischief. Stereotypically, they are bad spirits in the eyes of mortals."
Cadence looked disheartened by this background history of sentient creatures, "That's oppressive." She said.
"Myth cannot help. Nor the normalcy that fears the unknown, mortals cannot help themselves either, it is the way what they think. Their mentality cannot fathom rational thinking, that's what so sad." Morpheus said.
Luna is fascinated by this tale, nodded at him to continue.
The clouds covered the mountaintop before midday the next day, and they were dark, full clouds, so it came as no surprise to the monk when the rain began to fall, a hard, drenching rain that bent the bamboo and flattened the young yam plants. The monk, who was used to the weather on the side of the mountain, remained at his devotions and did not stir, not even when the lightning started --- a blinding whiteness, followed by thunder so loud and so deep it felt as if it were being wretched from the very heart of the mountain.
The rain redoubled. It sounded like the beating of a hundred small drums, such that the monk could scarcely hear the sound of weeping, over the pounding and rattling of the rain, but he did hear someone sobbing, and he went out into the courtyard, where he saw, sprawled upon the ground where the earth ran like muddy soup, a young woman, soaked by the rain. Her robes, which were of the richest silk, were sopping, and clung to her body like a second skin.
The monk was painfully aware of the young woman's beauty, and her body, as he helped her to get feet and walked beside her into the temple, where they could be out of the rain.
"I am the only daughter of the governor of the province of Yamashiro," she told him, as she stood beside the small brazier, wringing out her garments and her long black hair, "and I was travelling with a party of women and guards to this very temple, when we are attack by brigands. I alone escaped. I overheard them say that, when this rain lets up they are going to ride up the mountainside to this temple and burn it to the ground and kill anyone they find here." While she spoke she ate a bowl of the monk's rice, and a small bowl of yams, gobbling her food hungrily as she stared at the monk with bright green eyes.
"Therefore," she said, "Let us flee this place, never to return, before the bandits come, for if we stay here, we shall both perish. And if we are separated, then you should make your way to the province of Yamashiro, and ask for my will reward you mightily. Thank you for the rice. It was very good, although the yams were perhaps a little dry."
"We must certainly leave immediately," said the monk, with a gentle smile playing at the corners of his lips, "if you will explain one thing to me first."
"And what would that be?" Asked the girl.
"Explain to me how it happens that the daughter of the governor of the province of Yamashiro happens to be a fox," said the monk, "for I have never seen eyes like yours on a human's face."
At that, no quicker than it takes to tell it, the girl jumps over the little brazier, and, when she landed she was no longer a girl but a fox, with its coat sleek and its brush held high, and it darted the monk a look of utter disdain before it leapt upon a stone and ran along it, to the shade of a bent old pine, where it paused for a moment, before vanishing into the storm.
Later that afternoon the sun came out, and the monk was able to walk around the temple picking up brown leaves and fallen branches, And repairing the damage of the storm.
He was beginning to perceive a pattern here.
So he was entirely not surprised when, several nights later, as the sun was setting, a troop of demons shambled through the woods to surround the little temple. Some of them had the heads of dead men, and some of them had the heads of monsters, with yellow tusks and staring eyes and huge horns; and they set up a clamor such that you never heard.
"We smell a man!" They shouted. "We scent man-flesh! Bring out the man and we shall eat him ---- we shall roast his heart and vitals and brains, feast on his eyes and cheeks and his tongue, shallow his liver and his fat and his testicles! Bring him here!"
With that, several of the demons began to pile high the fallen branches the monk had gathered, and they breathed on them with their fiery breath until the branches begin to smoke and then to burn.
"And if I do not come out?" Called the monk.
"Then we shall come back every night at sundown," screamed the demon with a head like a flayed bat, "and make a tumult, until, finally, our patience at an end, we shall burn down your little temple and we shall pluck your charred body from the ashes, chomp it down eagerly with our sharp teeth!"
"So flee!" Shouted another demon, its face that of a drowned man, flesh swollen, eyes blind and pearl-like, "flee this place and never come back!"
But the monk did not leave. Instead he walked out into the courtyard, and he picked up a burning brand from the fire.
"I will not leave this place," he said, "and I am tired of these performances. Now, whatever you are, fox or badger, take that! And that!" And he began to lay about him with the burning brand.
In a moment, where before there stood a horde of demons, there was nothing more than a fat old he-badger, who scrabbled and began to run away. The monk threw the burning brand at the badger and struck him on the rear, burning its tail-fur and singeing his rump. The badger howled with pain, and vanished into the night.
At dawn the monk was half-awoken from his deep sleep by a whispering a whispering voice from behind him.
"I wished to say sorry," said the voice. "It was a wager between the badger and me."
The monk said nothing.
"The badger has fled to another province, his tail burned and his dignity in shreds," said the girl's voice. "I shall also leave, if you desire it. But I have lived my life in a den above the waterfall, by the twisted pine, and it would hurt me to leave."
"Then stay," said the monk, "if you will play no more foolish fox tricks upon me."
"Of course," said the whispering girl's voice behind him, and soon the monk returned to dreams. When he woke properly, an hour later, the monk found the fox-footprints on the matting of his room.
The monk caught the sight of the fox from time to time, slipping through the undergrowth, and the sight kg her always made him smile.
He did not know that the fox had fallen violently in love with him, when he came to tell him she was sorry, or perhaps before, when he picked her up from the muddy courtyard and taken her inside to dry herself by the fire. But wherever it had happened, it was unquestionably true that the fox was in love with the monk.
And that was to be the cause of much misery in the time to come. Much misery, and heartbreak, and a strange journey.
The three princesses was enchanted by this tale, but the princess of love thought otherwise regarding the ending part:
"Why would there be much misery?" She asked, bemused for romance to be confronted by misery.
"Water that flows continuously through the stream with 2 different fishes, which they are infatuated with each other. But at the end, when water cannot mix with oil at the lake...." Morpheus trailed off, looking at Cadence.
Her eyes widdened at an sudden analogy, frowns at such an answer she easily knew.
"The fishes either separate or die before they share the future of each other for life."
The solar princess gives her a comforting look, "I'm afraid so, niece," looking at Morpheus, "that was a vigorous, yet charming tale. But one question remains burning."
Morpheus nodded and allowed Luna to answer, "Why did the badger want the palace for himself? I know what you've said earlier about their irritations living in dens and whatnot, but why?"
"It is the amount of depravity, whenever there are nature that does not give comfort. As you probably know, which reality I'm from, does not have pegasis there to control weather. But Susano no Mikoto does his part with the storms. As for the badger, he was desperate rather instead he's greedy. Foxes are mischievous, but prone to fall in love with somebody. Until then, misery comes for a rude knocking on their life's door. The badger, however...," sipping the last drop of wine, "are rather aggressive nature of obsession. Impervious of relent reasoning, all he gets was a fiery backlash." He said.
"He deserved it, threatening the monk with horsemen and demons." She scowled, "that however does remind me a bit from my event dealing with such illusions from my counterpart."
Celestia frowned at that, but said none. "That was a good tale, Dream. But I must raise the sun in 6 hours." She said, standing up. "You should tell us more by lunch time."
"Yes, I am eager to hear more," Cadence smiled, "I like to know what happens next, because I support the monk and the Fox." She said, hopeful of the outcome from the tale.
He felt amused, but couldn't blame her. Knowing she rules over the essence of passion, he might have more for tomorrow to satisfy the princess of love's thirst for a romantic ending. But he must express details with his eloquence of thriller and misery, much to Luna's liking.
"So be it, another chapter for you all. But bring your guards with you, they might be curious. They should use this tale as an example for their approach in romance, but should know how to defend themselves from dream hunters." He declared.
The princesses looked at each other, liking the idea of it. They knew the barracks was the issue of bat ponies and regular ponies, dragons and griffons that are now citizens of this land, are having quite a difficult time getting along with each other. But the tale of an monk and the fox might change their view of discrimination to some infatuations, also increasing the strength to make friendships to treat it as unity.
"I like this suggestion, Morpheus. I'll make sure to invite all of them for lunch." She said, earning nods of agreement from two royalties by her side.
"So be it, until then... I bid you good dreams." He said, waving once at the royalties in dismissal. Walking off to his room to induce himself with slumber, slowing returning to rule in his realm.
The Sandman has lot to deal with nightmares, the ordeal of madness within the fabric of dreams is his duty to regulate it. With the lunar princess's assistance, it was easier for him to get matters under situated. Lies there in his dream palace, sitting on his throne and waits until a dream calls for him, assisting every living beings for the sake of mental health for the greater good. For he is the Sandman, the deathless, to protect and heal broken, troubled dreamers from worse fate.
Author's Note
It was quite an finger-tiring time to be typing with my phone! Whew.... also, a side note: I thought about originally make a story about the Sandman in Equestria and why is he there, I didn't have the proper resources for Dream's background history. Although I am reading through series of the Sandman, I just needed to take my time to be creative in his point of view in the world of magic. Photos are not mine, they are used to be depicting the action and scenery of the tale; The Dream hunters. I loved, I mean I don't only love them, but I ABSOLUTELY love the elegance of Japanese art designed by Yoshitaka Amano. As well as Neil Gaiman's stories, it was quite relaxing for the brain with his sense of cryptic suspense. I love it. I hope you enjoy this, I will make the second chapter later on. Maybe soon. Sayonara!
P.S. I sense there are going to be a little bit errors in this, but just know I'm proud and felt accomplished making this story.
