Falling asleep one last time
With as much time as he spent in the hospital, Hickory had gotten used to the sad expressions. He could see it on everypony that walked into his room, some sort of deep sadness that not many of them could even try to hide. He was aware that something was deeply wrong with him, but nopony had ever given him the entire explanation.
All he knew was exhaustion. The 15 year old colt didn't look too bad, on the outside. He was a bit skinny, but his light brown coat and his dark brown mane and tail looked healthy enough. He had no cutie mark, his teeth were in good shape, and his dark purple eyes were beautiful despite the weariness swirling deep within them. His smallish wings stayed folded at his sides, gently preened by one of the nurses whenever they got too ruffled.
Hickory was sick, and he'd been sick for as long as he could remember. Some colts spent every summer or every winter in a vacation home, or a private school, or a summer camp, but Hickory's life had alternated between the orphanage and the hospital. He actually enjoyed it, in a way. The hospital was always fun to explore, there were elevators to ride, a piano in the lobby to listen to, interesting ponies of all kinds to talk to, and his teachers and his guardian visited pretty often.
For about a year, Hickory had been living at the Canterlot hospital. At first, it'd just been a normal visit. Taking tests, monitoring him, examinations, all things he was used to. But at some point, he'd started to get worse, and he ended up staying in his bed most of the time, hooked up to machines that whirred and hummed to either side of him.
For a while, his teacher had come to see him once a week, going over his lessons with him. She was a nice mare, and she was always extra patient and gentle with him, which he was thankful for. He'd had a much worse teacher in the past, so he was even more thankful for her. On one of her visits, after talking to the doctor, she gave Hickory the tightest hug she'd ever given him, and then she left.
He didn't realize for about a month that she wasn't coming back. He'd asked his nurse about it, but the mare never had answers for him. His guardian, the stallion who ran the orphanage, he would visit once a month, checking up on Hickory. Whenever he did come, he'd sit with the colt and talk to him for a while, giving him updates on who'd been adopted and who was new. Hickory didn't really spend much time with the other ponies back home, but he was always glad to hear that someone had found a home.
Still, things didn't improve. At some point, he'd been too tired to go exploring the hospital, and eventually that led to always staying in his bed. He'd felt guilty at first for having to be carried to the bathroom, but he did his best to comply with everything, and he always managed to eat the food they gave him. Yesterday, they took away his machines. They told him that he wouldn't need them anymore, and at first he worried, but the silence they left behind was worth it to him.
Tonight, the weather was perfect. The sky was clear, and the moon and stars shone into the room past the open curtains. It took a lot of effort, but Hickory managed to slowly roll over onto his side, grunting softly with the effort it took. He laid his head on his pillow, wriggled to get comfortable, then he smiled a little as he looked out to the moon. It was beautiful, and Hickory wouldn't even remember closing his eyes and falling asleep, surrounded by the quiet of the hospital instead of the humming of machines.
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At the same time, Luna was drifting through the dream world. In the dream world, time moved differently. When Luna fell asleep, she left her body behind to drift through the land of dreams, and time outside halted. It drained her strength to enter dreams, but once she was inside of a dream, she could spend one minute or one century there, and time outside would flow the same way.
It could be dangerous, in a way. If she entered the dream of a young pony and stayed there for years, they would age in their dreams, but wake up in their original body, causing a variety of problems. Sometimes, with older ponies, Luna might spend a lot of time with them if she felt like it. It was selfish, but sometimes she would take a pony as her lover in the dream world, but erase their memories on the way out so they wouldn't remember it.
And sometimes, she would live the rest of a pony's life with them. Her talents were limited, but Luna was able to read into a pony's real life surroundings, and see partway into their memories. If she happened to find a shadowy dream belonging to an elderly pony who was nearing the end, Luna would often join their dream, just to travel down the dusty roads of their memories with them. Old ponies loved to tell stories about their past, and in the dream world, Luna was able to live those memories alongside them, gaining insights into the world she'd missed while she was trapped on the moon.
Sure, she was only able to see into the past century or so while she had missed a thousand years in total, but so much had happened in that time that she didn't mind it. Her favorite kind of old pony to talk to were ponies who had traveled Equestria in their youth, because she got to see the changing landscapes through their eyes. Ponyville and other small towns had stayed roughly the same over the centuries, but places like Manehattan and Baltimare and Canterlot (to a degree) had seen explosions of technology, roads cropping up for ponies to drive on while radio towers were replaced with cell towers and then satellite dishes. Ever since Luna had learned about Tanks, she wondered why nopony ever tried to use one of them to stop King Sombra, but most of the doomsday scenarios that had played out ever since her return had been of a magical nature. There wasn't a tank in the world that could put a stop to discord, after all.
In Equestria, it was rare for a filly or colt to die young. Equestria's hospitals treated everypony, regardless of how many bits they had or how liked or disliked or famous or infamous they were. Between that and the Tree of Harmony doing its best to subtlety protect its ponies, nearly everyone got the chance to grow old and see other ponies walking along the roads of their own lives.
But sometimes the stars aligned, or perhaps they refused to align, and somepony would leave everypony else behind before they even got their cutie mark. When Luna drifted past a sickened, fragile dream, she looked towards it with a saddened frown, then her eyes opened wide when she noticed that the pony it belonged to was just a colt.
Without hesitation, Luna dove into the dream, flying down over the dark skies of canterlot as she assessed where she was. Now that she was in the dream, she sent her magic out, learning about the pony who was having it. His name was Hickory, he was in the canterlot hospital on the 20th floor, and he'd been there for a long time. She felt even worse for the little colt as she learned what a sorry state he was in, and when she began to home in on him, she began to look worried. She could tell if she was inside of a nightmare, and this didn't feel like one, but then why was he on the edge of the hospital roof? Luna silently landed behind the colt, a frown on her face as she looked at him.
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When Hickory "woke up", he didn't even realize he was dreaming. He simply opened his eyes, and he smiled as he spotted the moon through the window. He took a deep breath, stretched a little, and his eyes went open wide as he felt strength in his limbs. It'd been so long since Hickory had been his usual "just kinda tired" self that he wasn't used to feeling okay anymore.
But he didn't just feel okay, he felt great! He grinned widely as he jumped off of his bed, and he ran out into the hospital. Being nighttime, he didn't want to bother anypony, so instead he went to the elevator. Taking it all the way onto the roof, Hickory walked out into the night air, taking a deep breath. He let out an excited, squeaky little "I-I'm all better~!" as he pranced in a circle, then he walked towards the edge of the roof. Still smiling, Hickory carefully sat down on the smooth bricks, a spot that he hadn't been to in a long time. "I-I cant believe it..." he said in a soft voice, looking up at the sky.
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Luna quickly realized that Hickory wasn't there to hurt himself. He'd ran up here after "waking up" in his bed, and it broke her heart to look down at the little colt. To Luna, dreams like his were the most painful to visit. Not because it was difficult to enter the dream, or because she had to fight some sort of monster, but because of how... sad they were.
In the dream world, Luna was used to ponies fulfilling their dreams. Driving the fastest cars, flying the largest planes, braving storms at sea, marrying the pony they love, becoming mayor of their town, joining the royal guard or wonderbolts, exploring outer space. The sky was no limit in the dream world, and yet...
...There were ponies like Hickory. Ponies who only ever knew what it was like to be sick. Their dreams didn't have any racecars or spaceships, their dreams were only that they woke up one day and were healed. That was it. Hickory's dream was only that he woke up and didn't feel tired anymore, and the idea of that tripped something inside of Luna.
Examining his memories again, Luna could tell that Hickory didn't have any time left. They'd taken away the machines, not because he was better, but to allow him to pass away in silence, without the annoying sounds of the machines that had struggled to keep him alive for so long. She didn't approve of lying to foals, but sometimes, she could see why somepony would.
In that moment, as she silently watched the colt from behind, Luna decided to stay. Not for the night, but for the rest of Hickory's life. The flow of time in the dream world meant that she could spend a lifetime with Hickory in the span of a real life heartbeat. Until Luna left Hickory's dream, time was frozen, and the colt could continue living totally unaware that his body was a mere hour from finally giving up.
As she walked up behind Hickory, Luna couldn't help but smile a little bit. She hadn't chanced onto such a pony since her time before being banished, and in some ways, she was excited to do it again. Hickory wasn't the first pony she would grant with a full life, and he wouldn't be the last. Luna had lived many lifetimes in the dream world, and in that sense, she was much, much older than Celestia.
"Hey there, Hickory..." Luna quietly said, a smile on her face as she slowly sat down next to the colt. He squeaked a little, stumbling back from the edge of the roof with a wide-eyed expression, but his grin came right back once he realized he was looking at one of the former Princesses.
Stumbling to his hooves, Hickory saluted the blue mare, saying, "H-Hi, Luna!" with that same grin of his. The alicorn giggled a little, touching a hoof to her snout as she smiled back at him.
"You don't have to salute me, you know..." She said, letting her grin widen just slightly until it almost resembled a smirk. She then giggled when Hickory's cheeks began to redden, the colt quickly putting his hoof back down.
"O-Oh, sorry, I uh, I dunno what to do when you see a princess..." he said, sheepishly running a hoof through his mane.
"Well, you do whatever you want, really... though I suppose I'd recommend against throwing things" Luna said, remembering how often ponies would instinctively throw whatever they were holding in her direction if she happened to startle them.
"Oh, well, I got nothin' to throw at ya..." Hickory said, pawing at the roof. Luna's magic wrapped around him, and she slowly lifted the colt onto her back, setting him down in just the right spot so he could put his front hooves around her neck.
Luna smiled, looking back at the colt, and she finally asked the question she'd been planning to ask; "You're better now, and I've been watching you... how would you like to live with me at the castle?"
Author's Note
~~haven't cried yet but it's gonna happen~~
~~Also, I was gonna write the whole thing and then publish it, but I'm gonna be busy soon, so why not publish the first chapter and see what people think?~~
~~And if any of y'all have some ideas for this concept, I'd be glad to hear em :)~~
Edit: You know, I'm gonna leave this story as-is. If I write more, it'll be a sequel, a seperate story, that kinda thing. I just can't think of what to write in addition to this that would improve on the concept...
I dunno, maybe I don't trust myself to create a second chapter that's as good as this one, heh
Thank all of you guys for readin' my dumb lil stories
