The train was quiet, slightly wobbling and jumping on the rails' joints. Elusive Dream felt lightheaded, as if the world around her — the small train compartment, sturdy green-painted table, two single beds, checkers and darts to play with somepony else — was unreal.
In a way it was, but that was a different part of the story.
She stepped from the bed to the floor, went up to the window, and moved the curtains with her hoof to look at the snow beyond it.
Only a second or two later the thought of the magic limiter on her horn crossed her mind. Already means of living without much magic were settling down in her. They took their time, like a police officer from the neighbourhood. The one who from the very foalhood knows the pony who she ought to visit twice a month since the accident.
Not the first accident, by the way. The most remarkable one.
Circumstances matter. Nothing personal.
"Do you think I am dangerous?" Elusive Dream asked the officer one day — years before the train ticket became the only reasonable answer; a month after the accident.
Minor Approvance appeared thoughtful, confused. Caring, anyway.
Elusive Dream had been hugged then, and she heard the raspy reply, "I do, but aren't we all? It's just you’re closer to a hazard."
She had been a good pony. She still was, even after the event.
They kept happening, rarely at first, since Luna's — Princess Luna, that is, never Nightmare Moon — return. The first event... three days after a national celebration, she thought. Maybe four. The second one four years after that.
The first day, though? That was Wednesday, she was sure. She was visiting Ponyville from Manehattan, as she did every second Wednesday of the month, having made another batch of dream catchers. Subtle magic weaved in, nothing great; she knew that her heritage goes way back to the Guardians of the Night, but her own talent was a spark, not a star.
The day was warm, with a quiet wind to cool down a slight fever of hers. Nothing too bad, just a warmth in her chest and her head, and speech maybe faster than usual, and overall she felt joy and energy, and was really happy to live, thank you very much.
Sixty nine bits from the sale were helping too.
The one who went last to her stand was a green-mint unicorn with her marefriend aside.
Elusive Dream blinked, slowly. On the one hoof, she was reasonably, maybe, sure that Lyra and Bon Bon were just friends. On the other hoof, the word was there, and she could imagine, with a tint of disgust, them kissing. Making out, with cheeks red and eyes closed.
She did not approve these relationships. It was unhealthy and straight from the porn magazines of her first coltfriend. He was paying too much attention to these, and you just can't trust your foals to such a pony. Nothing to discuss here.
It was all over even before she had found the receipt for... more special issues of that journal in his desk drawer. He tried to claim that it was not his thing at all, but Elusive Dream knew exactly what she saw. She was a reasonable pony.
But when she looked at Lyra, she imagined. She heard quiet moans, and subtle hoofsteps of the two to balance against each other.
There was a smell, too.
Elusive Dream had known that she was just imagining things, that it was not real. She definitely was not aroused. She barely felt the soil under her hooves, but she managed to do the final sell of the day.
The phantasy subsided a few hours later, in the dark and damp hotel room. The dream after that had been as far away from 'subsided' as could be.
She kept visiting Ponyville monthly, as she did for years before the event; the seventh visit after the event became the last one. It went up in her chest with each next coming to Ponyville. She never had been fully free from it, even between the visits, and a glistering shadow was there, waiting, shaming. A sight, a conversation, a meeting with Lyra next to a bookstore, totally accidental one, each time.
Sometimes, rarely, it had not been resulting in a phantasy.
Most often, it had.
She started fighting it. She organised a club of friends in Manehattan. A lecture, then another, then third one, promoting healthy family relations between two sexes, stallions and mares, as it is intended by nature. She was passionate but cautious, and the shadow inside somehow went a bit weaker even from its almost non-existence.
Almost.
Four years from the first event went by, and she saw two stallions of the club, together.
She cried that night, weak and exhausted, in the puddle of her sweat. The shadow had been doubled, and they laughed at her feeble mind.
It all went to Tartarus after that. Third, fourth, fifth and sixth events happened in a span of a month, each one more vivid in her imagination.
She saw it in ponies passing on the other side of the street, in couriers delivering a stash of books on obsessions, in the daughter of her best friend.
After the sixth event it was everywhere for her, hiding, biding its time. Nopony appeared safe, and her imagination was quietly giggling over her fears. Two more months later there was no more point in keeping count; it became incessant, thrice a day or more.
There was a method in her madness. A phantasy, then a dream compared to which the reality was a dirty newsprint; passing pleasure of the body that she sometimes achieved did exactly nothing about the dream, and the dream still remained that much brighter than life. Then she was weak, cold and empty, barely breathing in a bed, knowing that something passed through her and took a part of her away.
Her marks — irregular wavy meshes of rainbow lines — were painful, either too hot or too cold, and oozing barely visible purple light, more prominently at nights.
One evening, at a now semi-regular meeting — Elusive Dream had been barely able to keep track of time at that point, but she tried — she almost called for the murder.
She barely had time to mangle her own speech to indistinct mumble over the incriminating words. Still, a stranger in a pointy hat — clown, maybe? — read the room and threw the stone at her anyway.
She hit her in the head.
The stranger was right, of course. She did want to murder all that... all who... Except she didn't. Or she did. It was too complicated, and her head was pulsing, and let's say nothing about nethers then.
She met the Princess of the Night half a week after that, crying, in her bed and still so weak in the aftermath of an attempt to resolve the issue — herself — in a most ultimate way.
The Princess had found her at a Manehattan suburbs hotel room. No visit to the capital was needed.
The Princess was not angry, but she was harsh and cold.
"There are some bigots in the land," she said, "and many of them are beyond much help. Beliefs are an important part of the pony identity, they take root in the foalhood, and if the pony is already grown up, there is not much you can do. Ponies learn not to hear them out, deny conversational places for them, and leave them aside. We have a program to help them though, a controversial one.
"But you are not only a bigot but a pony of mine," the Princess said. "Had we not been relatives, I still would be in need to help you. You are my distant niece, through dozens of generations, Elusive Dream... and you were fertilizing what you feared and what you wanted. Do you remember Lyra and Bon-Bon? They are happily married, thanks to you and your talent."
Elusive Dream hoped that was just a mere joke of the royalty. She hadn't even started to process the 'royalty-related' part. She shut her eyes and covered them with her hooves.
She got a hug from the Princess, and for a long time they were silent.
"You are dangerous," Luna said, "Your malignant talent will force more and want for more. Your phantasies will drag you ever further beyond what you have taught yourself to be accepting. For now you are in the perfectly normal range — however your bigotry may suggest you otherwise, queer ponies have exactly nothing to be ashamed. I wonder where you even have got the idea that this could be bad. Except you make them feel the shame too, and that is unacceptable."
Elusive Dreàm nodded, weakly. She was unable to agree in her heart; she still felt it as wrong, but that was the issue. She believed her Princess.
"But no step will be the last one." Luna went on, "and over time you will be calling for harm and murder. It will be very hard for your talent to find a suitable target among ponies, but you are becoming more powerful and your talent that much more insidious. You understand?"
She did.
"But is there something good in me, at least a bit? If not, could you please kill me? I tried myself but..." she asked then.
"Yes, you are a good pony," Luna replied, "and yes, I could kill you. There are reasons for that,” Luna fell silent, then continued, “I will not do so. There is hope in life for you. Even with that talent of yours, I want to take you as my pupil. You are a monster too, as am I," Luna smiled wide, "and monsters are mine."
Pupil?! Monster?..
She said it aloud, apparently.
"Yes. Please keep living and be happy. Please restrain from any crowds and public speeches. Please feel free to satisfy yourself with your images — it does not make you worse. You are still a good and talented pony. I will visit you, and teach you to stay well away from the edge. I think we have a few years ahead, with my help. Once your phantasies will revolve around killing or harming somepony, or making a foal abuse... I hope it will never come to that, but if it would, please cast this spell," Luna showed the spell — inward spiral of gleaming blue, whirling in, and in, and in, "...and go to sleep."
Elusive Dream nodded, crying and smiling at the same time.
"Once you perform the spell, there will be a train," Luna said, "It will take you to the place where you will not harm anypony — and maybe help other bigots too. If our program has a chance...
"Until then, Elusive Dream, keep being a good pony."
