The Dreamer's Secret

The Encounter

The Apple Family farmhouse slept in the deep of Summer’s night. Applejack, Big Macintosh and Granny Smith had fallen into a heavy sleep, though Apple Bloom remained awake. She continually looked out her window into the stars above, unfazed from the events that took place a few hours ago. Her head turned and her eyes made contact with the alarm clock across the room. She jumped from her chair and made her way over to it to read the time. Once she read it, she dashed across the room to her bed. The filly began to stuff pillows under the sheets to make it appear that her body was in the bed and as soon as she accomplished this she made her way back over to the tin clock. She quickly grabbed it with her teeth and exited through her bedroom door.

As she closed the door behind her, she knew that this was when she had to stay focused. Apple Bloom gently made her way across the hall and towards the stairs. She knew that her house was old and in some places the floorboard’s creaked. She had snuck out of the house numerous times and had a general idea as to which places in the floor and stairs creaked and which ones didn’t. It was a rigorous challenge, but she finally made her way downstairs and out the door successfully.

Apple Bloom wasted no time and hastily hopped off the porch and onto the front yard. The nightly breeze fluttered her pajama gown as she raced through the yard and squeezed between the fence to the apple orchards. She cut across the field, breaking through the parallel lines of trees to a certain spot in the field. It was near the end of their land where she stopped; the farm house seemed so distant that she could most likely scream at the top of her lungs and not wake up her family. In this corner of the field was a small hill that rose above the rest of the orchard just enough to be distinguished from the view of the farm house.

She trotted beneath the trees to where an old stump was. The moonlight shone much greater here and lit up the filly’s white and pink nightgown. She hopped up on top of the cleanly-sliced stump and rested herself there. She let the clock in her teeth drop and read the time to herself. It was about 10 past four in the morning and there she waited nine more minutes, because at that specific time, she knew she would see it.

The time was a minute till and sweat from the uneasiness of it all began to form on her brow. Pressing thoughts of running away again came to her, but she remained faithful to her plan. Too long had she ran, it was now time to confront this being. Though the mystery and suspense of it all was the most frightening part, she had a gut-feeling that it wasn’t going to harm her, but perhaps change her indefinitely. A sudden tick from the old alarm clock alerted her and then she read the time again. It was four-nineteen, she could no longer prepare herself, because it was coming.

She rose her head to the stars above and watched them vigilantly. Then she spotted it, faint white dots which were once random stars moved above her slowly. A dozen or so began to move closer to one another in a single spot in the sky. Before eclipsing one another, they circled each other for a few seconds. The moving stars high above were only about the size of a coin in diameter, but soon they grew gradually larger, still oscillating slowly but getting closer to the ground. In a sudden moment, the congregation of stars shot behind the horizon at extreme speeds, disappearing from the night sky all together.

Then it occurred, like so many times before, it floated through the valley. A silent ball of unnatural light floated over Ponyville. It was a blinding light only when looking directly at it, but a nearly invisible halo to the naked eye. However Apple Bloom could feel its presence coming and waited for it to enter the field; she knew it would pass this way before exiting into the night sky.

It stirred no pony in the village as the great sphere moved over the land as silent as the wind itself. The thing was immensely large, larger than perhaps Canterlot Castle. Phantasmic, ebbing lights circled the beastly thing from the stars and still the magnificent appearance of it all awoke no one and no one ever noticed it.

It sailed slowly over the apple fields and Apple Bloom waited for it. Her excitement and fear rose exponential as the light it gave off entered into her eyesight. It hovered gently over the her spot; her mouth was sealed tight with fear and tried to break though her emotion to call out to it.

Finally, with one powerful effort, she beckoned, “Hey!”

The ball of light stopped, it hovered for a moment in the cool air, taking in what had just alarmed it. Apple Bloom was frozen in terror–her mind told her legs to run, but her legs never responded. She was paralyzed in utter dread as she helplessly watched the looming being above her.

In a flash, it shrunk down to the size of her farm house and the ghostly lights that circled the larger ball came together into a single circle. The light of every circle gave forth a beam of white light that illuminated the area around her. A unknown force began to bend the trees back and slowly began to lift objects off of the ground. Apples from the bent trees began to pluck off and rise slowly into the air, bits of rock and dark also rose above the trees. Even her alarm clock rose above the tree line and into the sky above. The gravity seemed lighter in the area as Apple Bloom’s hair gently fluttered upward and her dress blew calmly in the artificial wind. The ball of light hovered closer to the ground, looking upon the filly with its single, spotlight-like eye.

Then, from the core of the sphere itself, an opening faded into sight. An undefinable figure veiled in silver and yellow gleam appeared in the entryway of the sphere. It changed form in a flash of light and soon the light faded from behind it to reveal its newer form. It changed to a silhouette of a large pony, a stallion from Apple Bloom’s perspective.

A rumbling occurred beneath her hooves and she realized the stump was now being uprooted. It broke from the land and gently carried Apple Bloom closer to the stallion. The further she came to the stallion, the more she could make out its appearance. It had a strong jaw and glowing, cyan eyes. Its skin was as white as a winter’s snow and its long mane was in a translucent, light blue and aqua green hues. Its mane tail fluttered behind him, fanning out and disappearing into nothingness at its tips.

The stallion locked eyes with the filly and bent its head a little lower and towards Apple Bloom. He slowly reached out its hoof towards Apple Bloom when they were close enough to touch. She didn’t know what to do and blankly stared in fright at its awesome appearance, mesmerized by the stallion. So she did what any curious girl would do, she reached out with her hoof to touch his.

As soon as the tips of their hooves met contact, a string of pain shot through the stallion as if he was being electrified. She retracted her hoof and backed up against the stump face as much as she could without falling off. The ball of light which encompassed the stallion faded into a violent red orb. The stallion sunk into the face of the now fiery, red ball and the dozen, smaller circles around the ball spread out again. They whisked quickly around the core orb as the vessel rose into the air. When the smaller balls orbited the larger sphere at such great speeds that they appeared as a ring, the entire thing shot off into the sky leaving a comet-like trail into the stars.

The stump, along with Apple Bloom, fell back to the ground with a thud. The filly rolled off of the stump and onto the grass in a dizzy spell. Around her rained the apples and other things the ship floated upward. As soon as she recovered, she wobbled back to her hooves, only to be brought back down when her alarm clock clashed atop her skull.

She didn’t know what had just happened and continually looked upward to try and see the vessel again. The night seemed the same and nothing had changed except that now the stump she had sat on was uprooted and all the apples in the small area she was in were picked off their trees. She read the alarm clock again and realized only a minute had passed. To her it seemed like an hour, but it didn’t matter anymore, she was as confused as she once was.

With her head down, she slowly walked back to the farm house. As she climbed over the fence again and made her way through the yard, she heard an odd noise from the distance. She stopped and looked about to see where it was coming from and noticed that there was a now distant red star in the night sky. Her eyes widened, it was coming back. It grew larger and louder and sailed towards her through the atmosphere in a burning brilliance. The growing light it gave off shimmered like a blazing bonfire and veiled the farm in a blood red tint. Apple Bloom ducked for cover and protected her head with her hooves as it flew over her house and crashed through her barn. The impact boomed over the landscape and shook the very ground Apple Bloom was on.

She peaked though her hooves and looked to see where it had landed. The large, shattered hole in the barn suggested it fell through there and she began to hurry towards it. She opened the large, barn doors with a lingering creak and peered inside. There was no visible sign of the great orb of light, in fact, nothing was where she thought it had landed, (from her point of view). She looked up to see the hole from where it crashed though and followed the moonlight’s single ray towards where it might have landed. In a large hay pile, Apple Bloom finally saw what had fell through and gasped in shock.

In the depression of the hay stack lied a single stallion. He was very much different in appearance than the one that receded into the sphere vessel and she wondered if the two were even related to one another. Its coat was the color of the sky and its mane and tail were of a darker hue. Its physical features appeared as normal as any other earth pony in town. Apple Bloom noticed that it didn’t have a cutie mark on its flank; but besides that, he was as average of a stallion as you could get, excluding the absence of a cutie mark.

She didn’t exactly know what to do or if she should even be around it. It appeared unconscious before her–his body was on its side and its legs and neck were slightly curled in a relaxed pose. It was certainly breathing from the looks of the exhaling and inhaling chest. The filly thought to herself about all the consequences this ‘being’ brought before her. Was it dangerous, or perhaps even evil? It fell from the sky, so no one in Equestria would know the proper answers to any perplexing thoughts that crossed her mind about the stallion from another star.

She decided to nudge the pony awake and see if it would even cooperate. She had the idea that if any troubles were to occur when he would be awakened, that she could just scream and shout until Big Mac and Applejack were out there with her. With that progressing thought, she wondered why no one in her house was even out there with her in the first place; the collision didn’t even set off the farm animals, something about this whole scenario wasn’t right to her. However, she knew that she had brought this upon the farm and knew it was her responsibility. Apple Bloom kept her guard up, but hoped that the stallion would be just a little on the friendly side.

She looked around the farm floor and first spotted a pitch fork. She galloped over to it and grasped the large farming tool with her teeth. It was quite large to a filly and the uneven balance of the tool made her wobble a bit before steading her stance again. She made her way back over to the spot and stood over the stallion. She pointed the sharp end first at the sleeping pony and aimed for the broad side of its flank. Apple Bloom reevaluated her plan and spun the pitch fork around to the wooden, rounded-edge.

After all, if it was friendly, that would be a terrible first impression for the filly to have on him. For all she knew, this was his first encounter with a Ponyvillian, Apple Bloom had to represent the best of Equestria in the coming moments–if, it was friendly. If he posed a threat, she figured she could spin the pitch fork around and be down with him. That was the mentality of this ‘harmless’, head-strong filly.

With a gentle poke, she nudged the stallion and quickly hopped back. The stallion seemed unbothered by it, so she stepped forward once more and poked him gently again. She did this about four times until he murmured something in his sleep and began to stir a bit. Apple Bloom bounced back and awaited his awakening. She turned her head for a moment to place the tool back on the ground beside her. When the little pony turned back, the stallion was upright, facing her, and bore a blank expression in its face. She froze still with a pale, frightened face. His warm-colored, orange eyes locked into her amber ones.

His expression changed to a small, simple smile and promptly greeted in a friendly tone, “Hi!”