Dreamwalker's Tale: Project Greenwood

Fear not, my little pony.

This is a nightmare… quite literally.

Don’t… don’t… don’t look…

I came back to my senses mid-fall. Oddly enough, there was no wind rushing past my ears. There was no wind at all. And despite my several frantic blinks, I failed to see anything other than a vast, empty blackness. I quickly recognized this place, and this recognition was accompanied by a worn-down dread and tired familiarity.

The void.

His place.

I briefly wondered why I was here. Briefly only because I hit the ground shortly thereafter. A sudden stop to my fall that neither increased in speed, nor did it slow down. And despite the impact, I failed to feel any pain either. Just another piece in the puzzle, telling me that maybe, this was not what it seemed. That this was not… real.

The voices were faint echoes. Whispers from the inky emptiness that surrounded me on all sides. They were a mirror of my innermost workings. Accordingly, they felt ugly. Some of them could not stop spouting accusations, curses and cusses. They belittled, chided and reprimanded me for failures past and future. Others were shy mumbles, trying to solve impossible puzzles, trying to figure out life itself. But the vast majority, towering over all the others, were afraid. Afraid of a million and one things. Fearful of the future and the secrets of the past. Fearful of my own impulses and urges, and those of others. Fearful of the dangers of this world, and even the things that might not be dangerous yet.

Many of these voices I recognized as my own. Many, but not all.

Don’t look.

I looked. Of course I did, how could I not?

And it was there. A horrible, unpleasant tingling crawled down my spine and raised my hair. I had seen this creature before. And without understanding, without knowing anything about it, on a purely subconscious, instinctual level, it induced terror in my heart.

“Who are you?!” I half-yelled. Because I did not dare raise my voice any further. What if it answered? What if I angered it? “What are you?!”

Maybe it was blind. Or distracted. Preoccupied with other matters, somehow. But the moment I addressed it, the moment I acknowledged its presence, its stance shifted ever so slightly. It turned towards me. Focused. A first step on clumsy, wobbly legs, but full of intent. Then another one. It approached, slowly.

It felt like a revelation. To realize that it was walking towards me. The speed did not matter. The intention did not matter. The direction was enough. Unadulterated fear gripped my heart. I heard the blood rush in my ears in the quick rhythm of a rising panic. “No! No, get away from me!” I flailed with my hooves wildly in its general direction. And I hit nothing but air, of course. If such a thing even existed in this place.

It was so far away still. But was it? Did distance matter in this place?

I backpedaled away from it. My hindlegs were busy increasing the distance between us, my front legs still flailed wildly and my mind was swamped with angst. I wanted to cry so badly. I wanted to curl into a teeny-tiny ball and pop out of existence. Just gone.

I knew not what this thing was. My first thought was to somehow associate it with dragons. I had no idea why. It lacked their scales. It had neither a tail nor wings or horns. No claws either. Not even a proper snout. Just soft, squishy flesh, covered by pink, hairless skin. Maybe it was just the bipedal walk that conjured up this association. If so, it was a flimsy connection at best. Only young dragons walked on their hindlegs.

What does it matter?

Idle musings did not diminish the mortifying fear I experienced. I scrambled. I finally, finally managed to get enough of a grasp of the situation, enough clarity of mind, to realize the futility of my current ‘defense’. It advanced slowly, step by step, and despite its lack of speed, it still gained on me. Because I was an idiot.

I turned around, managed to get solid footing again and ran.

I looked over my shoulder, because I did not dare leave it out of my sight completely. And my blood froze.

There were others. Built differently. But some were clearly of the same species. Broader shoulders. Grim faces. Clad in armor, wielding weapons. Clad in tunics, wielding books. And other creatures entirely. Griffons among them. I spotted a dragon or two. An entire legion behind it. So many other creatures. They stood still. Expressionless faces for the most part. Dull eyes. Lifeless. Waiting to be filled with motivation. With purpose.

With a story.

I saw the strings. Attached to their limbs. Wrapped around their joints and necks. They hung loose. Dragged on the ground behind them. But the fact that they were there in the first place…

And the creature, it carried a wooden cross in its hand. And an oddly sad smile on its flat face.

I ran as fast as my legs would carry me, yet it always seemed to be at the same distance. Slowly advancing towards me, step by step. It terrified me. More so once I felt its influence.

An unseen force that wrapped itself around my head and did not get dislodged once I violently shook my head in response. No, instead it bore into my mind with his icky tendrils and started to mess with my thoughts, molding them like wet clay.

‘So many other creatures’, a simple observation, was meddled with, transformed. ‘Creatures’ became ‘people’. ‘People’ became ‘prota—

“No!” I yelled at the top of my lungs. “Leave me be!” I cried out, half a threat and half a plea for mercy. “You’re not real!” I could not help the desperation in my voice. I felt fear. Fear in its simplest, purest form. There was no word for it anymore. ‘Fear’ seemed wholly inadequate. I felt whatever the grand-daddy of fear was. Whatever its source was, its origin. I tapped into something so primal that it effortlessly overwhelmed my being and—

I fell.

Again.

In my frantic run away from it, I apparently stepped past solid ground. Not that I could tell solid ground from anything else. I fell through an invisible hole. Deeper, deeper, deeper down. Deeper down the rabbit hole. Let’s hope we’re not too late. I shuddered and tried to block out the voices. I tried to brace for impact, as it would surely follow eventually. But when the moment came and I was abruptly stopped again, I still felt as unprepared as the first time.

I landed in a heap. And I made no effort to hide anything. I was so done. I was tired and afraid. Too afraid to be tired. Too tired to be afraid. A constant switch between too hot and too cold. I wanted to curl into a fetal position, I wanted to shiver it out until my body would stop from sheer exhaustion, and I was too tired to care who witnessed it. So I did.

I lay on my side and made myself small. As small as I could be. I could still see its face if I closed my eyes. That sad smile. It seemed so… genuine. And that frightened me even more, for some reason.

“He is not real,” I muttered to myself.

Is any of this real? The question was not a new one. I tried to manifest something. Anything. Twilight's voice, to soothe me. Sunny's smile. My friends, any one of them would do right now. A freaking coffee mug. But nothing happened. It was a stupid, inconclusive test. It did not tell me anything worthwhile. Either this was real, not a dream, not the dreamscape, not my subconscious… or I was in a mental state of such utter disrepair that I lacked the required concentration to manifest anything.

Either was possible.

Either seemed equally likely.

And I felt too tired to care.

“And finally,” a strangely familiar voice suddenly intruded upon my misery, “we reach the ultimate pickle: What even is reality?”

I swallowed and replied in an irksomely raspy voice. “Oh, great. Torture by existential crisis. Such a novelty for me. And what is your answer?”

The following silence stretched. I was almost convinced that whoever said that was gone. That it might have been a figment of my imagination to begin with. That finally, finally the day had arrived. The day I had gone mad. Completely and utterly lost my shit. Was this what insanity felt like? Looked like?

But the voice was not done with me. “That I don’t have one,” she answered. I could tell from the brief pause, from her very deliberate intonation that she picked her next words carefully. “But I did always cherish our discussions of the topic. This one and many others.”

I don’t want to. It was such a profound statement. And yet I raised my head anyway. Uncurled myself just enough to finally take a look at this intruder. At the source of this voice who was so intent on not leaving me alone.

I saw the void first, of course. All around us. I hated the familiarity I had garnered with this place over the decades. But more importantly, I saw her. I gawked at an alicorn, with my mouth hanging wide open.

Her features seemed strangely familiar. It was the same odd sense of familiarity that her voice rang with this entire time. Her amber coat. Her mane was the color of mahogany, with vibrant turquoise highlights. The same turquoise as her eyes. She wore a full set of regalia as well. Made from brass, it seemed. These strange knee pads were a unique addition, inlaid with turquoise gemstones. And they looked oddly technical. Like mechanical pieces one would expect from the inner workings of a clock. Her peytral looked half machine as well and prominently featured her cutie mark. An hourglass.

Everything about her felt familiar, yet I failed to recognize her in full. There was no name that sprang to mind, no memory of shared times and events, no sudden flash from a previous life. Who are you?!

I slowly uncurled myself fully and rose to my hooves again. I still felt exhausted, but it also felt like I should be ashamed to cower before her like I had done. And only then did I realize: She was an alicorn. And she wore regalia. I quickly bowed low.

She’ll go for your nose. Not the intrusion of yet another foreign voice, not a creepy whisper from beyond the veil. My own voice. My own suspicion. It was hard to tell them apart sometimes, and I failed to see how I came to that conclusion, to that expectation, it was utterly unfounded and—

She booped my nose with her brass-clad hoof. I blinked in confusion and looked up at her. Her giggle sounds like wind chimes. I waited. A second, maybe two. In stunned silence. Her lips curled upwards. Her bottom lip quivered as she tried and failed to reign her amusement in. And when she finally broke, when she giggled, it really did sound like wind chimes. Floaty, breezy, airy.

She’ll hug you. This was one step too far. Relying on my intuition had served me well for the most part throughout my entire life. Throughout many lives, in fact. And right now, I could not deal with that. So I took a step back. And despite how much I trusted my own gut feeling, I was still surprised to notice that at the very same moment I stepped back, she made the effort. She moved in. She stopped halfway through when she realized I refused, but the ambition, the impulse had clearly been there. Uncanny.

Her amber wings rustled. I looked up at her, but she did not seem annoyed or alienated. Surprised, if anything. “How do you do that?” I asked her. It was futile, I told myself. How could she know? “How do I know you without remembering you? Without remembering anything about you? I can’t even pin a name to your face!”

Wind chimes. She giggled briefly. While I dealt with confusion and dismay, this entire situation seemed quite amusing to her. “That sounds as if it would hurt. We have been friends a long, long time ago, Dreamwalker. In eons past, one might say. Although I will admit that time plays a different role in our lives. I would love for you to treat me as your friend once more.” She opened her wings to their fullest… and bowed. To me. “My name is Tempora.”

This is ridiculous. I gulped and tried not to freak out again. But the name did ring a few bells. Faintly, deep in the back of my head. “You are a princess,” I, Captain Obvious, noted my shrewd observation.

Tempora rose to her full height again and refolded her wings. I was glad for that small mercy. Her smile still persisted. “Technically, yes. And you have been my brave knight.”

Everything within me balked at the sentiment. The implications did not even matter, not at this moment. “I am no knight,” I immediately replied. It was all I could do not to snap at her.

And for the first time since we met, I saw a very old toughness emerge and take over her expression. Putting myself down was not on the menu, it seemed. “And what makes a knight, old friend? Is it the shining armor he wears? How ready for blood and battle he is when he raises up his weapon? Or is it his mindset with which he tackles challenges set before him?” The hardness in her voice drained away as quickly as it had appeared, and only a fond smile was left behind as she sighed. “I have missed our discussions.”

I shook my head. “I-I don’t remember them. At all.” This entire time, I had waited. For a flash of insight. For a random memory to pop up. But there was nothing. Silence. Just a vague feeling of familiarity that permeated everything about her. Was it possible that whatever connected us had been so long ago that my memories of it faded entirely? It was a scary thought. Because if I could forget about her, completely and fully forget, then surely I could forget other lifetimes as well. Other worlds. Other families I had left behind. Other experiences I had made. How many had there been?

Tempora acknowledged at least my lack of recognition with a nod. “I know. And that is fine, do not worry. It will come back to you in time… or maybe it won’t, it doesn’t matter either way. I don’t mind having to forge new memories with you either. A mortal mind was never meant to hold such vast knowledge. Side effects had been inevitable from the start, and we both knew that.”

I had questions. So. Many. Questions. And for the first time in ever, it felt like there was an actual, decent chance to get answers. But before I could utter a single one, Tempora raised her hoof, brought it down onto the still very much invisible ground with force and suddenly, something manifested right next to her.

Luna.

She was still curled up in a fetal position, trapped inside a magical bubble. But it was a sharp reminder of where I had come from. What had happened before I landed in this place.

Tempora turned her attention to Luna. She raised a hoof and put it against the magical sphere. Her eyes briefly shone with a burning white light, and a moment later the bubble burst. Tempora giggled as she shot me a frisky grin. “I can see you have developed a certain taste.”

I had no idea what she did. Or saw. Or how any of that worked. But with Luna especially, it was easy to imagine any of the countless… things we had shared. And I blushed furiously. “Is she alright?” I asked as I walked closer to my kitten. I did not dare touch her, as I was unfamiliar with the specifics of what Velvet had done to her. Tempora seemed to have no such qualms and placed her armored hoof with a gentle gesture on Luna's cheek. She did not wake from the touch, but the gesture seemed intimate somehow.

“No harm has befallen her, I can assure you that,” she told me. “You always have been a resilient one,” she whispered towards Luna.

It really was a relief. In retrospect — diving into that unknown anomaly with Velvet in tow, not knowing what would happen next, might have been one of the stupidest moves of my entire life. And I had done a lot of stupid things in my many, many years. It felt as if a mountain was lifted off my heart and shoulders to know that others did not have to suffer for my rash actions. Although, that still remained to be seen, did it not? After all… where were we even? What was this place? Was this the dreamscape? If so: How? If not: What else?

“What happened? Where are we? Where is Velvet?” He should be in here with us, right? As the first questions tumbled out of my mouth, the dam broke and I had to fight tooth and nail to keep myself from spouting more and more questions before she could even get a single word in to answer any of them.

“The anomaly you found was my hibernation capsule,” Tempora replied with a sigh. “It can get quite boring as the steward of the timestream and I lack the seemingly unending curiosity for mortal life that my sisters have.” She closed her eyes with a warm smile on her lips and leaned in. Her cheek against Luna’s, she sighed happily. Tempora opened her eyes again and regarded Luna with nothing but fondness as she continued to explain. “I sleep for long phases. Sometimes through entire cycles of their rebirths.”

I blinked. And shook my head. “You’re… their sister?” Another one? It was silly, of course. There really were not that many. Luna and Sunny were sisters, sure. Twilight wasn’t. Cadance wasn’t. Yet it still felt strangely crowded, did it not?

Tempora grinned in reply. “In spirit, of course. Alicorns are not automatically blood-related, that would make certain developments in this timeline and others horribly awkward, don’t you think?”

I inevitably had to think about many of our double-dates. Visits to expensive restaurants. Sharing a few bottles of wine in front of the fireplace in Canterlot Castle. Or better yet, gorging ourselves on canapes in the living room in Twilight's castle. Eventually, after talking for ages, the evening calmed down. Conversations faded away. Everypony became a bit more cuddly. I vividly remembered leaning against Luna, her soft plumage keeping my back warm, a blanket surrounding both of us as we merely watched silently as Sunny and Twilight shared a series of increasingly intimate kisses.

I still remembered what I had thought at that moment: Took them long enough.

While this evening had been unique, there were many like it after that. Some of them ended in serenity, others in exhilaration. I found myself nodding in response to her ‘question’. While ‘awkward’ might not have been my word of choice for that, I had to agree that no direct relation was very much preferable.

Tempora did not tease me about any of it, thankfully. I still could not tell if she was able to read my mind, or if she simply knew me so well that she could predict my thoughts. Either way, her knowing smirk told me that she easily could have and chose not to. “If your question was if I had always been a pony however,” she continued like nothing had happened, “then the answer is no. Our connection runs deeper than mere consciousness. Even in my slumber I can feel when their lives come to a close once again, when they return to their celestial state of being to recover from the trauma of death, as much as I can feel when they choose to delve down into yet another body and another life. My own form changes to match theirs in every new cycle they start.”

She stretched her wings wide and craned her neck all the way back to take a good look at herself. For somepony unfamiliar with a pony's body, she did surprisingly well. Then again, how long had they been doing this? How many experiences did she have? Maybe at some point, the experiences with all quadruped bodies somehow blended together?

I sighed. This was getting out of hoof fast. I refocused my mind on a more pressing matter. “What about Velvet?” I recognized that she did not answer my question about our current location. Either because she forgot, or she did not want to answer. Or any of the myriad of other possible reasons. I chose to respect her wishes — or failings — and moved on to something more important. After all, whatever this place was, its featureless void served well to keep my mind on track.

Temporas eyes briefly flashed with white light again. I suspected that every time she did that, she gathered information via some kind of vision. And when the light dimmed this time, her expression was one of seriousness. Contempt, even. “I see the issue,” she muttered with a sigh before she raised her voice. “I will be honest with you for old time’s sake, Dreamwalker. I have little patience for fools or fanatics, and he appears to be both.”

Harsh words. Spoken in a voice bereft of empathy. It tugged at my heartstring and made me fear for a friend of mine. “He was misguided.”

“By himself,” she cut in.

“He was desperate!” I defended him.

Tempora raised a hoof to stomp the ground, but lowered it softly as she recognized her own temper flaring. “Time does not yield to the whims of mortals like he wished it did. His attempt to bend it to his will was… dangerous. Dangerous in how close he came to fulfilling his wish.”

Maybe the implication was correct. Maybe I simply could not hope to fathom the consequences had he succeeded. But he should be here. We both tumbled into the anomaly. And I started to fear for his life. “Please, Tempora. He just wanted to be reunited with her. Can’t you… I don’t know… send him back to her or something?”

She cocked her head to the side and stared at me in bemusement. “You wish for me to hurtle him through space and time, into a long-dead past where he does not belong and every breath he takes may change the future and rewrite history? I think not! The consequences of such an action would be unforeseeable even to me.”

“Please, I—“ I cut myself off as a disturbing thought crossed my mind. He should be here with me. Yet he was not, clearly. What if…? “Did… did you kill him already?” What a brave knight I was. Welcome back, old friend — here, have some murder accusations.

Tempora sighed and shook her head. “I do not end life lightly, Dreamwalker. The moment both of you entered my capsule, I readjusted it to keep you safe and in stasis. This place is not meant for beings other than myself.”

“So he is… fine? For now?” I needed to know. I needed to hear it, I felt. Yet the nod she gave me in reply was enough of an answer to satisfy that need for the time being. I sighed in relief. Wherever he was, at least he was safe. And my gaze was inevitably drawn towards Luna as a curious idea sprang to mind. After all, she had called this a hibernation capsule, had she not?

Tempora sighed deeply. “You have grown soft, old friend,” she half-heartedly chided me. It lost even more of its impact due to her warm smile. “I do not mind this change. It is merely… that I am surprised by it.” She looked over to Luna as well and nodded. “You may search for a ‘solution’ for his predicament if you wish to. And yes, Luna would be capable of affecting him with a manufactured dream while he is in my custody. However, I assure you that this is wholly unnecessary as he is kept fully unaware of the flow of time.”

I felt strangely naked every time she did that. Every time she predicted what I was about to do or say or even think. I did not mind being an open book. Nothing I could do about that. And even if I could — I failed to see it as something bad, as a flaw of mine. Sunny always knew how I felt. If I was down, if I was happy, if my thoughts were gnawing away at me again. Luna could always tell if I tried to keep secrets from her, and often enough even what kind of secrets those were. She pried into them hard if it was anything personal that bothered me, but she kept her distance and let me be if it was something silly like ideas for birthday presents. And even Twilight, who lacked the vast experience of the other two, could easily read me anytime.

But that felt different. Tempora’s gaze felt more scrutinizing. As if I had to meet certain standards. There was a perceived pressure behind it. And it was so… thorough. She was not just reading my mood or my current state of mind. She was reading everything, all at once.

I shook my head in an effort to clear it. Focus, I told myself. We were talking about Velvet. This was about the fate of a friend who… had done something silly. We’ve all been there, right? But no matter how much I tried to play it down, there was no way around acknowledging that Velvet could have ended the world.

And yet I still liked my idea of giving him a dream for his time of waiting. “It would still be… nicer. For him,” I told her. A foretaste of what was to come. A nice dream of a reunion, until his actual reunion. Velvet allowed me to stop him. Because he could not stop himself anymore. And now that the situation had changed so dramatically… maybe there was a way to reunite him with his beloved?

Tell me — with that kinship between us, with your alleged understanding of my plight… do you claim you would not do the same? For her?

His voice echoed in my head. As a sharp reminder of how thin the rope we balanced on was. One wrong step and we fell into the pits of madness, chasing insane ideas in futile attempts to undo time itself.

Tempora nodded at my side. “As you wish. And good luck with convincing Luna of such a foolish idea. You will need it.”

I smiled and found myself leaning into Tempora. I even tried to put a leg around her in a clumsy attempt at a hug. Until she turned towards me, sat down and allowed for us to embrace each other properly. “Thank you,” I mumbled.

Her smile shone brightly. “You always had a way of spinning tales that intrigued me.”

I chuckled. “And what does that mean?”

Tempora shrugged. “Merely that I am curious as to where you will lead Velvet's story.”

Well, I am a storyteller, I thought with a wry smile. With Velvet's fate resolved for the time being, the myriad of questions returned with a vengeance. “What happens now? With Greenwood? With me? And you? I still have so many questions. Like… where did I originally come from? Do I have parents somewhere? Or should I say ‘sometime’? Was this all just… timey-wimey shenanigans then? These cycles I went through? To find you?”

She had the patience of a saint. Not dissimilar to Sunny, she merely waited with a knowing smile until I stopped myself. “You have nothing to worry about,” she claimed. “I will not force you to break camp here. Your involvement with my sisters intrigues me as much as the revelation that our small circle has grown by two new members. I am eager to get to know these two, Cadance and Twilight.”

I had to laugh. The mental image of how their first encounter would likely pan out was just too amusing. Twilight, confronted by the… what would one call her, even? The Alicorn of Time? Princess of Time? Especially after all the usually failed time travel shenanigans of Twilight's past, this sounded like a prime opportunity to tease the ever-living heck out of her. “I think you’ll hit it off nicely,” I replied with a wide grin.

She snickered. “I hope so as well. As for your current life and pastimes: Again, you do not have to worry about that. You are currently under no obligations. You heeded my call to free me and I have no further need of your services right now. That said, there are many questions you have that I cannot — or will not — answer. Some I do not know the answers for myself, and others are too dangerous to answer. Truth be told, you have always been an odd creature, even to me. Even when we met the first time so long ago.”

Metal smelled, well, metallic. I had never perceived this as a particularly pleasant scent. Neither the gold Sunny wore, nor the silver Luna preferred. But the faint trace of brass that clung to Tempora’s coat was oddly calming. Nevertheless, I pulled myself free and stared at her with my brow furrowed. Despite my disappointment about not getting all the answers right here, right now, there was still a chance of getting some of them. Eventually.

But she mentioned it again. I heeded her call to free her. “Why had you been imprisoned in the first place? With this thing being your capsule to begin with?”

Tempora grimaced ever so slightly, but more importantly, her wings rustled again. It was something she had difficulties to come to terms with, it seemed. For as much control as she could exert over her facial features and expressions, her body language betrayed no small amount of anticipation. “That is something I will have to investigate myself. I suspect someone has found it and tampered with it, which should already be impossible by itself. And despite my vast array of abilities, I have yet to figure out who did it, when, where, why, and most importantly: how.”

I shot her a lopsided grin as I remarked on the obvious. “You sound excited.”

It was oddly satisfying to see her blush for a change, to see her squirm in place for once. “I will admit that I might be. I already implied that I do not have strong feelings about participating in mortal life. But I do like to make use of any and every opportunity to share some quality time with my family. This investigation will surely carry me across worlds and timestreams, allowing me to catch up with just about everyone.”

I chuckled. And within a moment, that chuckle rose to a bellowing laughter as I drew a hilarious analogy in my own head: This was like celebrating a murder, because the who-done-it afterwards would allow the intrepid investigator to talk to all his friends. Who might or might not be suspects.

“You know you can just… ask them, right?” I asked her as my laughter died down again and I wiped a few tears away. “’Hey, I’m bored, wanna hang out?’ Something like that might work. Sounds way less complicated and doom-y.”

Tempora chimed in with her own laughter. “It is a relief to see that so much of the pony I knew is still there. Thank you, Dreamwalker. However, it is time for you to leave this place. Do not worry, we will meet again soon.”

The surrounding darkness encroached on us, on my field of vision, as colors drained and I slowly lost focus. I felt strangely at peace. I knew in my heart that she was not lying. I wondered if I would simply wake up, down there in that cellar of the castle ruins. I wondered if any time would have passed at all. If the day guard was still busy mopping up the remaining changeling forces. If Twilight had arrived as I expected. I wondered if they struck out against the enemy, carried the fight to them and traced fleeing drones back to their hive to settle things. I wondered if Greenwood had sustained any significant damages. If Luna would wake up there in the cellar alongside me. If she remembered at all how and when Velvet managed to ambush her. If she held a grudge or if she would be embarrassed by it. I wondered if Sunny knew. And if maybe she would be there as well.

And I still had so many questions for Tempora.

Just as she started to fade as well, I saw them again. Like eerie specters. The haunt stood right behind her, with its ever-present sad smile and his legion of… creatures. And I shivered as it slowly waved at me.

Stories never end. We just stop telling them.