Doubt

CHAPTER TWO
TROUBLED SLEEP

She sat there, in the field of soft, rounded clouds. Her hooves caressed a small doll, and her eyes rested on this curious object of her desire. Around her, the head of the mail pony who had messed up many of her delicate deliveries popped out of the clouds, spilt into fifteen of itself, and orbited the small blue pony who sat in her thoughts. Some heads chewed muffins, while others chewed various muffin shaped objects, and one had its mussel in a cylindrical contraption that read “BUT WILL IT BLEND?”

All perfectly normal, nothing to see here.

This must have been why the unicorn sat staring so intently at her doll, and only her doll. Or was it? Was it important? But none of these thoughts occurred to the blue pony, which simply sat and looked at the doll. But was it a doll? It was not shaped like a doll; in fact, it was not shaped like anything. But it was still there. And the blue pony knew that it was a doll.

The blue pony blinked, and the doll had a shape. It was the shape of a pony, and was coloured blue, with a mane that shined silver. A small blue horn could be seen behind the front of the mane of her face, which cascaded over her delicate features and small purple eyes. The blue pony realized that she was looking at herself. It was more than a doll; it was flawless, lifelike, and perfect. She could almost feel a heartbeat coming from the small pony in her hooves. From herself.

The blue pony smiled at her reflection, it was all that had ever mattered to her in the world. So her eyes never left it. Never.

And the blue pony realized that all eyes never left it. The clouds around her had morphed into a field of eyes, all with bright blue irises and large, dark pupils, all focused on the blue pony’s reflection. The heads of the mail pony began to speed up, spinning around and around the reflection. The objects in their mouths had turned into eyes, and they drifted away from the mail ponies to join their friends.

The heads, now free of their burdens, closed in around the reflection, circling ever faster. They spun so fast that it was becoming hard to make out any features of the clumsy grey pegasus that journeyed around the unicorn and her reflection, completely enclosing them in a whirl of colour. The blur of grey and yellow closed in and surrounded the reflection, and the blue unicorn felt it being lifted from her hooves as the blur rose and spread, then, suddenly, separated. Splitting apart and flying away from the sight that met the blue unicorn’s wide eyes.

The figure of Twilight Sparkle towered over the unicorn, her purple coat glowing with the essence of her power. An evil smile covered the pony’s face, and her eyes were wide, though the pupils were small. Her horn glowed with the power that the blue unicorn had seen when the purple unicorn had beaten the Ursa Minor.

Suddenly, the eyes that had adored Trixie, watched her, loved her, turned. They all shifted to the gigantic unicorn, the gentle blue melting off as they turned, replaced by a layer of fierce red. They adored Twilight, they watched her, loved her, forever. They watched as the purple unicorn raised a hoof over the head of the blue unicorn, her grin widening as she did so. The eyes around the pair of unicorns grew as they watched, still focused completely on the huge Twilight before them. Not even one tried to glance at the helpless little blue unicorn. The unicorn who had risen to her hooves and was galloping, galloping as fast as she could, as far as she could from the horrible creature behind her.

But with every step, the giant unicorn only grew larger behind her, and the eyes only stared more adoringly at her. She was being pulled towards Twilight, shrinking as she ran, or, perhaps, it was everything around her growing, pressing in more tightly, compressing her. She could hardly breath, the only air that she had captured escaping in loud, sharp gasps as she ran endlessly onwards.

A shadow fell over the blue unicorn and the red eyes flashed menacingly, then turned to the blue unicorn, but instead of watching, they were glaring, hating, repulsing. The unicorn could feel the hate emanating off of them, like heat from a burning fire. She could feel the heat burning her, searing her prized flesh, clouding her vision. With the little sight sh had left, the unicorn saw that reflected in the eyes was a giant purple hoof, and under it was a small blue shape, moving desperately and pointlessly.

The giant hoof fell from the sky and the unicorn sprang up from her bed of grass, screaming to the morning sun as loud as she could possibly manage. But other than her terrified yells, Trixie heard a loud voice.

“Whoa there, Ahm only tryin’ tah help”