Phantomsby dawnbreezChaptersSunriseBreakfast RendezvousKilling TimeA Brief RespiteDay DrinkingMad MinuteSunriseSunny took a deep breath. He hadn't been inside the Rainbow Mart for months, now--not since the fog had lifted from the town. However, he had questions, and he needed to ask them in person and without raising too many concerns. That, and Kerfuffle had insisted on breakfast. He tilted his head, flicking his ears as the bell on the door jingled. He heard the familiar clippity-clack of Kerfuffle's prosthetic hoof on the tile. "Hey there, Mayor! I got your letter. Hope you don't mind gettin' up this early. I gotta keep my sleep schedule up, y'know." She slid into the booth, taking her seat across from him. Today she was wearing a full-length version of her usual fur-lined vest--it was especially chilly out. "I understand completely," Sunny replied. "And I don't mind at all. In fact, I needed the early morning. My sleep schedule's been out of whack ever since...you know." "I getcha. How's Petunia doing?" "She's doing...fine. Listen, Kerfuffle, we've got business to get to--" "Ah ah ah! Nope! Not before I've had my coffee." Kerfuffle smiled wide. "Can't have a good morning without a good cuppa!" "R-right." Sunny sighed. "I've got a lot of questions, though..." "We-ell, good thing my schedule's clear, huh?" She flagged down a waitress. "I'm gonna have my usual," she sang, "and Sunny--what'll you have, Sunny?" "What's your usual?" he asked. "Butter coffee with a spoon o' sugar." "Really? Butter in coffee?" "Hey, it's good for ya. Don't knock it till you try it!" "Well, I guess I'll have a butter coffee as well. No sugar, though." The waitress nodded, scrawling their order on a notebook and trotting away without ceremony. "So how's Cloudy doing?" Kerfuffle idly buffed her hoof, using the fur to polish it gently. "She's heading for Ponyville." "What? Isn't she a teenager? I guess she's striking out on her own, or--" "They say there's a Rakshasa there." Kerfuffle fell silent. The waitress came back, dropped off their coffees, and wandered off. Sunny took a silent sip of his; it was still quite hot, but the butter gave it a rich flavor that he hadn't encountered before. He quietly filed that information away for later. "I guess you're gonna need the whole story, then." Kerfuffle casually downed half of her coffee in one gulp. "This is gonna take a while, Mayor." "Well," Sunny muttered, "good thing my schedule's clear, huh?" "So," she said softly, "it all started when I was born..." So, it all started when I was born. Yeah, great start to a story. But this is important. As you know, I was born without a hindleg to stand on. My parents had enough money to get me a prosthetic when I was a filly, and they always made plenty of time in the day for talking about how I was just like other ponies, just as good and just as special. Looking back, it wasn't the best strategy. By the time I was twelve I was trying to prove it. I didn't just want to have my mom and dad talking big. I wanted to be big. I wanted to stand on my own hooves! So, I made them. My hooves, that is. Yeah, that prosthetic? Hoof-made. My own design! I got a unicorn friend of mine to do the enchantment. That's how I got my mark. He moved away to Canterlot, but I still shoot him a letter if I need to make another hoof. Anyway, things were good for a while, but I just kind of...trailed off. Around the time I turned 18, I just felt...spent. I felt like I didn't have anything left in me. Imagine that, right? Me, not making anything! But my folks wouldn't stop pampering me. They decided that I needed a vacation. And as it turns out, tickets to Rumindia were cheap that year. The trip over was kinda boring in hindsight. I mostly spent it watching the waves...because whenever I stopped watching the ocean, I started getting seasick. I was so glad to be on land again. Unfortunately, that was when I found out why the tickets were so cheap. It was almost monsoon season. I barely got to my hotel before the storm set in. So, drenched in lukewarm rainwater and wondering why the manedryer in the bathroom was for display purpose only, I sat down with a pamphlet somepony had left in the room. It was all about the local mythos--you know, the usual tourist-bait stuff. Come look at these Bovist monasteries, check out all these local Herdist traditions--there was something about a snake talisman? I wasn't really that interested in it. The thing that really caught my eye? A warning about the local forest. It said there was some kind of horrible monster out there--it had crashed a couple parties, ruined a couple rituals, and everyone was being told to stay well out of the woods. I won't pretend that I wasn't a morbid filly back then. I wanted to see the monster for myself, the same way that you might want to lean over the edge of a roof. Just to see it, y'know? "You never struck me as the adventurous type," Sunny muttered. "You'd be surprised. Nopony thinks Rarity does any fighting, but let me tell ya, she's a feisty mare. You kinda have to be, if you're gonna make it in the clothes biz!" Kerfuffle laughed, and chugged the rest of her coffee. Sunny had barely made a dent in his own drink. "But you couldn't get to it right away, I imagine?" he muttered, taking a sip. "Oh, no. It was raining cats and dogs out there. They don't kid around with those monsoons. There was water up to my withers 'till 10 in the morning!" "Goodness." "Yep. They said it was pretty bad that year. Wouldn't've made a difference anyway--I hardly got any sleep that night." "Why? The storm?" "No, no. My missing leg started aching." "Really?" "Yeah. Funny thing about 'phantom' limbs. They aren't there, but that doesn't mean they don't hurt..." Breakfast Rendezvous"Phantom pain". You'd think that knowing it isn't there helps. Mind over matter and the sort. Thing is, how do you treat a wound that doesn't exist? I honestly can't remember how many nights I'd spend curled up, clenching my teeth, hugging my pillow, wishing it would go away. It's pretty rare for a pony to be born without a limb but still feel it--but it happens. There's not a lot doctors can do. They were pulling out some really sketchy stuff by the end--literal smoke-and-mirrors treatments. I skipped it. I couldn't tell you how seeing my leg in a mirror would help. When I woke up the next morning, it was a little after 9:30am. I had hoped to be up by 7 AM so I could get as much out of the day as I could. Not that it mattered, since the monsoon had turned the road into a river. My 'leg' was still hurting, but I was managing the pain pretty well. That was my usual strategy; grit my teeth and bear it. I had tried painkillers, but they didn't really work--I'd always just go back to hurting in a few hours, and I'd need even more pills to get it to go away. When the doctor heard how many I'd taken, he almost had a heart attack. When the aftermath of the monsoon subsided, I finally got to leave the apartment. The street was still wet, more mud than road really, but you could at least walk instead of swim. The numerous vendors were coming back out--dragging carts on wheels, filled with everything from rice and curry to local charms. I saw plenty of the talismans the pamphlet mentioned. Most had a snake on them, I guess it was a popular warding charm or something. There were also cows. A lot of cows. It should go without saying, but Bovindia is the bovine capital of the world. It felt like I was a little filly again, just because of how big they were--something you don't really notice until you see a packed street. There were some yaks, too--I couldn’t exactly tell who was who and I was too nervous to ask for their names a third time. Oh, but the male yaks wore these turbans--the patterns and colors were so vivid. I kind of wish my folks had sent me to Yakyakistan instead, I was already itching to ask where they got the dyes from. My budget didn't have room for another trip, though, so I settled for wandering the town. I must've heard every sales pitch in the book and then some. Good luck charms, wards against the monster in the woods, spices and herbs I'd never get anywhere else...I gotta admit, for a minute there I was really tempted by some of the fabric these guys were selling. If it hadn’t been for some old stallion giving me a warning I might not have caught on. This was a tourist trap; every salesmare for miles around was gonna claim to be the best weaver in the country. Funny thing is, none of the cows were selling anything--only the ponies were. Turns out, cows are kind of a special group over there. They're all supposed to become monks and priests and stuff. Soon as I figured that out, I had my plan. I was gonna ask every cow I met about what they do in the woods. Pretty soon, I learned that nobody was interested. The altars were all wrecked, and nobody was willing to build a new one. Every wedding had been called off, all of the sacrifices were cancelled, and everyone was just gonna go home and meditate. It took me hours to find the one cow in the entire town who was willing to actually do it. "Why do I get the feeling it was Ramooh?" "Whoa, impressive. How’d you know?" Kerfuffle tilted her head. "He was here when the rakshasa attacked." "I thought I saw him! Never thought he'd actually take me up on that offer." The waitress stepped up to the table again, raising an eyebrow in silence. Kerfuffle shooed her away, and she ambled off to take some old couple's order. "What offer?" Sunny asked. "To come live in Equestria!" Kerfuffle said. "He always said he didn't feel at home. I figured, maybe he needed a change of scenery. Is he still here? I’d love to catch up with him!" "He left for Canterlot after the incident," Sunny muttered. "Something to do about business there?" "Huh. Can't imagine what he's up to, then. Maybe he's just sightseeing?" "Could be. So how did you meet him?" "Bumped into him in the street." “No. Seriously, how did you--” “Did I stutter?” "Oof!" Okay, so when I say I bumped into him, what I mean is that we tripped over each other. I got insanely lucky, because he was carrying these massive stone bricks. There weren't many, but when they fell off of him, they barely--just barely--missed me. I got covered in mud, but I was thanking my lucky stars I didn't get hurt. Ramooh, though? He was apologizing like he'd just stepped on a manticore's paw. That was Ramooh, to me. He was always really formal, sure--I think it's 'cuz of how he learned Equestrian--but more than that, he was just trying his best. Once I was back on my hooves--and once he was convinced I hadn't broken anything--I asked him where he was going. And he said he was heading to set up a yajna--the exact kind of ceremony that I was looking for, the kind that kept getting gate-crashed by the monster. I might have fed him a teeny tiny white lie about wanting to experience Herdu traditions and stuff. He said he'd talk to his old bull about it, and the next day, I met them at the market. We picked up some food--mostly flour and a bit of butter. It's a sacrifice, you see. A couple of priests chant some lines, you toss the food into the fire, it goes to the gods. It's kinda weird, but I think of it like sending a letter by dragonfire. It's the same idea, right? All we had to do was go out into the depths of the woods, build a fire pit, and toss the stuff in--and, y'know, hope the monster doesn't kill us. Killing Time"The forest was, well, it was more like a swamp," Kerfuffle muttered, in between sips of coffee. "It was wet, it smelt awful, and there was mud up to my fetlocks. I almost lost my prosthetic a couple times." "Sounds awful," Sunny said. "Your cup is looking pretty low, need a refill?" "I've had three cups already. More than enough, thanks though." "When did you--" "The waitress here is unbelievably good. She'll refill your cup before you even know it's empty. Anyway..." We had a 'path' in the same way a pony with three slices of bread has a sandwich. The unfettered moss covering the forest floor was so dense that it felt like a shag carpet, and I'm not complaining about the natural decor or anything, but it wears down on you after a while. At first I liked how soft it was, but my hooves would sink so far into it that I wound up tripping over myself more often than not. There were four of us--Ramooh, his father Daiya, a family friend, and me. They insisted on carrying the bricks and I wasn’t in the mood to argue. It took nearly twenty minutes of hiking for us to get to the spot--an unnatural clearing in the middle of the jungle, large enough for over a dozen ponies to stand shoulder-to-shoulder. The family friend and Ramooh started laying bricks out, and pretty soon they had a makeshift altar--his father took out a piece of chalk and started marking patterns on it. It had swirls, concentric circles, interwoven spirals--I couldn't make heads or tails of it, but it looked almost perfectly symmetrical despite having so many little details and no references to go off of. I slid up next to Ramooh, leaned in, and whispered "What happens next?" "Well, first we set a fire, then burn some offerings. There are some prayers as well. It is all a fairly simple process--" Ramooh stopped mid sentence when a raindrop dripped onto his nose. It wouldn’t have been all that weird--in fact, I had just opened my mouth to ask if another monsoon might be coming, when another raindrop fell onto my nose. I couldn’t get a good look at it, but it stained my fur. When it trickled down my snout and into my mouth, I nearly gagged at the taste. It wasn't water that was raining down on us. It was blood. "Father--" The sky opened up, turning a sickly, meaty pink as clouds of blood rolled in. "Everyone, stay close!" the old cow bellowed, loud enough to be heard over the rising sound of the rain. I heard a massive thud as a slab of muscle fell right in the middle of the stone altar, blood spattering across the delicate patterns. I backed toward Ramooh, who backed toward his dad. That friend of the family, though? He panicked. He bolted--well, he tried to. I didn't even hear him scream--he took two steps, and then... "Ma'am? Your baked potato." The waitress slid a plate across the table. A freshly-baked spud was on it, with chives and sour cream and bits of cheese melted in the middle. Sunny nodded as the waitress dropped off his order--a stack of pancakes, with syrup and butter. "Thank you," Kerfuffle said softly. Sunny hadn't seen her look so pale since--well, since the rainbow-maker had broken. "I wish I could say he was just gone. I wish I could tell you I hadn't seen this, Sunny." The breakfast rush had already passed them by. Sunny had finally gotten to his second cup of coffee; Kerfuffle had long since asked for refill after refill of milk, instead. They had finally ordered food out of pity for the poor waitress, who had been checking their table so reliably that Sunny had set his pocketwatch by it. "If this was a nice little campfire story where you're supposed to get freaked out and then go to sleep after, I'd tell you that all I saw was a blur. But you know she wouldn't do it like that, right, Sunny?" She leaned over the table, the usual sparkle of her eyes hardened by terrible truth. "A-are you okay, Kerfuffle--" "She skinned him, Sunny. Skinned him alive. Right there, in front of us." Sunny gagged at the thought. Kerfuffle, eyes locked straight ahead, picked up her knife and fork. "She stripped layer after layer off him," Kerfuffle continued, as she pressed the blade of the knife to the skin of her meal. "Oh, it was all perfectly clean cuts. She shaved it off, bit by bit--thin strips of muscle, spirals of fat, splinters of bone." With each word, she carefully sliced off a bit of the potato, delicately placing each piece along the edge of the plate. "Kerfuffle--" "She dragged it out," she whispered, lowering her fork into the body of the potato. She lifted it, tearing a chunk of flesh out, strings of cheese and sour cream dangling off. "She showed off, Sunny. She tortured that bull for, what, a minute? Two?" "Kerfuffle, please--" "She wanted us to watch her," she said, her voice rising as her hooves trembled. The fork clattered to the plate. Cream spattered on the table. "I think she was wondering if any of us would enjoy it. Do you understand me, Sunny? She thought I would enjoy it--" "Kerfuffle!" She stopped talking. The waitress, shaking slightly, muttered something about coming back later. Sunny sighed. "Are you...okay, Kerfuffle?" "No," she said, with the same steady grin she had carried for months--no, for years. A Brief RespiteThey sat in silence for what felt like an hour. Sunny had lost his appetite and could barely look at his pancakes; Kerfuffle, however, was content to slice her potato to ribbons. "You...got out of there, right?" Sunny said, his voice wavering. "Of course I did," Kerfuffle replied. "I wouldn't be here if I hadn't." Sunny gave her an unamused glare. "So what happened next?" "I tried to forget." Ramooh and Daiya apologized for what I'd witnessed--said they shouldn't have gone through with it, that they should've picked a different spot, this, that, and the other...I think they were just spouting whatever excuses they could. I wasn’t sure if they were trying to comfort me or reassure themselves. I was told afterward--by them, and plenty of others--that this is just what ponies do when someone dies in front of them. We think of all the things we could've done to stop it. The two of them told me I should go home, get some rest, and forget about the whole thing. Don't let it ruin your vacation, they said. Celebrate! After all, I made it out alive, right? Even if it felt like the monster was just letting me go. I tried to sleep. The first night was restless and unbearable. The second night, what little sleep I did get was ruined when I woke up in a cold sweat. But the third night, the third night was when I had the most vivid, most unpleasant dream in my life. There I was, in a place I'd never seen before--though I'd see it again several times. It was a massive dining hall--maybe part of an asylum. There was this massive set of arches overhead, and the floor was lined with cracked linoleum tiles--they were covered in grime, with moss and mold growing through the floor. The walls were painted white, with tinges of green, brown and black spread about--they must not have bothered cleaning it for years. There were tall, dusty stained-glass windows, letting a clashing mix of green and red light into the room, but I couldn't see any pattern in them. The first time I went there, all that I could find in that hall was just a gurney, and on that gurney...a book. As far as I could tell, It was a notebook. The binding was bright red, and felt like pleather. There wasn't a title, or anything identifying an owner written inside it--all the pages were blank--so I decided to take it with me. I thought I'd find the owner somewhere.It’s almost funny, thinking about it now--it seems like such a mundane reaction to such a strange dream. There was a set of double doors at the end of the hall. In that dream, they opened onto a regular hallway--same broken tiles, same moldy plaster walls. What stood out was the hospital equipment littering the hallway; overturned gurneys, broken wheelchairs, and dented racks with punctured IV bags hanging from them. I didn’t look too closely--or if I did, I didn’t care enough to remember much. I wanted to return the notebook, so I just tuned out everything else. That's how it is with dreams, I guess. The door at the end of the hallway had a sign above it that read "OPERATING ROOM". I didn't even notice until after I'd gone in. There were two things in that room: there was some kind of chair--it looked like a dentist's chair, even though this was supposed to be a surgeon's OR--and there was a pony. At least, I think it was a pony. It had more eyes than anypony, or anything, should have. There were at least eight on its face alone, and none of them were in the right place. As it lifted one of its hooves, I saw three more--two on its hock and one under the hoof. It pointed at the chair. I set the notebook on the ground and hopped in. It placed its hooves on my chest, first, then slowly explored the rest of my body--despite being practically made of eyes, it wasn’t able to see. Up close, I saw that most of those eyes were clouded over, gray and unfocused. The eyes on its chest were bloodshot, the ones on its limbs were dry and squinty, and the ones on its face--those were almost normal, but they twitched constantly. It was almost pleasant, to be honest. Whatever it was, it was gentle--never pressing too hard, probably to avoid hurting itself. Regardless, I felt my body’s fight-or-flight response start to go wild, I wanted so desperately to leap out of the chair and bolt out of the room but my body wouldn’t listen. It was like I was trapped in my own body as it examined me in a slow, thorough--almost intimate way. Finally, for the final part of its examination--it touched my cheek, a soft caress that almost felt like it was apologetic, like it felt bad for what it was about to do to me. That’s when it pulled a scalpel out of its coat. "You don't need to tell me what happened next," Sunny muttered, glancing away. "But I do, Sunny. Because not only did I remember every detail..." It was all in the notebook when I woke up. See, after that particular nightmare, I decided I'd spent too much time cooped up in the hotel room. I figured I'd feel better if I did something relaxing, like sightseeing, or maybe some shopping. I might not have had the budget for a cross-country road trip, but I had some money. Nothing soothes the spirit like some good old retail therapy. I found a little corner bookstore--and, not sure you know this, but I love bookstores. Yeah, I know--you'd think I'd be more into clothing stores, right? But there’s more to me than just great style and a killer fashion sense. I run a clothing store, but that’s just a job. So while shopping for clothes can be a lot of fun, it does not have the same feel shopping for a good book does. Clothing stores always put the latest trends out on display, to try and lure you in, but bookstores don’t do that. They’ll promote new books, yeah, but they still carry books from decades ago. Because unlike fashion, a good book never goes out of style--and you never know what you'll find in the back. Anyway, I managed to find a Bovindu-to-Equestrian dictionary, a tourist guide to the area, and a big old photography collection with a bunch of famous landmarks pictured in it. I went back to the counter where the cashier was sitting, then dropped the books onto it--I blinked--and one more book was amongst the pile: the red notebook. Same red cover, with no title or author--I picked it up and flipped through it. It was blank before, but now, it had something in it. At first, I thought they were just drawings, but then it dawned on me. They were diagrams. Inside it was a detailed anatomical sketch...of me. It showed my body, split down the middle, all of my organs neatly labeled. My prosthetic was detached...along with my other hindleg. There was a note beside my severed leg, messy and scrawled: "Symmetrical". To be honest, I was scared out of my mind. I froze up, overwhelmed by the thought that someone, or something, was stalking me. I should have known something supernatural was involved, since it was so accurate--I think I was still trying to process what happened during the ritual, or maybe I was just sleep-deprived.. "Sorry," I said as I reached for the notebook. "I must've grabbed this by mistake, I'll put it back." The pony at the counter told me to keep it. She said I looked stressed out, and that I needed something to help me vent. It's a very good sketchbook, according to her. On the house, of course. She insisted that I didn’t have to pay. Before I even knew what was happening, I was out the door, with the books nestled in a brown paper bag. I trotted halfway to my hotel, reached into the bag, then threw the red notebook into a dumpster. After that, I galloped the rest of the way. Day Drinking"This was no ordinary notebook, of course." Kerfuffle sipped the last of her milk, staring through Sunny like rain through the sky. Her potato was starting to go cold. "Of course," Sunny replied. "I think I've seen it," he added, flagging the waitress down. "Check, please." "I'm not done explaining, Sunny." "But you've done a damn good job of traumatizing the wait staff, and if this keeps up you might get banned from the only diner and grocery store in town." Kerfuffle stayed quiet for a bit after that. Sunny paid without incident--his bank account was practically endless, a byproduct of centuries of frugal living and tax-collecting--and they exited, Kerfuffle holding her tail between her legs, Sunny struggling to think of a way to reassure her. It's okay, you're just scarred for life, these things happen? He felt somewhat ashamed to have not picked up on it. He'd gone in knowing that Kerfuffle, if nothing else, knew what a Rakshasa was--how could he possibly think that she had anything resembling a clean bill of mental health? How could he have simply assumed that she weren't scarred? "...your place?" Kerfuffle says, kicking Sunny out of his introspective fugue. "Er, what?" "I said, maybe we could go back to your place? We could keep talking without givin' the waitress a heart attack." Sunny considered this, briefly. The town hall had felt somewhat empty after Petunia packed her bags. And he did still have that bottle of Glenfilly, bad memories and all. "Eh, why not?" he said, trotting along. They both knew the way already. He was probably gonna need the drink to get through the rest of this. "I want you to know--I'm happy I'm here, Sunny." Sunny nodded. "I'm happy to hear that." "I want you to know that because--oh, we'll get to it later. Just--don't worry about it, okay? I want to be here." "If you say so--oof!" Sunny rubbed his head as Moody winced--they had collided with each other, lost in their own respective thoughts. "Ah! Sunny! Good mornin' to ya!" Moody said. "Town's runnin' smooth, hmn? I'm sure you're happy with it." "Oh yes! Yes, I'm very pleased with how things have gone recently. Sorting out my own little corner of things has made everything else easy by comparison." "Easy as...whussaword...butter on biscuits?" Moody grinned. "There's another sayin' for your book, Mayor. Feel free to use it." "I appreciate it, Moody." Sunny tried to match Moody's grin, but found himself a bit more nervous about it. "Oh, and sorry about your truck." Moody blinked. "Whaaaaat do ya mean?" he murmured. "Oh." Now it was Sunny's turn to stare in total confusion. "Forget about it, it's probably nothing." Moody squinted at the Mayor, but try as he might, he couldn't find an explanation on Sunny's face. "If you say so." His expression sprang back into a friendly grin. "Well," he said, "gotta go check on ma' garden. See you tomorrow, Mayor!" "See you tomorrow," Sunny said, waving as Moody wandered off. "You understand we aren't going to finish the bottle," Sunny said. "You? Naaah. I'm sure you'd never drink that much in one sitting," Kerfuffle muttered, as she fidgeted in her chair. Sunny coughed. "Was it something I said?" "Don't worry about it," Sunny grumbled as he poured out two shots. "So, the notebook. It was bright red, right? About yea wide, so tall?" He outlined the shape with his hooves. Kerfuffle nodded. "You've seen it before?" "Inside Long Nght's world." Kerfuffle sat up. "Knew it," she said. "It must belong to her. Or maybe it's just something that shows up when she does her thing?" "Either way," Sunny said, "I didn't look inside. I didn't spend much time with Long Night. Couldn't stand to be around her, honestly." "I guess that's fair. Anyway, that wasn't the last time I saw the notebook either." "What, it followed you?" "It did. When I woke up the morning after tossing it out, it was back, and it had a drawing of the eyeless Kirin that burned me to death." "Eugh." "Really detailed drawing, too. Had the ominous hole in the middle and everything." Sunny decided not to ask anything else about the kirin. "What did you do with the book then?" "Tossed it into the sea." "And then?" "I found it again the day after, with notes on the time it took for me to drown in blood in the nightmare I had that night. Then I burned it, and the next drawing I found was a butcher's diagram of my body. That's when I started to think I needed professional help..." Ramooh and Daiya lived out of the local temple--making a living by giving advice for donations. They seemed like they'd know what to do about this--you know, they had the mysticism, they had the spot at the temple, they seemed legitimate. They were a bit more dressed up today--probably because they weren't planning on hiking through a soggy forest, hauling stone blocks, or getting chased by terrible monsters. Ramooh had these strips of cloth wound around his horns, and Daiya's were capped off with a pair of softball-size orbs made of something that looked soft and shiny. He wouldn't let me touch them. "So, are you here for a tour? I must warn you, Father's going to be very busy today, so--" "I've been having nightmares," I said, and that got their attention. Ramooh immediately started asking questions, but Daiya shushed him, leading us into a back room. It was tiny--barely large enough for a pair of beds, which were the only furniture in it. Daiya sat on one, pointed me to the other, and guided Ramooh to sit next to him. "Detailed?" Daiya said. I nodded. "Would you say they are..." "Gruesome," I offered. He nodded. "And how often do you have them?" "Every night." He frowned. "I had hoped this would not happen," he said, "but it is understandable. The beast haunts you." "Is that a euphemism?" I said, tilting my head. Daiya tilted his in turn. "You know, for going loopy and stuff. PTSD? That kind of thing?" Daiya sighed. "I am afraid not." "The rakshasa will stay in your nightmares," Ramooh explained, "until it drives you mad with pain and grief. Then, it will take you to its world." "...and kill me?" I asked. Ramooh and Daiya shared a glance. "We cannot say for sure," Daiya replied. "What I know is this: You will not be freed by simple patience." "Father, are we going to train her?" Ramooh said. "It is the right thing to do," Daiya said softly. There was a moment's silence. I'm ashamed to say I was kind of excited--would I be learning some kind of ancient martial art, or something? Would I be training to have crazy Bovist mind powers? I let my mind run wild for a bit before I remembered the notebook. "There's one last thing," I said, as I pulled it out. "I found this earlier..." I opened it up. Ramooh and Daiya studied it with the kind of distant academic interest that one can only have after a lifetime of studying everything under the sun. "Did you draw this?" Daiya asked. I stared at him, blinking. "I...what? No. I found it like this." Ramooh shook his head. "Father, these drawings are too accurate--" "It is not hard to believe that she is a good artist." "--and she could not have drawn her heart in so much detail, even if she were not in pain--" "As I said," Daiya muttered under his breath, "It is not hard to believe that she is a good artist. Drawing from memory is not unheard of, either." "But I didn't draw these!" I said. "I swear! I didn't even have the notebook until the day after I had the nightmare!" "You are traumatized. Perhaps you simply forgot what you did, to ease your pain." I groaned, putting my head in my hooves. "Then what about the fact that it's following me?" "What?" Daiya tilted his head, the tassels on his horns swinging slightly. "It follows me. I tried throwing it away, throwing it in the ocean, I even burned it! It. Kept. Coming. Back." "Nightmares are not always obvious. You must have dreamed about destroying the book." I stared at him, slack-jawed. "Trauma manifests in many ways." Daiya said with a shrug. "Father," Ramooh said softly, "I do not believe she drew this--from memory--with a notebook she does not remember having before the nightmares. There must be something else going on." "But who else could have drawn these?" Daiya said. Neither of us had an answer. At the end of it, they had agreed to teach me everything they could to prepare me for fighting the monster. I went back to my apartment, carrying the notebook. They told me to keep it around--both as a way of tracking my nightmares, and in case it was more than just a sketchbook. Mad Minute"So, should I talk about the next couple of nightmares? You aren't getting tired of that, are ya?" "Well... not If you think it's important," Sunny muttered. Kerfuffle laughed, then threw back a shot of whisky. "It’ll all make more sense with context. Y’see, when I went to bed that night, I got the one full of eyes again..." This was probably the first time I'd seen a monster a second time. You'd be amazed how much even the slightest bit of familiarity does for you; I was almost relieved to see it. I had this inexplicable urge to strike up a conversation with it, ask about its family or something--but when I opened my mouth, I realized that there was the chance this blind monster was deaf or mute as well. As if to remind me, it stumbled right up to me--came so close that its cheek brushed against mine. I could feel this shallow, strained breath brush against my ear. Just like that, I froze in place, partly because I didn't want to hurt it, partly because I thought it might hurt me. "You're warm," I said--and he felt much warmer than he did the first time. Was I imagining things? Had this eye-covered monster changed since I last met him? He shook his head. For a moment I wondered if he could read my mind, but before I could utter another word he delicately touched a hoof to my maw. "Be not afraid," he said--with a voice that seemed to emanate from his very being. He wrapped one of his forelegs around my neck--as gently as before, as though he truly meant no harm. I slowly wrapped my forelegs around his neck in turn, taking care not to touch any of his eyes... And that’s when I felt a needle pierce my neck, a rush of something pouring into my veins, and everything started to spin. My vision went blurry, but I could still see the floor--and the monster with the eyes, walking away without another word. I scrambled after him, kicking a wheelchair aside and nearly tripping over a fallen IV bag stand. It was like the walls were zooming toward me, but never actually reached me... instead, a crash cart rolled into my path, seemingly out of nowhere. I jumped over it but didn't stick the landing. Whatever that thing had drugged me with, it was making it difficult to even move. That thing was getting away, casually walking past what looked like a sea of random ER equipment. Whenever I took a second to look at something, it stood still, but everything on the edge of my vision was shimmering and vibrating. Suddenly, a cart laden with surgical tools rattled, and I ducked as a pair of scalpels shot over my head. Following that eye-covered monstrosity was no longer a priority. I had to try and survive this nightmare for as long as I could. I turned to run, only to get blindsided by a gurney--I felt something in my wing crack as that cold aluminum bar collided with me at surprising speed. I rolled to the floor, wheezing. My tongue felt dry and my gut was trying to do a loop-de-loop. When I heaved myself back onto my hooves--and when my stomach was done trying to heave up a lunch that didn't exist--I saw that the gurney had a dead body strapped to it. It looked familiar. As I stared, clipboards and pencils and forceps and belts all began swirling around, whipping up into a tornado of miscellaneous trash. The leather straps holding the body down came undone, and it rose into the air, twirling madly--positioning itself in the center. In the reflection from a steel dinner tray, I could just barely make out another figure--an equine figure, but it was made of smoke. I’m confident it was a phantom. The powerful winds, possibly conjured by this phantom, then hurled the corpse at me. Just as the body struck me in the chest, the stench struck me too--rotting meat and formaldehyde, a foul combination that burned my nostrils. I screamed, kicking the body away before I turned to run for it--only to trip over my own hooves and land on the wing that had been fractured earlier. My screams were indescribable. It was the most debilitating pain I had ever felt at the time. I rolled onto my back, gasping and wheezing, just in time to see an EKG machine--a massive, bulky, wall-mounted affair made of weathered metal with thick glass displays. It broke off the wall and came down on my head. Well, half of my head. "It had to have been on purpose because I was actually pretty lucid for a while there," Kerfuffle said, as Sunny poured her another shot. "Luna, that sounds horrifying." "The worst part is, I think it got the part of my brain that handles language. I saw that thing--I like to call him Mr. Eyes--anyway, he walked up and looked at me... and I swear heard him say something, but I didn't know what. I remember hoping I'd see him again so I could ask him. Oh, and--the pain lingered." "What do you mean?" Sunny asked, pouring himself a second shot. "Well, I woke up with a splitting headache--" Sunny cringed. "Yeah, I know. Couldn't pass up the opportunity.” Kerfuffle snickered. “Anyway, I woke up with a headache, a sore wing, and...well..." "And?" "A good excuse to wash my sheets," she muttered.
SunriseSunny took a deep breath. He hadn't been inside the Rainbow Mart for months, now--not since the fog had lifted from the town. However, he had questions, and he needed to ask them in person and without raising too many concerns. That, and Kerfuffle had insisted on breakfast. He tilted his head, flicking his ears as the bell on the door jingled. He heard the familiar clippity-clack of Kerfuffle's prosthetic hoof on the tile. "Hey there, Mayor! I got your letter. Hope you don't mind gettin' up this early. I gotta keep my sleep schedule up, y'know." She slid into the booth, taking her seat across from him. Today she was wearing a full-length version of her usual fur-lined vest--it was especially chilly out. "I understand completely," Sunny replied. "And I don't mind at all. In fact, I needed the early morning. My sleep schedule's been out of whack ever since...you know." "I getcha. How's Petunia doing?" "She's doing...fine. Listen, Kerfuffle, we've got business to get to--" "Ah ah ah! Nope! Not before I've had my coffee." Kerfuffle smiled wide. "Can't have a good morning without a good cuppa!" "R-right." Sunny sighed. "I've got a lot of questions, though..." "We-ell, good thing my schedule's clear, huh?" She flagged down a waitress. "I'm gonna have my usual," she sang, "and Sunny--what'll you have, Sunny?" "What's your usual?" he asked. "Butter coffee with a spoon o' sugar." "Really? Butter in coffee?" "Hey, it's good for ya. Don't knock it till you try it!" "Well, I guess I'll have a butter coffee as well. No sugar, though." The waitress nodded, scrawling their order on a notebook and trotting away without ceremony. "So how's Cloudy doing?" Kerfuffle idly buffed her hoof, using the fur to polish it gently. "She's heading for Ponyville." "What? Isn't she a teenager? I guess she's striking out on her own, or--" "They say there's a Rakshasa there." Kerfuffle fell silent. The waitress came back, dropped off their coffees, and wandered off. Sunny took a silent sip of his; it was still quite hot, but the butter gave it a rich flavor that he hadn't encountered before. He quietly filed that information away for later. "I guess you're gonna need the whole story, then." Kerfuffle casually downed half of her coffee in one gulp. "This is gonna take a while, Mayor." "Well," Sunny muttered, "good thing my schedule's clear, huh?" "So," she said softly, "it all started when I was born..." So, it all started when I was born. Yeah, great start to a story. But this is important. As you know, I was born without a hindleg to stand on. My parents had enough money to get me a prosthetic when I was a filly, and they always made plenty of time in the day for talking about how I was just like other ponies, just as good and just as special. Looking back, it wasn't the best strategy. By the time I was twelve I was trying to prove it. I didn't just want to have my mom and dad talking big. I wanted to be big. I wanted to stand on my own hooves! So, I made them. My hooves, that is. Yeah, that prosthetic? Hoof-made. My own design! I got a unicorn friend of mine to do the enchantment. That's how I got my mark. He moved away to Canterlot, but I still shoot him a letter if I need to make another hoof. Anyway, things were good for a while, but I just kind of...trailed off. Around the time I turned 18, I just felt...spent. I felt like I didn't have anything left in me. Imagine that, right? Me, not making anything! But my folks wouldn't stop pampering me. They decided that I needed a vacation. And as it turns out, tickets to Rumindia were cheap that year. The trip over was kinda boring in hindsight. I mostly spent it watching the waves...because whenever I stopped watching the ocean, I started getting seasick. I was so glad to be on land again. Unfortunately, that was when I found out why the tickets were so cheap. It was almost monsoon season. I barely got to my hotel before the storm set in. So, drenched in lukewarm rainwater and wondering why the manedryer in the bathroom was for display purpose only, I sat down with a pamphlet somepony had left in the room. It was all about the local mythos--you know, the usual tourist-bait stuff. Come look at these Bovist monasteries, check out all these local Herdist traditions--there was something about a snake talisman? I wasn't really that interested in it. The thing that really caught my eye? A warning about the local forest. It said there was some kind of horrible monster out there--it had crashed a couple parties, ruined a couple rituals, and everyone was being told to stay well out of the woods. I won't pretend that I wasn't a morbid filly back then. I wanted to see the monster for myself, the same way that you might want to lean over the edge of a roof. Just to see it, y'know? "You never struck me as the adventurous type," Sunny muttered. "You'd be surprised. Nopony thinks Rarity does any fighting, but let me tell ya, she's a feisty mare. You kinda have to be, if you're gonna make it in the clothes biz!" Kerfuffle laughed, and chugged the rest of her coffee. Sunny had barely made a dent in his own drink. "But you couldn't get to it right away, I imagine?" he muttered, taking a sip. "Oh, no. It was raining cats and dogs out there. They don't kid around with those monsoons. There was water up to my withers 'till 10 in the morning!" "Goodness." "Yep. They said it was pretty bad that year. Wouldn't've made a difference anyway--I hardly got any sleep that night." "Why? The storm?" "No, no. My missing leg started aching." "Really?" "Yeah. Funny thing about 'phantom' limbs. They aren't there, but that doesn't mean they don't hurt..."
Breakfast Rendezvous"Phantom pain". You'd think that knowing it isn't there helps. Mind over matter and the sort. Thing is, how do you treat a wound that doesn't exist? I honestly can't remember how many nights I'd spend curled up, clenching my teeth, hugging my pillow, wishing it would go away. It's pretty rare for a pony to be born without a limb but still feel it--but it happens. There's not a lot doctors can do. They were pulling out some really sketchy stuff by the end--literal smoke-and-mirrors treatments. I skipped it. I couldn't tell you how seeing my leg in a mirror would help. When I woke up the next morning, it was a little after 9:30am. I had hoped to be up by 7 AM so I could get as much out of the day as I could. Not that it mattered, since the monsoon had turned the road into a river. My 'leg' was still hurting, but I was managing the pain pretty well. That was my usual strategy; grit my teeth and bear it. I had tried painkillers, but they didn't really work--I'd always just go back to hurting in a few hours, and I'd need even more pills to get it to go away. When the doctor heard how many I'd taken, he almost had a heart attack. When the aftermath of the monsoon subsided, I finally got to leave the apartment. The street was still wet, more mud than road really, but you could at least walk instead of swim. The numerous vendors were coming back out--dragging carts on wheels, filled with everything from rice and curry to local charms. I saw plenty of the talismans the pamphlet mentioned. Most had a snake on them, I guess it was a popular warding charm or something. There were also cows. A lot of cows. It should go without saying, but Bovindia is the bovine capital of the world. It felt like I was a little filly again, just because of how big they were--something you don't really notice until you see a packed street. There were some yaks, too--I couldn’t exactly tell who was who and I was too nervous to ask for their names a third time. Oh, but the male yaks wore these turbans--the patterns and colors were so vivid. I kind of wish my folks had sent me to Yakyakistan instead, I was already itching to ask where they got the dyes from. My budget didn't have room for another trip, though, so I settled for wandering the town. I must've heard every sales pitch in the book and then some. Good luck charms, wards against the monster in the woods, spices and herbs I'd never get anywhere else...I gotta admit, for a minute there I was really tempted by some of the fabric these guys were selling. If it hadn’t been for some old stallion giving me a warning I might not have caught on. This was a tourist trap; every salesmare for miles around was gonna claim to be the best weaver in the country. Funny thing is, none of the cows were selling anything--only the ponies were. Turns out, cows are kind of a special group over there. They're all supposed to become monks and priests and stuff. Soon as I figured that out, I had my plan. I was gonna ask every cow I met about what they do in the woods. Pretty soon, I learned that nobody was interested. The altars were all wrecked, and nobody was willing to build a new one. Every wedding had been called off, all of the sacrifices were cancelled, and everyone was just gonna go home and meditate. It took me hours to find the one cow in the entire town who was willing to actually do it. "Why do I get the feeling it was Ramooh?" "Whoa, impressive. How’d you know?" Kerfuffle tilted her head. "He was here when the rakshasa attacked." "I thought I saw him! Never thought he'd actually take me up on that offer." The waitress stepped up to the table again, raising an eyebrow in silence. Kerfuffle shooed her away, and she ambled off to take some old couple's order. "What offer?" Sunny asked. "To come live in Equestria!" Kerfuffle said. "He always said he didn't feel at home. I figured, maybe he needed a change of scenery. Is he still here? I’d love to catch up with him!" "He left for Canterlot after the incident," Sunny muttered. "Something to do about business there?" "Huh. Can't imagine what he's up to, then. Maybe he's just sightseeing?" "Could be. So how did you meet him?" "Bumped into him in the street." “No. Seriously, how did you--” “Did I stutter?” "Oof!" Okay, so when I say I bumped into him, what I mean is that we tripped over each other. I got insanely lucky, because he was carrying these massive stone bricks. There weren't many, but when they fell off of him, they barely--just barely--missed me. I got covered in mud, but I was thanking my lucky stars I didn't get hurt. Ramooh, though? He was apologizing like he'd just stepped on a manticore's paw. That was Ramooh, to me. He was always really formal, sure--I think it's 'cuz of how he learned Equestrian--but more than that, he was just trying his best. Once I was back on my hooves--and once he was convinced I hadn't broken anything--I asked him where he was going. And he said he was heading to set up a yajna--the exact kind of ceremony that I was looking for, the kind that kept getting gate-crashed by the monster. I might have fed him a teeny tiny white lie about wanting to experience Herdu traditions and stuff. He said he'd talk to his old bull about it, and the next day, I met them at the market. We picked up some food--mostly flour and a bit of butter. It's a sacrifice, you see. A couple of priests chant some lines, you toss the food into the fire, it goes to the gods. It's kinda weird, but I think of it like sending a letter by dragonfire. It's the same idea, right? All we had to do was go out into the depths of the woods, build a fire pit, and toss the stuff in--and, y'know, hope the monster doesn't kill us.
Killing Time"The forest was, well, it was more like a swamp," Kerfuffle muttered, in between sips of coffee. "It was wet, it smelt awful, and there was mud up to my fetlocks. I almost lost my prosthetic a couple times." "Sounds awful," Sunny said. "Your cup is looking pretty low, need a refill?" "I've had three cups already. More than enough, thanks though." "When did you--" "The waitress here is unbelievably good. She'll refill your cup before you even know it's empty. Anyway..." We had a 'path' in the same way a pony with three slices of bread has a sandwich. The unfettered moss covering the forest floor was so dense that it felt like a shag carpet, and I'm not complaining about the natural decor or anything, but it wears down on you after a while. At first I liked how soft it was, but my hooves would sink so far into it that I wound up tripping over myself more often than not. There were four of us--Ramooh, his father Daiya, a family friend, and me. They insisted on carrying the bricks and I wasn’t in the mood to argue. It took nearly twenty minutes of hiking for us to get to the spot--an unnatural clearing in the middle of the jungle, large enough for over a dozen ponies to stand shoulder-to-shoulder. The family friend and Ramooh started laying bricks out, and pretty soon they had a makeshift altar--his father took out a piece of chalk and started marking patterns on it. It had swirls, concentric circles, interwoven spirals--I couldn't make heads or tails of it, but it looked almost perfectly symmetrical despite having so many little details and no references to go off of. I slid up next to Ramooh, leaned in, and whispered "What happens next?" "Well, first we set a fire, then burn some offerings. There are some prayers as well. It is all a fairly simple process--" Ramooh stopped mid sentence when a raindrop dripped onto his nose. It wouldn’t have been all that weird--in fact, I had just opened my mouth to ask if another monsoon might be coming, when another raindrop fell onto my nose. I couldn’t get a good look at it, but it stained my fur. When it trickled down my snout and into my mouth, I nearly gagged at the taste. It wasn't water that was raining down on us. It was blood. "Father--" The sky opened up, turning a sickly, meaty pink as clouds of blood rolled in. "Everyone, stay close!" the old cow bellowed, loud enough to be heard over the rising sound of the rain. I heard a massive thud as a slab of muscle fell right in the middle of the stone altar, blood spattering across the delicate patterns. I backed toward Ramooh, who backed toward his dad. That friend of the family, though? He panicked. He bolted--well, he tried to. I didn't even hear him scream--he took two steps, and then... "Ma'am? Your baked potato." The waitress slid a plate across the table. A freshly-baked spud was on it, with chives and sour cream and bits of cheese melted in the middle. Sunny nodded as the waitress dropped off his order--a stack of pancakes, with syrup and butter. "Thank you," Kerfuffle said softly. Sunny hadn't seen her look so pale since--well, since the rainbow-maker had broken. "I wish I could say he was just gone. I wish I could tell you I hadn't seen this, Sunny." The breakfast rush had already passed them by. Sunny had finally gotten to his second cup of coffee; Kerfuffle had long since asked for refill after refill of milk, instead. They had finally ordered food out of pity for the poor waitress, who had been checking their table so reliably that Sunny had set his pocketwatch by it. "If this was a nice little campfire story where you're supposed to get freaked out and then go to sleep after, I'd tell you that all I saw was a blur. But you know she wouldn't do it like that, right, Sunny?" She leaned over the table, the usual sparkle of her eyes hardened by terrible truth. "A-are you okay, Kerfuffle--" "She skinned him, Sunny. Skinned him alive. Right there, in front of us." Sunny gagged at the thought. Kerfuffle, eyes locked straight ahead, picked up her knife and fork. "She stripped layer after layer off him," Kerfuffle continued, as she pressed the blade of the knife to the skin of her meal. "Oh, it was all perfectly clean cuts. She shaved it off, bit by bit--thin strips of muscle, spirals of fat, splinters of bone." With each word, she carefully sliced off a bit of the potato, delicately placing each piece along the edge of the plate. "Kerfuffle--" "She dragged it out," she whispered, lowering her fork into the body of the potato. She lifted it, tearing a chunk of flesh out, strings of cheese and sour cream dangling off. "She showed off, Sunny. She tortured that bull for, what, a minute? Two?" "Kerfuffle, please--" "She wanted us to watch her," she said, her voice rising as her hooves trembled. The fork clattered to the plate. Cream spattered on the table. "I think she was wondering if any of us would enjoy it. Do you understand me, Sunny? She thought I would enjoy it--" "Kerfuffle!" She stopped talking. The waitress, shaking slightly, muttered something about coming back later. Sunny sighed. "Are you...okay, Kerfuffle?" "No," she said, with the same steady grin she had carried for months--no, for years.
A Brief RespiteThey sat in silence for what felt like an hour. Sunny had lost his appetite and could barely look at his pancakes; Kerfuffle, however, was content to slice her potato to ribbons. "You...got out of there, right?" Sunny said, his voice wavering. "Of course I did," Kerfuffle replied. "I wouldn't be here if I hadn't." Sunny gave her an unamused glare. "So what happened next?" "I tried to forget." Ramooh and Daiya apologized for what I'd witnessed--said they shouldn't have gone through with it, that they should've picked a different spot, this, that, and the other...I think they were just spouting whatever excuses they could. I wasn’t sure if they were trying to comfort me or reassure themselves. I was told afterward--by them, and plenty of others--that this is just what ponies do when someone dies in front of them. We think of all the things we could've done to stop it. The two of them told me I should go home, get some rest, and forget about the whole thing. Don't let it ruin your vacation, they said. Celebrate! After all, I made it out alive, right? Even if it felt like the monster was just letting me go. I tried to sleep. The first night was restless and unbearable. The second night, what little sleep I did get was ruined when I woke up in a cold sweat. But the third night, the third night was when I had the most vivid, most unpleasant dream in my life. There I was, in a place I'd never seen before--though I'd see it again several times. It was a massive dining hall--maybe part of an asylum. There was this massive set of arches overhead, and the floor was lined with cracked linoleum tiles--they were covered in grime, with moss and mold growing through the floor. The walls were painted white, with tinges of green, brown and black spread about--they must not have bothered cleaning it for years. There were tall, dusty stained-glass windows, letting a clashing mix of green and red light into the room, but I couldn't see any pattern in them. The first time I went there, all that I could find in that hall was just a gurney, and on that gurney...a book. As far as I could tell, It was a notebook. The binding was bright red, and felt like pleather. There wasn't a title, or anything identifying an owner written inside it--all the pages were blank--so I decided to take it with me. I thought I'd find the owner somewhere.It’s almost funny, thinking about it now--it seems like such a mundane reaction to such a strange dream. There was a set of double doors at the end of the hall. In that dream, they opened onto a regular hallway--same broken tiles, same moldy plaster walls. What stood out was the hospital equipment littering the hallway; overturned gurneys, broken wheelchairs, and dented racks with punctured IV bags hanging from them. I didn’t look too closely--or if I did, I didn’t care enough to remember much. I wanted to return the notebook, so I just tuned out everything else. That's how it is with dreams, I guess. The door at the end of the hallway had a sign above it that read "OPERATING ROOM". I didn't even notice until after I'd gone in. There were two things in that room: there was some kind of chair--it looked like a dentist's chair, even though this was supposed to be a surgeon's OR--and there was a pony. At least, I think it was a pony. It had more eyes than anypony, or anything, should have. There were at least eight on its face alone, and none of them were in the right place. As it lifted one of its hooves, I saw three more--two on its hock and one under the hoof. It pointed at the chair. I set the notebook on the ground and hopped in. It placed its hooves on my chest, first, then slowly explored the rest of my body--despite being practically made of eyes, it wasn’t able to see. Up close, I saw that most of those eyes were clouded over, gray and unfocused. The eyes on its chest were bloodshot, the ones on its limbs were dry and squinty, and the ones on its face--those were almost normal, but they twitched constantly. It was almost pleasant, to be honest. Whatever it was, it was gentle--never pressing too hard, probably to avoid hurting itself. Regardless, I felt my body’s fight-or-flight response start to go wild, I wanted so desperately to leap out of the chair and bolt out of the room but my body wouldn’t listen. It was like I was trapped in my own body as it examined me in a slow, thorough--almost intimate way. Finally, for the final part of its examination--it touched my cheek, a soft caress that almost felt like it was apologetic, like it felt bad for what it was about to do to me. That’s when it pulled a scalpel out of its coat. "You don't need to tell me what happened next," Sunny muttered, glancing away. "But I do, Sunny. Because not only did I remember every detail..." It was all in the notebook when I woke up. See, after that particular nightmare, I decided I'd spent too much time cooped up in the hotel room. I figured I'd feel better if I did something relaxing, like sightseeing, or maybe some shopping. I might not have had the budget for a cross-country road trip, but I had some money. Nothing soothes the spirit like some good old retail therapy. I found a little corner bookstore--and, not sure you know this, but I love bookstores. Yeah, I know--you'd think I'd be more into clothing stores, right? But there’s more to me than just great style and a killer fashion sense. I run a clothing store, but that’s just a job. So while shopping for clothes can be a lot of fun, it does not have the same feel shopping for a good book does. Clothing stores always put the latest trends out on display, to try and lure you in, but bookstores don’t do that. They’ll promote new books, yeah, but they still carry books from decades ago. Because unlike fashion, a good book never goes out of style--and you never know what you'll find in the back. Anyway, I managed to find a Bovindu-to-Equestrian dictionary, a tourist guide to the area, and a big old photography collection with a bunch of famous landmarks pictured in it. I went back to the counter where the cashier was sitting, then dropped the books onto it--I blinked--and one more book was amongst the pile: the red notebook. Same red cover, with no title or author--I picked it up and flipped through it. It was blank before, but now, it had something in it. At first, I thought they were just drawings, but then it dawned on me. They were diagrams. Inside it was a detailed anatomical sketch...of me. It showed my body, split down the middle, all of my organs neatly labeled. My prosthetic was detached...along with my other hindleg. There was a note beside my severed leg, messy and scrawled: "Symmetrical". To be honest, I was scared out of my mind. I froze up, overwhelmed by the thought that someone, or something, was stalking me. I should have known something supernatural was involved, since it was so accurate--I think I was still trying to process what happened during the ritual, or maybe I was just sleep-deprived.. "Sorry," I said as I reached for the notebook. "I must've grabbed this by mistake, I'll put it back." The pony at the counter told me to keep it. She said I looked stressed out, and that I needed something to help me vent. It's a very good sketchbook, according to her. On the house, of course. She insisted that I didn’t have to pay. Before I even knew what was happening, I was out the door, with the books nestled in a brown paper bag. I trotted halfway to my hotel, reached into the bag, then threw the red notebook into a dumpster. After that, I galloped the rest of the way.
Day Drinking"This was no ordinary notebook, of course." Kerfuffle sipped the last of her milk, staring through Sunny like rain through the sky. Her potato was starting to go cold. "Of course," Sunny replied. "I think I've seen it," he added, flagging the waitress down. "Check, please." "I'm not done explaining, Sunny." "But you've done a damn good job of traumatizing the wait staff, and if this keeps up you might get banned from the only diner and grocery store in town." Kerfuffle stayed quiet for a bit after that. Sunny paid without incident--his bank account was practically endless, a byproduct of centuries of frugal living and tax-collecting--and they exited, Kerfuffle holding her tail between her legs, Sunny struggling to think of a way to reassure her. It's okay, you're just scarred for life, these things happen? He felt somewhat ashamed to have not picked up on it. He'd gone in knowing that Kerfuffle, if nothing else, knew what a Rakshasa was--how could he possibly think that she had anything resembling a clean bill of mental health? How could he have simply assumed that she weren't scarred? "...your place?" Kerfuffle says, kicking Sunny out of his introspective fugue. "Er, what?" "I said, maybe we could go back to your place? We could keep talking without givin' the waitress a heart attack." Sunny considered this, briefly. The town hall had felt somewhat empty after Petunia packed her bags. And he did still have that bottle of Glenfilly, bad memories and all. "Eh, why not?" he said, trotting along. They both knew the way already. He was probably gonna need the drink to get through the rest of this. "I want you to know--I'm happy I'm here, Sunny." Sunny nodded. "I'm happy to hear that." "I want you to know that because--oh, we'll get to it later. Just--don't worry about it, okay? I want to be here." "If you say so--oof!" Sunny rubbed his head as Moody winced--they had collided with each other, lost in their own respective thoughts. "Ah! Sunny! Good mornin' to ya!" Moody said. "Town's runnin' smooth, hmn? I'm sure you're happy with it." "Oh yes! Yes, I'm very pleased with how things have gone recently. Sorting out my own little corner of things has made everything else easy by comparison." "Easy as...whussaword...butter on biscuits?" Moody grinned. "There's another sayin' for your book, Mayor. Feel free to use it." "I appreciate it, Moody." Sunny tried to match Moody's grin, but found himself a bit more nervous about it. "Oh, and sorry about your truck." Moody blinked. "Whaaaaat do ya mean?" he murmured. "Oh." Now it was Sunny's turn to stare in total confusion. "Forget about it, it's probably nothing." Moody squinted at the Mayor, but try as he might, he couldn't find an explanation on Sunny's face. "If you say so." His expression sprang back into a friendly grin. "Well," he said, "gotta go check on ma' garden. See you tomorrow, Mayor!" "See you tomorrow," Sunny said, waving as Moody wandered off. "You understand we aren't going to finish the bottle," Sunny said. "You? Naaah. I'm sure you'd never drink that much in one sitting," Kerfuffle muttered, as she fidgeted in her chair. Sunny coughed. "Was it something I said?" "Don't worry about it," Sunny grumbled as he poured out two shots. "So, the notebook. It was bright red, right? About yea wide, so tall?" He outlined the shape with his hooves. Kerfuffle nodded. "You've seen it before?" "Inside Long Nght's world." Kerfuffle sat up. "Knew it," she said. "It must belong to her. Or maybe it's just something that shows up when she does her thing?" "Either way," Sunny said, "I didn't look inside. I didn't spend much time with Long Night. Couldn't stand to be around her, honestly." "I guess that's fair. Anyway, that wasn't the last time I saw the notebook either." "What, it followed you?" "It did. When I woke up the morning after tossing it out, it was back, and it had a drawing of the eyeless Kirin that burned me to death." "Eugh." "Really detailed drawing, too. Had the ominous hole in the middle and everything." Sunny decided not to ask anything else about the kirin. "What did you do with the book then?" "Tossed it into the sea." "And then?" "I found it again the day after, with notes on the time it took for me to drown in blood in the nightmare I had that night. Then I burned it, and the next drawing I found was a butcher's diagram of my body. That's when I started to think I needed professional help..." Ramooh and Daiya lived out of the local temple--making a living by giving advice for donations. They seemed like they'd know what to do about this--you know, they had the mysticism, they had the spot at the temple, they seemed legitimate. They were a bit more dressed up today--probably because they weren't planning on hiking through a soggy forest, hauling stone blocks, or getting chased by terrible monsters. Ramooh had these strips of cloth wound around his horns, and Daiya's were capped off with a pair of softball-size orbs made of something that looked soft and shiny. He wouldn't let me touch them. "So, are you here for a tour? I must warn you, Father's going to be very busy today, so--" "I've been having nightmares," I said, and that got their attention. Ramooh immediately started asking questions, but Daiya shushed him, leading us into a back room. It was tiny--barely large enough for a pair of beds, which were the only furniture in it. Daiya sat on one, pointed me to the other, and guided Ramooh to sit next to him. "Detailed?" Daiya said. I nodded. "Would you say they are..." "Gruesome," I offered. He nodded. "And how often do you have them?" "Every night." He frowned. "I had hoped this would not happen," he said, "but it is understandable. The beast haunts you." "Is that a euphemism?" I said, tilting my head. Daiya tilted his in turn. "You know, for going loopy and stuff. PTSD? That kind of thing?" Daiya sighed. "I am afraid not." "The rakshasa will stay in your nightmares," Ramooh explained, "until it drives you mad with pain and grief. Then, it will take you to its world." "...and kill me?" I asked. Ramooh and Daiya shared a glance. "We cannot say for sure," Daiya replied. "What I know is this: You will not be freed by simple patience." "Father, are we going to train her?" Ramooh said. "It is the right thing to do," Daiya said softly. There was a moment's silence. I'm ashamed to say I was kind of excited--would I be learning some kind of ancient martial art, or something? Would I be training to have crazy Bovist mind powers? I let my mind run wild for a bit before I remembered the notebook. "There's one last thing," I said, as I pulled it out. "I found this earlier..." I opened it up. Ramooh and Daiya studied it with the kind of distant academic interest that one can only have after a lifetime of studying everything under the sun. "Did you draw this?" Daiya asked. I stared at him, blinking. "I...what? No. I found it like this." Ramooh shook his head. "Father, these drawings are too accurate--" "It is not hard to believe that she is a good artist." "--and she could not have drawn her heart in so much detail, even if she were not in pain--" "As I said," Daiya muttered under his breath, "It is not hard to believe that she is a good artist. Drawing from memory is not unheard of, either." "But I didn't draw these!" I said. "I swear! I didn't even have the notebook until the day after I had the nightmare!" "You are traumatized. Perhaps you simply forgot what you did, to ease your pain." I groaned, putting my head in my hooves. "Then what about the fact that it's following me?" "What?" Daiya tilted his head, the tassels on his horns swinging slightly. "It follows me. I tried throwing it away, throwing it in the ocean, I even burned it! It. Kept. Coming. Back." "Nightmares are not always obvious. You must have dreamed about destroying the book." I stared at him, slack-jawed. "Trauma manifests in many ways." Daiya said with a shrug. "Father," Ramooh said softly, "I do not believe she drew this--from memory--with a notebook she does not remember having before the nightmares. There must be something else going on." "But who else could have drawn these?" Daiya said. Neither of us had an answer. At the end of it, they had agreed to teach me everything they could to prepare me for fighting the monster. I went back to my apartment, carrying the notebook. They told me to keep it around--both as a way of tracking my nightmares, and in case it was more than just a sketchbook.
Mad Minute"So, should I talk about the next couple of nightmares? You aren't getting tired of that, are ya?" "Well... not If you think it's important," Sunny muttered. Kerfuffle laughed, then threw back a shot of whisky. "It’ll all make more sense with context. Y’see, when I went to bed that night, I got the one full of eyes again..." This was probably the first time I'd seen a monster a second time. You'd be amazed how much even the slightest bit of familiarity does for you; I was almost relieved to see it. I had this inexplicable urge to strike up a conversation with it, ask about its family or something--but when I opened my mouth, I realized that there was the chance this blind monster was deaf or mute as well. As if to remind me, it stumbled right up to me--came so close that its cheek brushed against mine. I could feel this shallow, strained breath brush against my ear. Just like that, I froze in place, partly because I didn't want to hurt it, partly because I thought it might hurt me. "You're warm," I said--and he felt much warmer than he did the first time. Was I imagining things? Had this eye-covered monster changed since I last met him? He shook his head. For a moment I wondered if he could read my mind, but before I could utter another word he delicately touched a hoof to my maw. "Be not afraid," he said--with a voice that seemed to emanate from his very being. He wrapped one of his forelegs around my neck--as gently as before, as though he truly meant no harm. I slowly wrapped my forelegs around his neck in turn, taking care not to touch any of his eyes... And that’s when I felt a needle pierce my neck, a rush of something pouring into my veins, and everything started to spin. My vision went blurry, but I could still see the floor--and the monster with the eyes, walking away without another word. I scrambled after him, kicking a wheelchair aside and nearly tripping over a fallen IV bag stand. It was like the walls were zooming toward me, but never actually reached me... instead, a crash cart rolled into my path, seemingly out of nowhere. I jumped over it but didn't stick the landing. Whatever that thing had drugged me with, it was making it difficult to even move. That thing was getting away, casually walking past what looked like a sea of random ER equipment. Whenever I took a second to look at something, it stood still, but everything on the edge of my vision was shimmering and vibrating. Suddenly, a cart laden with surgical tools rattled, and I ducked as a pair of scalpels shot over my head. Following that eye-covered monstrosity was no longer a priority. I had to try and survive this nightmare for as long as I could. I turned to run, only to get blindsided by a gurney--I felt something in my wing crack as that cold aluminum bar collided with me at surprising speed. I rolled to the floor, wheezing. My tongue felt dry and my gut was trying to do a loop-de-loop. When I heaved myself back onto my hooves--and when my stomach was done trying to heave up a lunch that didn't exist--I saw that the gurney had a dead body strapped to it. It looked familiar. As I stared, clipboards and pencils and forceps and belts all began swirling around, whipping up into a tornado of miscellaneous trash. The leather straps holding the body down came undone, and it rose into the air, twirling madly--positioning itself in the center. In the reflection from a steel dinner tray, I could just barely make out another figure--an equine figure, but it was made of smoke. I’m confident it was a phantom. The powerful winds, possibly conjured by this phantom, then hurled the corpse at me. Just as the body struck me in the chest, the stench struck me too--rotting meat and formaldehyde, a foul combination that burned my nostrils. I screamed, kicking the body away before I turned to run for it--only to trip over my own hooves and land on the wing that had been fractured earlier. My screams were indescribable. It was the most debilitating pain I had ever felt at the time. I rolled onto my back, gasping and wheezing, just in time to see an EKG machine--a massive, bulky, wall-mounted affair made of weathered metal with thick glass displays. It broke off the wall and came down on my head. Well, half of my head. "It had to have been on purpose because I was actually pretty lucid for a while there," Kerfuffle said, as Sunny poured her another shot. "Luna, that sounds horrifying." "The worst part is, I think it got the part of my brain that handles language. I saw that thing--I like to call him Mr. Eyes--anyway, he walked up and looked at me... and I swear heard him say something, but I didn't know what. I remember hoping I'd see him again so I could ask him. Oh, and--the pain lingered." "What do you mean?" Sunny asked, pouring himself a second shot. "Well, I woke up with a splitting headache--" Sunny cringed. "Yeah, I know. Couldn't pass up the opportunity.” Kerfuffle snickered. “Anyway, I woke up with a headache, a sore wing, and...well..." "And?" "A good excuse to wash my sheets," she muttered.
