Dreamwalker's Tale: The Descent

We moved as fast as I dared to ask Twilight. Which still only amounted to a snail’s pace. Stepping down those stairs to the next district felt like helping Granny Smith down the stairs in her homestead. One step at a time.

We were halfway down when Twilight vomited. There was little warning. “I think I—“ was all she managed to utter before a torrent of bile followed. And why would it have been anything else? We had not eaten properly in too long. It reminded me of the few scraps of provision we had packed in the third district. Or was it the fourth one? Through all these troubles and mishaps, we simply forgot about them. Forgot to eat.

“I am sorry,” she groaned and clung to my side.

“It’s alright, don’t worry,” I tried to ease her concerns. Whichever nature they might be.

I led her around the few steps she had soiled and we continued. We reached the bottom of the stairs when her legs almost gave out. This time I was prepared. I felt a slight tremor run up her rear legs, felt it because I supported her, kept her tightly pressed against myself. I stopped and gripped her even harder. She seemed confused for a second until it happened. Her legs shook, her knees buckled. She managed to keep herself up, but only barely.

“White Tip, we need a hideout,” I begged my feathery friend. He knew by now what exactly we were searching for. Small building, few rooms. It would reduce the number of potential dangers and unwelcome surprises. Few windows, preferably with a door or small entryway. Empty. Maybe containing a few pieces of furniture or the like, to bar said entryways.

His claws dug into my back briefly. Only to inform me that he had understood, before he stretched his wings and quietly flew off. “Can you make it a little longer?” I asked Twilight.

She was burning up again. She desperately needed rest. Maybe I should have let her rest in that healer’s house. But it was a bad defensive position, I told myself. And the hunter was still around. The spider might not have been the only one. There was too much risk in staying there.

It might just be the aftermath of the poison, I hoped. A late reaction to the vile substance being defeated and leaving her system.

Or, you know, it could be the ancient antidote. Maybe a side effect of it spoiling literally ages ago.

I felt cold sweat break out. Both Twilight and me. I had injected her with this stuff. I had held that syringe. I violently shook my head to dislodge the unwelcome voice. If you don’t intend to help, just shut up!

I grimaced. Berating myself was nothing new. But a few months ago, I had a couple of less than comfortable conversations with Luna about something that might or might not cling to my back like a Celestia-forsaken leech. She had given me instructions to be careful. To try to differentiate between voices in my head. But they all sounded like me, always did. I was just talking to myself, was I not? How could I tell otherwise?

Twilight took almost two minutes to hear my question, understand its meaning and phrase a reply. “I think so,” she whispered weakly.

I took a deep breath, nodded once and steeled my determination. We moved forward again. Into the district. My horn was lit anyway, due to all the saddlebags I still had to drag along, but I increased the light a little more to allow me to see further. I wished Twilight would use her light spell. It was bright and its raspberry hue was familiar and soothing. My light was barely enough to make out the silhouettes of nearby buildings. It was still enough to get a general impression of what we were dealing with.

We had found a lot of things that a city needed so far. Houses to live in, air to breathe, food to eat, vaults for commerce, water to drink, gods and heroes to pray to. Now we entered the area designated for trade. To spend all those hard-earned coins on bric-a-brac and less useless stuff. We entered an area of shops and workshops alike. Artisans followed their craft in little studios. Mechanics welded sheets of metal and pieces of pipes together to build contraptions. Smiths forged said sheets of metal. Artificers used the perfectly cut gemstones jewelers provided to create magically powered items. The guild of craftsmen was at home down here. Everything that was not food was traded. Bought, sold, exchanged.

Of course none of that remained. All that was left were smashed windows and sometimes more, sometimes less intricately designed buildings. There was a wide variety of build styles present. Some were little more than pragmatic concrete boxes, others sported marble pillars carrying triangular arches leading into fancy, half-overgrown roofs. This was a place of artistic expression, of demonstration of the self. More than any other district.

I managed to distract myself decently from my own impatience. We limped along the andesite road, past buildings of various styles. And it became almost easy to not only drag the considerable weight of our saddlebags along, but Twilight as well. She held onto me with her wing and I felt it tremble every so often. She missed a step every now and then. I managed to counteract that. I managed to keep her up and steady and moving. But in the back of my head, I knew: Time was running out. She would collapse on the street soon and this time I would not get her back up again. Not for a while.

The district was considerably less infected with the goo. I saw patches of it here and there, but that was no comparison to the district we had just left. That being said, I saw a lot more webs. A lot. Most of them clung to the ceiling, to roofs and other hard to reach places. But the occasional web connected the side walls of houses and spanned across byroads, making them into dead ends for all those who did not wish to engage with their stickiness.

Of course it had to be spiders, I grumbled internally. They were such an overused enemy type in Ogres and Oubliettes. Probably to mimic real life. Don’t know what to challenge your low level-party with? Throw some oversized vermin at them! It was the lazy game master’s way out.

I had not expected to actually encounter real, oversized spiders. Ever. Maybe the creators of that game knew a thing or two I did not. I wondered if Daring Do had ever fought these things. I could not remember reading about such beasts in A. K. Yearlings novels.

“I don’t… I don’t feel so good,” Twilight wheezed. I stopped and pulled my head out of my distraction immediately. She was hot. Her body trembled. It had gotten worse. No surprise there. But her eyes were glazed. She clearly had difficulties focusing on any particular point. She gagged, but nothing came out. “I feel dizzy…”

I looked around. Where was White Tip?

And right at that moment, as if he had heard my thoughts, I heard him caw. I was relieved for about half a second until I realized that he did not stop cawing. He screeched on and on and made quite a noisy ruckus. My first instinct was to panic, sadly enough. What if a spider had found him? Caught him?

But I managed to redirect that nervous energy. I had yet to see his lovely white-tipped feathers, but I could hear him coming closer. Fast. And the way he cawed was the same way he usually alerted me to danger. It was not so much that he was in pain, he simply tried to warn me.

Oh.

I shot a simple magic blast ahead, at an upwards angle. The projectile did not even carry enough energy to tickle something as small as White Tip. But what it did just fine was illuminate the surrounding area it traveled through.

It hit the district ceiling.

And the entire ceiling seemed to move.

I got goosebumps as I failed to count the amount of spider legs that scuttled over each other. And I saw them coming along the street as well. Now that their sneaky approach had been busted, they rushed. I looked at Twilight. She was in no condition to run. She barely seemed to realize that something was amiss. I looked over my shoulder, back up the stairs, but the last decent hideout was way too far off to turn around. And worse still, I saw them scuttle our way from up there as well.

We were surrounded.

I pressed my lips together, swallowed that curse and yanked Twilight along. “This way,” I hissed as I dragged her as much as I dragged our saddlebags. White Tip swooped down and quickly realized my new, less than ideal plan. I hobbled towards the next building. It seemed to have been a forge in the heyday of the city. I was hoping to find a decent room to defend. Without any need to order him, my pet swooped ahead and into the building. Maybe he was brave. Or maybe he was just as panicky as I felt right beneath the surface.

That’s a lot of spiders, a voice in my head remarked.

I know, I shot back.

They’re kinda fast, aren’t they?

I. Know. Sixty feet towards the entrance. White Tip flew out of a window beside the entrance. The building looked like a decent choice. The windows were small, narrow and few. The entrance had a door. A metal door. No upper story, so no stairs to worry about. The forge itself obviously had a chimney, but I hoped these things were too large or too stupid to use that.

I could help you.

The thought almost made me stumble. It was the first time that I realized it addressed me directly. It was the first time I knew I was not just talking to myself. It was still my voice though. It sounded very much like me. The way it intoned, the words it chose. Luna had warned me of these beings. Of their cunning. Their deviousness.

Oh please. Your kitten knows jack shit about what I am.

Less than five feet. We were almost there. I ignored the presence in my head as best as I could and tried not to freak out. I dared to look back and my resolve was thoroughly tested as I saw just how many of these massive spiders crawled towards us. And how quickly they closed the gap.

Seriously though, you should give in.

“No!” I yelled in reply to a proposal nopony else had heard.

Twilight winced a little at my side. Despite the haze clogging up her head, that yell made it through. And White Tip jumped a little as well as he waited for me in the doorway. I ignored both.

The saddlebags I positioned in the middle of the room and the Dreamweaver I placed right on top. I would need it soon enough, I feared. I managed to fight off one spider. Now there were dozens coming.

I carefully laid Twilight down next to the saddlebags, so she could rest her head on one of them. She was paler again and barely responded to anything. I swallowed that lump in my throat and tried to move on as best as I could.

White Tip flew over to the forge and sat on some sort of strange mechanism. He cawed and picked at some kind of lever. I had no idea what that was or did, but I trusted my pet. I lit my horn, grabbed the lever and pulled. Age and rust had jammed the thing, but with enough force, I managed to switch its state. And a thick metal grate fell down around the forge. Nothing larger than a mouse would be able to slip through those bars. “Good catch,” I praised him before my eyes roamed the room. I quickly shut the door and put the metal latch in place. These windows were too narrow for any spider’s main body to fit through, but their spindly, spear-like legs could fit. I had seen some sort of shutters outside, but there had not been enough time to close them and I felt it was too late for that now.

I would be able to hack their legs off if they were dumb enough to put them through the narrow window gaps.

There were a few wooden pieces in the room, all broken down long ago. Tables, I assumed. Some piles still held a few items. Stuff for day-to-day needs. Spoons and cups and a few knives that might be large enough to be considered daggers. Nothing of value for our current predicament. However, I also noticed two cupboards. They were apparently crafted from thin metal and when I tried to grab them, they turned out to be surprisingly light for something of that size and material composition. Maybe they were crafted from a different kind of metal? It had a distinctly different sheen to it.

But I had no time to worry about that. I dragged them along the ground. My ears splayed back against my skull as they produced a horrible screeching sound. I put both cabinets in front of the closest windows. That left me with two more windows at the backside of the building and the door. And no further means to improve our position.

I quickly walked over to Twilight and knelt before her. “Hey Twilight. Peanut? Do you hear me?” Are you still with me?

Her unfocused eyes wandered in my direction and a faint ghost of a smile graced her lips. “H-Hey… I… uhm… I am not bothering… you… am I?”

I grimaced and put a hoof to her forehead. And I had every reason to grimace some more. “You’re not bothering me, peanut.” I tried to keep my voice steady. I even tried to sound upbeat. I could only imagine how miserably I failed at that. “I love you. You hear me?”

She did not notice the tremor in my voice. I did. “That is so… nice of you to… say that,” she replied with a happy sigh. She was about to mumble something, as her voice had grown weaker and quieter with each word, but whatever it was — it was lost as her eyes became unfocused again and aimlessly wandered around a room she did not recognize or truly see.

Knock knock.

I grimaced. I could hear the spiders crawl over the building. I stood back up, grabbed my sword and tried to ready myself.

You know—

“I’m not listening.”

Could you just—

“I. Am. Not. Listening.” White Tip stared at me. Like I had lost my mind. And hey, maybe I had.

You’re not going craz—

“I am not—“

Oh for fuck’s sake Dreamwalker, shut the fuck up and listen!

My mouth snapped shut. I grinded my teeth and felt how my anxiety and worry and downright fear slowly morphed into anger. It was a good thing to happen. Dangerous, sure. But it was better to be angry than to be afraid right before an upcoming battle. Because when in doubt, it was better to be reckless than to cower.

Now, I will admit that ‘you should give in’ was a bit of a poor choice of words there. But seriously, you’re not a true guard. We both know that. Just because you managed to duck your head low at the right times and managed to score well in theoretical exams doesn’t make you one. There’s a reason you avoid Wither Rose. You fear she might smell how much of a fraud you are. Wildly flailing Luna’s word around was decent enough previously, but this time is different. You’re not on the training field anymore, you’re not playing around with Lightning Dust and you’re not a guard!

I grimaced and tightened the grip on my sword. “Oh but you are?!” I snapped back. I ignored White Tip, and how he slowly retreated to Twilight’s side.

Come now. You know exactly what I am. I’m your insurance that we’ll make it out of this alive.

I shook my head again. “You can’t be trusted,” I simply stated. It was a fact, I told myself. A simple, indisputable fact. And the moment I tried to reassure myself of that, the first bang echoed in the room. One of the spiders flung itself against the door, from the sound of it. And now they came in numbers. Legs poked through the windows and I did exactly what I had planned on. I hacked and slashed away at them until they got the message and retreated.

What really got under my skin was the lack of any noise from them. I heard my own ragged breathing, I heard Twilight’s incoherent mumbling, I heard White Tip’s feathers rustle due to his nervousness. I heard the impact of my sword on their spindly legs and how it scraped along the wall of the building. But not a single sound came from those spiders. I severed maybe three or four legs. Their nauseatingly twitching remains fell down onto the ground and small puddles of blue blood formed around their stumps. Every other animal would have howled in pain or hissed or snarled. But these spiders remained deathly silent.

They did not try to reach me through the windows anymore, but I could see them crawl over the side of the house. They tried to see me, tried to gauge my position, the distance between them and their next meal. And the bangs on the door became more insistent.

It’s a metal door. It will hold, I told myself.

I told that to myself right up until a particularly loud bang made me jump a little. The door had a dent now. And I tried really hard not to freak out immediately.

You know, that whole ‘befriend your enemies’-thing doesn’t seem to work out all that well for you, does it?

“Shut up!” I spat. I needed to concentrate. I needed to stay focused to defend us. I was the only one that could. The only line between them and her. Us. Whatever.

“I am sorry… did I… say something wrong?” Twilight quietly mumbled behind me.

I grimaced. Why. Why in all the world was that what she had to hear?

Yeah, life’s unfair like that, isn’t it?

I gritted my teeth, turned around and tried not to stomp over to Twilight. I took a deep breath in a fruitless attempt to calm myself down at least a little bit before I gave her a kiss. “I wasn’t talking to you, peanut.” I sighed in relief as I saw her smile. I highly doubted that she even remembered what I was talking about. But she clearly recognized my pet name for her.

Do you think they will wait for you to explain some kind of last ditch offer? Or will they just rush you and eat your face? Honestly, my bet’s on the latter. Poor Twilight. She won’t really see it coming, will she? Maybe she’ll put a shield up just in time before they get to her. That way, she will live a few seconds longer until the poison or your so-called antidote makes her falter. Enough time to see you get torn to shreds by them.

I tried hard not to let that whimper out of my throat. But that monster knew which buttons to press and when and how to do it. I had a vivid imagination. And what tore me apart more than the fear of dying in less than a few minutes was that expression of pain and despair I imagined on Twilight's face as she had to watch. “On whose side are you even?”

It was such a strange sensation to hear myself sigh within my own head. Believe it or not, I’m on your side. But you are being stubborn as usual and our time is running out! Do you see that door? It has dents. Multiple. They will come through that door like the water rushed through that entrance.

“As usual?” I repeated. Because clearly that was the point of contention. I distanced myself from Twilight again and refocused my attention on the door. Yes, it was dented in multiple places. And the spiders clearly had learned what worked and what did not as they continued with heavy hits.

I briefly considered dragging the two cabinets over and put them in front of the door, but as light as they were, they would not offer sufficient resistance.

I’ve been here from the start. His voice had changed. It sounded tired. Or maybe sad. But the moment passed and his ‘charming’, prickly self resurfaced. What do you think happens to all that anxiety you ‘currently’ cannot deal with? To all the urges and wants and impulses you recklessly shove to the back of your head? What do you think happens to all the annoyance and irritation, to the anger and fear and frustration and all the little things you constantly swallow down? You’re a collector, my friend. You’ve been accumulating these little tidbits from hundreds of lifetimes and I am the one in the back of your head. I get fed all those things you don’t want or can’t deal with. I know you better than anypony else ever has or ever will, because I know all the facets you don’t even acknowledge!

He remembered. It was such a simple realization and yet despite its simplicity, I could not immediately tell how I felt about that. I had no indications to tell how much he remembered. But he was clearly able to recall other lives. Memories from other cycles. Did he merely share my flashes? Was his knowledge limited to what I knew? With each flash, there was always this gray area. Memories to diffuse to properly recall. Blurry images. Garbled voices.

When shit really hits the fan, I was always there. Believe me or not, I don’t give a shit. But when everypony left, I remained. Not that I have much of a choice. It’s the same god-damn show every time. You simply prefer ignorance. You want to stay innocent. Unaware. Hey, I get it. I would probably choose that too, given the option. But eventually, you’ll need me. You always do.

“You know who we are?” I dared to ask. “You know what we are? What this is?” I tried to remember. Tried to dive into my memories and grab him. Get hold of him. But that was not how it worked. And another loud bang reminded me that I had more pressing matters to attend to. “You were there. The entire time. You knew and you just… you chose to be like this.” It did not sound friendly. And he sure did not sound like a friend. But he did not care about my opinion, he had said so himself.

This was not the time to build bridges, or to consider forgiveness. The metal door was breached. One of the dents was hit repeatedly, with precision. A few legs managed to squeeze through a hole. I stabbed them and they retreated, but they had an opening. They knew they were close.

There was only one thing important right now.

I looked over my shoulder. A mound of saddlebags served as a prop for Twilight to lean against. Her coat was damp due to sweat. Her left rear leg twitched slightly. Her eyes were glazed, half-closed. She saw me, but she saw straight through me. She was barely conscious. White Tip sat on top of the mound and watched over her. There was little else he could do right now.

“Can you get them out?”

I can.

“What guarantee do I have that you don’t trick me? If I agree to this and relent, how do I know you’re not backstabbing me immediately?” Luna’s many insistent warnings echoed in my head. And I vividly remembered what had become of my love when she had lost control. And I was afraid. So deeply, deeply afraid of what the consequences might look like.

Hey, thanks for the flowers, but I’m not your precious Lady Luck and I don’t wield the power of the sun. I can’t guarantee you anything in any way that would be satisfactory for you. You do have a nasty paranoia festering in our head. But I care about her, too. In my own way. And quite frankly, you don’t have much choice.

Give in. I looked at the door. They were almost through. Or die.

‘I am ready to die’ was an easy thing to say, but a hard act to follow up on. In the end, it did not matter if I was ready or not. The more important factor was: I was not ready to let Twilight come to harm. Or White Tip.

“Do it.”

The moment I released control, he was there. We switched places like it was the most natural thing to happen. It worried me with what ease that switch transpired. He levitated Dreamweaver closer to his muzzle and looked at himself as if he was staring into a mirror. “Hey there. You good in there?”

This feels weird.

He chuckled. “Well, what can I say? Welcome to my world. Don’t worry. You won’t have to get used to it.” He lowered the blade to the ground almost reverently. “It was nice to see you again, old friend, but I don’t exactly know how you work this time around and I’m not desperate enough to find out mid-battle.” He turned his attention away from the door, much to my dismay, and walked over to Twilight.

Her lips tugged into a smile with tremendous effort. She was barely holding on. “Twilight, I need you to give me a little boost. I know how to get it. Would that be alright?”

She furrowed her brow in a doomed attempt to understand the question. And what he ultimately interpreted as a shrug could just as easily have been a shudder. “Alright, thank you.” He raised her chin with a hoof and kissed her.

I felt such a tremendous dislike for what I witnessed. It was not just pure jealousy, though that certainly contributed significantly. It was the fact that this creature so much as dared to lay a hoof on her. And worse still, he was far from done. His horn lit up as he brought its tip to Twilight’s. A small arc of magic connected both and whatever he did next, I felt that incredible wave of power surge into my very being, how it bolstered my reserves, flooded them beyond their natural capacity. I felt reinvigorated, wide awake and ready, ready for anything, capable of anything.

And I saw Twilight grimace.

Stop! I yelled at him. You’re hurting her!

After what amounted to a few seconds, he left her alone. “Don’t be such a wimp. She’s stronger than that, she can take it.”

That doesn’t mean it’s right! Or that you have any right to do this to her!

He sighed and rolled with his eyes. “Whatever.” Both our attention was drawn back to Twilight as she groaned softly. For a few precious seconds, her attention seemed to focus. Her clouded eyes cleared a little, at least. And she looked at me. Him. Us. She furrowed her brow and a part of me hoped that she could see that she was not truly talking to me anymore.

I felt him swallow hard. “You know, Twi, I don’t think he ever told you. But you make him feel invincible. Powerful. You make him brave.”

Twilight did not reply in time. He did not wait for her. He turned his back on her, squared his shoulders, closed his eyes and took a deep breath. “I run with the void and the void runs through me.” It sounded much like a mantra. And as he spoke, I could feel an incredible, otherworldly cold creep up my legs. He called it from somewhere. I felt it grow along my barrel, up my neck. I felt it extend its reach outwards, away from my body. “I run with the void and the void runs through me.” He repeated it again. I had no concept of the place I was in. My senses, unused to this environment, failed me. But I could feel the cold.

When he finally opened his eyes again, I noticed that my body was encased in a thin layer of ice barely an inch thick. He wore it like armor and for some reason, he managed to walk in it. The ice cracked and crunched, but reformed immediately.

“Right.” He sighed and looked over to the windows. All of them were frozen shut with a thick layer of ice. It had a strange coloration to it. Not only the blue I expected, but hues of reddish black. Almost like frozen splatters of old blood. The same inclusions adorned the ice armor in almost intricate patterns.

He fixed his gaze on the door. The hole the spiders had made was almost large enough for one to pass through. They squabbled amongst themselves, pushing each other away from the door in an attempt to be the first to make it through. To be the first to feast. “Let’s do this,” he whispered and called upon his magic to close the armor around his head.

I could feel his giddiness. His excitement. The building anticipation of what was to come. He was looking forward to this. My heart thumped heavily, I heard my blood rush in my ears and then he reared back on his hindlegs. He brought his front hooves down onto the floor of the forge with such force that I felt a jolt of pain run up my legs. And he pumped magic into the ground. I felt the tingle of strong magic as he forced his will to shape reality.

Ice spears shot out of the ground in a half-circle before him. They seemed to effortlessly pierce the building's walls like they were made from wet paper. They pierced several of the spiders on the other side as well. And this was just the opening. He charged towards the door. The ice spears seemed to vanish before him. Rime crawled in front of him, along every surface from the ground he ran on to the ceiling above his head. It froze the wall right next to the door until the stone became brittle and cracked. It was frozen to such a degree that somehow, all he had to do was to close his ice armor around his head to barrel straight through it.

The outside was a crawling, scuttling, skittering mess of legs and fangs. Several of them tried to grab him and all of them simply failed. Due to other spiders pushing, due to the ice armor deflecting the attacks, due to frost eagerly crawling up their legs and freezing the soft tissue inside their exoskeletons.

He ran maybe twenty feet outside before he reared up again and brought his hooves down once more. Ice spikes pierced even more spiders, this time in a full circle in all directions. It served well to bar the entrance to the house for those spiders who noticed an easy meal inside.

He thrust his right front hoof forward in a stabbing motion and another ice lance shot out like a sword. It lodged itself in the head of a spider and broke off as the creature recoiled and retreated, only to die within seconds after that. He summoned a cluster of needle-like, sharp ice splinters and shot them in a cone of devastation. Half a dozen spiders were riddled with shards.

And I noticed his glee. His delight. All that kept him from laughing like a maniac was that thin veil of self-restraint, because it would have been a waste of breath.

As the enemy lines thinned out, his advance only became more aggressive. He shot a spell at the ceiling and rime froze a massive patch of the stonework above our heads. The thin layer was enough for several spiders to lose their grip. It made a nasty squishing sound as some of them popped like melons on impact with the ground. The exoskeletons of others managed to hold them together, but they did not move anymore anyway.

The first spider that actually tried to flee he skewered with another ice spear that shot straight out of the ground right beneath it, piercing its vulnerable underside. The attack lifted it off the ground. It tried to get a grip on the spear with its legs, but found no footing to lift itself off the impaling spike.

Another two tried to get away shortly after. He shot them with a quick spell to make their blood freeze within their bodies. The liquid expanded upon freezing. The result was grisly to behold.

With fewer and fewer spiders remaining, more and more tried to flee. They were intelligent enough to realize that their rapidly dwindling numbers was a sign of a prey too dangerous to further pursue, but at the same time they lacked the tactical understanding to realize that as soon as they turned around, they became easier targets for him. And he clearly picked off the easy targets first.

The battle properly broke and turned into a slaughter when a wave of spiders tried to retreat. He acted quickly and anchored many of them to the ground by freezing their legs in place.

One managed to get close enough to attack him. Behind you! He swirled around, thickened the armor on his neck and I felt him grin as the mandibles failed to pierce the ice. A wave of magic surged through the contact area into the spider's head. He made the water in its eyes freeze. I was not sure if they were supposed to pop like that. I wished I had control over my stomach, as I wanted to puke so badly.

I suddenly realized that he felt light-headed. Dizzy. And it took me a moment to comprehend why. It only clicked when he finally removed his ice armor ‘helmet’ again. He could not breathe in his own ice. But the worst was over anyway, few spiders still tried to engage him in a fight.

A few had successfully managed to escape and I could feel his grudge. His impulse to follow them. To be thorough. I tried to counteract it as much as I could by giving him little nudges here and there. To distract him. To turn his attention to the remaining aggressors. They were more important anyway.

By the end of it, he plucked a leg from its socket and stabbed the spider it had belonged to through its abdomen with it. And with that last, final show of cruelty, the plaza fell silent again. He stood in a sea of dead bodies. Well, mostly dead. Some legs still twitched here and there. Despite my efforts, he noticed a couple of spiders that barely clung to life and made short work of them.

And then he dismissed all his ice spells. All the shards and spears and plates disappeared. I felt the incredible relief wash over me as the enormous drain these spells had put on him vanished.

You overexerted yourself.

“I did what I had to do,” he calmly replied. “It’s called ‘being pragmatic’. I know what I am capable of and what I can withstand.” With his armor dismissed, I noticed another thing: He was freezing. His body shuddered and trembled as the muscles tried to regain their normal body heat. His callousness seemed to extend to his own well-being.

Was it pragmatic to kill the ones that already disengaged?

“You bet it was,” he insisted. “They could have returned later. I know how you tend to do things. But I’m not you. I don’t do half-measures. Something I always admired in Luna. She gets shit done.”

He surveyed the area with one last, slow swoop of his gaze. Blood everywhere. Crippled, mutilated bodies everywhere. So much death. And the feeling of a deep-seated satisfaction as he regarded his handiwork with a certain pride. He turned around and limped back towards the hole in the house with stiff steps.

It was only then that I noticed him limping.

What is that?

He stopped and looked at himself. A few bruises from hits he had taken. The ice armor had mostly protected against their primary choice of attack — biting and stabbing. The bruises showed where they went for blunt approaches. But there was the occasional gash as well. A particularly larger one on his right haunch. It looked nasty.

I’m bleeding! You idiot went out there and behaved like a Celestia-forsaken psychopath and you neglected our defense!

He dismissively rolled with his eyes as he limped back inside. “Don’t be such a pussy,” he growled and hobbled over to the mound of saddlebags. He stared at White Tip menacingly. “Move.” Luckily White Tip did as he was told and hopped off the mound.

He rummaged through the saddlebags and retrieved the first aid kit. We both hissed in pain as he poured a generous amount of disinfectant over the several wounds.

You’re reckless.

It was a simple observation. I felt his energy drain. Whatever power boost he had gotten from Twilight was spent, or the rest of it slowly drained away. I could not fathom how any of this worked precisely. But I felt his grasp slip. His control over my body waver. Enough that I could look up and out of the hole in the building he had created. Out onto the plaza and the field of dead bodies.

You’re dangerous.

Now that silence reigned again, I started to sort through the strange experiences. The entire fight did not take more than a few minutes, even though it felt like an eternity. But the adrenaline was slowly receding. And with it came a certain clarity. I realized just how disgusted I was, how appalled by the sheer joy he had felt ripping and tearing these creatures apart.

No creature, ever, should feel such glee in such a situation without facing a simple truth:

You’re evil.

He snorted derisively and pulled together whatever control he had left. He tore his gaze away from the field of the dead and resumed to fix the wounds he had caused with his reckless behavior. After properly bandaging the gashes up, he stashed the first aid kit again.

Twilight was unconscious. White Tip was clearly afraid of him. And he had caused a massacre.

The transition was once again quick and easy. He relinquished control and fell back down into wherever he came from. And I was confronted by a whole world of hurt.

I had not realized that everything I felt, everything I noticed and witnessed was still figurative miles away, perceived through a thick layer of nothingness in between. I had noticed my rump hurt before, but now I really felt it. “Ah shhh—…” I bit down on my tongue to keep the curse in. Worst of all, I could already tell that it would get worse. I was still hypothermic. I was still shaking. Once my muscles had replenished my body heat, I would feel those injuries even more.

Been there, done that. You know, it sure seems easy to judge, now that I single-hoofedly pulled your ass out of the fire.

“It’s your ass too!” I snapped back and grimaced as the volatile movement made me aware of a bruise on my neck he had probably not noticed.

That’s just the point, isn’t it? I don’t stand to gain anything from letting you die, dickhead. And don’t you forget: I saved her ass too. Gosh, it must be so fucking convenient for you right now. Just lay back and berate me. But just so we’re clear here, Dream: I am your friend. The only one you will always have. And remember that whenever you fuck up, I will be the one to fix it. I am your last line. And I will always save you, if you want it or not. As usual.

I waited for a few seconds. Just to make sure he was done. And only silence greeted me in return. I finally allowed myself a relieved sigh. And of course he had to chirp up one last time.

Say hi to Ishmael.

“Who the f—… You know what? Nevermind. I don’t care. Just shut up already and let me deal with the disaster you produced.” He stayed silent. No further insults barked in my direction, no snappy retort or accusation of weakness.

I had seen him care for my wounds. He had done a decent enough job as far as I could tell. I could not do it better myself, so it would have to suffice. A part of me wanted to be petty. To open up the bandages again and remake them myself. But there was no use in that.

My light flickered a little. It made me aware of just how much he had overexerted my body. I was almost completely drained. I tried to ignore the facts as best as I could and turned around. White Tip still sat nearby Twilight and regarded me with very reasonable wariness. And Twilight? I walked over slowly so as to not scare my pet further and checked on her. She was still burning. Her coat was damp, but the profuse sweating seemed to have stopped for now. Was that a good thing, or a bad thing? She did not look quite as pale as she had earlier, but that might have been a trick of the light. “Twilight?” I whispered and tried to keep the worry from creeping into my voice too much. I softly shook her, but she barely reacted. A little mumble was the only response. It would have been cute under different circumstances.

I had no idea what to do now.

I sat down and absentmindedly opened the little satchel I wore around my neck. And I put a few seeds and nuts down on the ground near me. In hopes I could lure White Tip in. “I know it’s a sorry apology. I never wanted to scare you.” He looked at my peace offering and then at me. “He’s gone. And I really hope he’s never coming back. I’m sorry, buddy. I did not know what else to do. Can you forgive me?”

White Tip hesitated. He once more looked at the little collection of snacks and then awkwardly teetered over to me. He completely ignored the seeds and nestled against my side. I felt my throat tighten as my eyes filled with unspilled tears. “Thank you.” I softly petted his head and after that stroked down his back with my hoof. He seemed to appreciate that. “Do you think it will be this easy to make it up to Twilight?” He cawed quietly and I sighed. “Yeah. Me neither.”

Maybe now was the time to write that letter to Spike? To get our heavy hitters down here? But I could feel the exhaustion claim more and more space. It was only a matter of time until I would just drop. And we were currently residing in a building with a large hole in the wall. Because somepony thought it would be a brilliant idea to show off.

“Hey, can you maybe check if there’s another forge like this one nearby?” He did not complain. He did not question my sanity. He was a true, loyal friend. He just hopped off and flew out the door. I sighed as I heaved myself up to my hooves again. “Come on. One more round and I can pass out,” I tried to cheer myself on. As far as cheers went, it was a miserable attempt.

I quickly had to accept that one round would not quite do it either. I simply lacked the strength to carry both Twilight and our gear. We got lucky in that White Tip soon returned and informed me that he had found another similar building nearby and apparently it was clear, but that still posed a bit of an issue. The issue to get there.

I could not leave Twilight alone. And I would not make White Tip responsible for her defense either. So I levitated her onto my back, grabbed my sword and left the gear behind for now. I followed White Tip a few streets along the andesite road and entered another building. They all started to feel the same. Look the same. On the inside anyway. Empty rooms with piles of rubble. I laid Twilight down and grimaced as I realized that she was now lying on hard stone again. I had repacked one of our saddlebags to contain most of our softer stuff, which made it halfway decently suitable as a pillow.

I stood there for half a minute. Maybe two. Slightly swaying while I just stared at her. “Crap,” I hissed quietly. I still got it. I still had it in me. I could still stand. And walk. And breathe. What was one round more, right?

I didn't even have to say anything. White Tip hopped onto Twilight and carefully sat down while I leaned the Dreamweaver against the wall next to the entrance. And I returned to the forge. I had difficulties navigating the district. All these buildings looked the same now. Details blurred in front of my eyes. Every step became a chore.

I managed to find the place again. I managed to grab our stuff and I dragged it across the floor. I was sure that some of Twilight’s gear would not survive this trip. Hopefully it was built sturdier than I gave it credit for. It was scientific gear meant for field study, after all. Surely they could take a bump or twelve, right?

I trudged along in a daze. Every agonizingly slow step was hard work. Only White Tips' quiet caw made me aware that I was in the middle of passing the right building by. I half-turned and walked inside. And I felt such a wave of relief as I put that softer saddlebag under Twilight's head. I smiled. And I felt proud.

And then I finally allowed myself to faint.

The freakout would have to wait.