A Shadow of Myself

Charlotte was aware she had been dreaming. It had been a dream about various moments in her childhood, a recurring dream, a dream that made her feel small. Where she was now didn't feel like a dream, yet she felt smaller than ever.

Impossibly tall buildings of alabaster were all around her. They had doorways big enough that would have been two stories high. They all had windows, and she could swear they were all facing her as if the buildings themselves were watching her. There were no decorations or ornamentation anywhere, just plain white under a starry sky. She was also completely alone. Was this the world of the care bears?

Where was the rest of the team? Where was her sister?

"Hello?!" she yelled. She only now realized that she was already standing. Shouldn't she have been lying down if she had been asleep? "Is anyone out there? Andrea, can you hear me?"

"She can't hear you, not here. Don't worry; you'll rejoin her shortly."

She whipped around to see who had been speaking. An older woman stood there, leaning on a staff. It was hard to say precisely how old the woman was. Her hair was bleach white. Her face was a mass of wrinkles so deep that her mouth seemed to blend in with them all. She was about Charlotte's height, maybe an inch or two shorter, and wearing blue jeans and a light green t-shirt. There was an electronic device hanging on the rim of the jeans that had wires running under the shirt. The older woman may have been leaning on the staff, but somehow she didn't look frail, and her eyes, though somewhat clouded, looked intensely at Charlotte.

"Who are you? Is this a dream? Are you a Dreamwarden?" Charlotte asked, stepping back.

The older woman shook her head. "No, I am not one of them. You can call me The Traveller, or just Traveler. This isn't a dream, although it shares some elements of one. I call it The Outside because it is outside of time, space, universes, planes, and paradoxes. I know, I'm not terribly original with names, but I like to keep it simple…as simple as possible, anyway."

"Did you bring me here? Are you in league with No Heart?" Charlotte asked, stepping back further.

"Not in league with anybody," the woman said. She then fished into her pocket and pulled out what looked like a charm bracelet with three pink beads. "Most important question first, have you gotten one of these yet?"

"Uh…no, what is it?" Charlotte asked.

The woman tossed it over to her, and Charlotte caught it with both hands. "Hold onto that then," Traveler instructed. "It isn't magic or anything. Call it a memento. Nothing from The Outside is real until it is. This is your first memento, which means this is our first meeting. I needed to know if it was our first or not."

Charlotte looked at the bracelet. It was just a plain charm bracelet with three beads. "I've never met you. I would remember if I did."

The Traveler laughed. "You would think so, but that isn't how The Outside works. You and I won't remember this when we leave. We won't remember when we meet again; that's what the memento is for, a reminder that we have met. That way, we don't have to start over completely from scratch next time we meet."

"Are you some sort of ascended being?" Charlotte asked.

That made the woman laugh hard. "No, young lady. I'm just a traveler. Would an ascended being have most of her organs replaced with synthetic ones that are all hooked up to this little doohickey at my side to keep them working? I'm old, very old…not exactly sure how old I am anymore, to tell the truth, age gets complicated when you travel, but I'm very mortal."

Charlotte looked around at her surroundings again. "Why did you bring me here?"

The Traveler slowly sat down, groaning as she did. "Damn arthritis. What I wouldn't give to be your age. To answer your question, I'm here to give you lessons. You have powers you don't understand. Who better than me to teach you how to get from one place to the next?"

That made Charlotte blink. "You can teach me? How? You said I won't remember this. Sunset already tried to help me understand my powers and couldn't do it. What makes you able to do so?"

"I'm sure that miserable old unicorn could teach you all kinds of magic if you were a unicorn, but you're a human, and you need a human teacher," Traveler explained. "And you won't actively remember these lessons, but some part of you, buried deep in your subconscious, will. That way, you'll have the information, almost like an instinct, when you need it. I'm not going to teach you everything, just the basics. There is a certain joy to discovering and trying things out on your own that I won't deny you. It's still going to take a bunch of lessons to get the basics down. Luckily, I've been working on lesson plans for some time."

Charlotte looked at the bracelet again, feeling each bead carefully with her fingers. They felt like plastic but harder. "How are you reaching me? Why are you offering to help me?"

"I just want things to go well for you," the old woman said in an almost grandmotherly fashion. "As for how I am reaching you, I'm a traveler; I can go almost anywhere. There are limits, but those aren't important."

"You seem like you know Sunset. She never mentioned you," Charlotte said suspiciously.

"She came to The Outside, her and another her– not you, different other her. I watched unseen as she had a mild disagreement with herself. I felt no need to intervene. I knew she would work it out eventually, and death doesn't occur in The Outside, so there was no danger to her. I also wasn't eager to subject myself to whatever abuse she would lash out. Even if no one can die here, I'm no masochist. What she was doing to herself looked unpleasant, so I can only imagine what she would try doing to me. She thankfully didn't take too long to figure out how to leave."

"She never mentioned that either," Charlotte said flatly.

"She wouldn't remember, just like us, and even if she remembered with some help, she wouldn't want to talk about it," Traveler explained. She then struggled to get back up, grunting as she used her staff to brace herself. "We'll probably have to go over this every single time since you won't recall it, but I accounted for that in my lesson plans. Let's begin with the first lesson, shall we? We have a long way to go before you control your power, but we'll get there. I promise."

Charlotte mumbled incoherently as she woke up. There was something she had been dreaming, something that had seemed important. She tried to focus on it, but it had already slipped away.

"She's finally coming to," Andrea said with a mix of relief and worry. "Charlotte, are you okay? Talk to me."

Charlotte realized then she was lying on hard, very uncomfortable ground. "I'm fine. Why'd you put me down here? Couldn't you have lain me down somewhere softer?"

"She seems alright," Scootaloo said.

"Then why couldn't we wake her up from that nightmare or whatever she was having?" Andrea snapped.

"I detect no mind magic at work," Phobia said.

Charlotte sat up and looked around. It was dark. Was it night? Why was everyone looking at her? Empathy came over and hugged her. He said something, but without his magic impacting her, it just came out as guttural noises.

"I'm fine. Where are we?" she asked.

"Maybe it was a side effect of Luna's spell?" Cadence suggested. "She doesn't normally cast on humans. It could have a negative side effect."

Andrea put a hoof on her. "Are you sure you're okay? Your magic feels normal right now, but we couldn't wake you, and you were having these weird mini-surges without anything happening. You were also tossing and turning. I was scared."

"I'm fine," Charlotte assured her, then winced. "Except I was laying on something."

She felt around, and her hand touched something round and small. She picked it up and looked at it. It was a small bracelet with three pink beads.

Luster hurried over. "You found our first manufactured item from this world! Let me see!"

"I'm not detecting any magic from it," Andrea said, eying the bracelet with suspicion.

"Looks like an old charm bracelet. Some kid must have dropped it out here a long time ago," Sapphire said as she looked at it. "It's in good shape, all things considered."

Luster gave a disappointed frown. "It does seem kind of ordinary."

"I'm fine," Charlotte insisted. She tried to focus more on her surroundings, but everything was dark. They were outside, and it must have been cloudy. It didn't smell very good. "Did we make it to the right world?"

"As near as we can tell until Josie returns with more information. She's scouting a nearby ghost town," Scootaloo said.

"We don't know it is a ghost town," Sweetie Belle corrected.

Scootaloo smirked. "It has no lights, and this area is uninhabitable. It's a ghost town."

Charlotte didn't disagree with the area being uninhabitable. It was hard to tell in the dark, but they looked like they were in some kind of wasteland.

"Scootaloo, look Charlotte over and check all her vitals. Confirm everything is alright," Cadence instructed. She then looked at Charlotte. "I don't disbelieve you, but we need to play everything safe, especially with you. Just be patient and cooperative while Scootaloo checks you out."

Andrea seemed to relax a little. "Take it easy, sis. This should be fine. I'm sure you'll enjoy a mare feeling you up."

"Andrea!" Charlotte snapped.

"I did hear you were checking out my daughter's flank," Cadence said, sounding amused. Charlotte suddenly felt very hot and was thankful for the dark. She was sure her face was as red as Sunset's fur. "It's alright. A lot of ponies do that. My daughter has a very well-proportioned flank for her size. It wouldn't work out for you. I don't believe Flurry has any same-sex interest, and even if she did, she needs a very…sturdy partner. She broke the last one. Perhaps a very muscular earth pony."

Charlotte hadn't noticed Scootaloo had been touching a hoof to her breast during her embarrassment. It made her blush all the worse.

"Her heart rate is up a bit, but I think we can guess why that is," Scootaloo said coyly as she withdrew her hoof. "Other than that, she's fine."

Andrea whipped her head around. "Something with a lot of magic is coming towards us from the town."

Cadence turned towards where Andrea was looking. "That is probably Josie, but everyone, stay on your guard."

It was a tense quiet minute while everyone stared out into the dark. Andrea had her hoof gun out. Sweetie Belle, Luster Dawn, and Bursa had their horns pointed in that direction. Cadence seemed tense as well as they waited.

"I see her. It's Josie. She seems well," Phobia announced, untensing.

Charlotte realized she had been gripping the bracelet tightly through the entire wait, and when she released her grip, she saw the beads had made an impression in her hand from how hard she had gripped them. She stuffed the bracelet into her pocket. It felt right to keep it. It would be a souvenir for later, a memento. The first thing she found on an alien world.

Josie came out of the shadows so suddenly she could have been mistaken for teleporting, and several ponies jumped back in surprise.

The mare gave them a sheepish smile. "Sorry, I didn't mean to startle you. I didn't want to let my shadowmeld down till I was all the way back, but I figured Phobia would still see me."

"I could, and I did alert them," Phobia said.

"Ya didn't say she was still cloaked in shadows!" Apple Bloom fussed as she took a few deep breaths. "Took a few years off of ma life!"

"Sorry again," Josie said, then perked up. "Town is completely abandoned and shows signs of war, old signs. There's a lot of damage, but I found somewhere that still had a roof where we can rest and build a small fire that won't be seen. It is a human town, but I use the term human loosely. I saw pictures, and I would rather say close human relatives, like a Neanderthal or a Denosovian. I'm not an expert, so I can't narrow it down for you. They are Homo-Something-Else-But-Sapian. There's no sign of predators. No signs of life at all."

"Let's proceed to town then, but don't let your guards down," Cadence instructed.