Plight of the Pegasi

‘Routine’

Here springs a brand new morning under the towers of gold. A Godlike pony urges the star to thrust into the sky. I watch my sister as she performs this awesome feat and she turns around to me and she says so humbly.

“Oh my sister, you must be so tired”

“I am, but the night was fraught with nightmares”

“Such a weight on your small shoulder, are you sure you are doing alright?”

“I have to my sister, for I have wronged all these fair ponies. It is only right I bear this burden”

“You speak like you are alone. You have your sister, Luna. You have your sister”

I let her return to her duties, there are many letters piling up on the doorstep. I think I should allow myself a sleep but I still have many niggling thoughts. I look out over the railing of the lonely balcony and imagine the ponies waking up from their prolonged slumber. I have done my best to keep the demons out from their dreams but some may have eluded my detection. I pull back my head as a young phoenix chick blitzes past me. I am not angered by the darling bird; it only does as its nature dictates. I also have tasks that need my attention, chores my elder sister sets me to keep me occupied through the days that drag so. I smile a little smile and make my way back down the stairs to where my chores are waiting. I leave the staircase and see the rows of hoof shoes that need to be shined. I fetch a brass bristled brush and push a stool over to the work station. I take the first set of boots and bring them close to me; they have some slight tarnishing on the instep. I turn them over and cannot contain my enthusiasm. The bottoms of the shoes are caked, literally caked in cake. Must’ve been from the parties and royal occasions she frequents, none of which I am invited to. I clutch the brush and work it into the boot. I finish one set and put them to the side. I set my eyes upon another set and groan through my boredom. I turn one of the boots in my hooves and reach the end of my tether.

I scrape at a stain on the boots. It doesn’t fade, why must she eat so many of them? Perhaps they are a good source of potassium; perhaps she finds the shape to be amusing. No matter her reason for obsessing over them, the bananas had become a problem. I abandon the task for now; need to get my head straight. I walk a few steps before my hoof is attacked by a paper bag. Her laziness knows no bounds. I rip the bag off with my teeth and stuff it in the bin. I retreat to my room and take solace in my bed.  Still no time for sleep, still tonnes to do and day’s a burning away. I scan over some letters my sister has left for me to reply to on the bed stand. They are the only ones sent to me, the rest go to the favourite. I read a passage from the letter on top. There are some long rambling soliloquies about how some pony’s foals have been having nightmares again. When will they realise I am just one pony? I do possess unimaginable power but still there are millions of ponies all sleeping at the same time. I bang my head on the stand and venture back down to another super fun chore awaiting me. A note is stapled to the fridge, the fridge is full bananas. Ugh I’m distracted again. I read the note.

“Don’t forget to buy more bananas…

Celestia X”

There is a purse of bits on the side; I’m not allowed my own money. I take my, there’s no other word for it, bib from a hook near the window and set off for the shops. In my short flight to gather the potassium rich provisions my sister so urgently needs I ponder life without the annoying cake munching, banana mulching sycophant and continue with my errand. I arrive at the market and low and behold the fruit stall owner is elated to see me.

“You come for the bananas?” He chortles.

“Oh yes of course. How many do you have?”

“It’s fairly early in the day, four dozen…” He cheerfully exclaims.

“Umm in English if you would be so kind”

“Ah mind my idiocy. I’ve 48 bananas”

“I don’t think I’ll need as many as that” I sigh, having second thoughts.

“Are you sure? Just last week your sister purchased 600”

“That’s kind of worrying”

“Bananas are a good source of pot…” He begins, I cut him off.

“I know. I get it. How much?”

“I usually do her a deal for seven for the bit, since she makes such a beautiful day for me”

“7 bits then…” I posit.

“As close as”

I pay the merchant and take the haul of bananas. I float the basket with my manna and make the dull journey back to the castle tower and my doldrums of chores. I put the bananas in the fridge and return to the lonely balcony.  A hyperactive Pegasus lands at the post next to me and is about to plop a letter into the mailbox. I take the envelope and tear it open.

“Not nearly enough… There’s a long winter.

PS: Don’t forget to clean the boots.

PSS: Don’t read my diary (again).

PSSS: Make sure to get some sleep”

How could she know what I had just retrieved from the market? I had only been there but three minutes ago. Make sure to get some sleep, they think I don’t try? I haven’t been able to sleep for weeks now, something to do with the winter solstice marked with a little frowning face on my bedroom calendar. I look up from the letter and see the mail pony is still there. They look lost. I tickle the mare’s chin and sing to her, to let her know she is appreciated. It is a song my mother told me when I was having trouble sleeping as a filly.

“Houses on a treetop, houses on a cloud…

You’ll never see them as they go around. They place the silken letters all under our snouts. And they ask so little, there are so many about. They work all night they work all day. They never get any time for play.                                                                                                                                                                        For never was there a soul so lonely, oh my daughters bless the mail pony”

The mare smiles as she is made humble by my singing. I wave her away as she flies off to other mailboxes. I turn from the rail and bound down the stairs for down there still wait my sister’s affairs. Her boots still lie filthy, with cake and other such smut. I take back my seat and chose another pair. I work through each set, no break to be had. I place each clean set on a shelf on the farthest side of the room. The sun is now dipping under the hills; I wait for my dear sister to return to me. She must perform that feat again, so that I may make the moon rise for the long dark night. I pace up and down the hallways all gold spangled and detailed with diamonds. I tap at the panels across the hall until my sister returns.

She makes a scene as she saunters back in. She beckons me with a royal tone so I leave my chores and rush to her. She doesn’t speak; we’ve done this operation many times before. For now we change the guard for I rule the night and her day is done. She drags the sun down in a bazaar miming act, she then nods to me, we are meant to be equals. I clear my mind and throw a spark up my horn. I find the lunar body drifting lonely so far away and command it rises. It obeys and takes centre stage in the theatre of the night. Not long as the sun been gone has my sister lost her angelic sheen. She mopes, puts her head down and sours away, back to her bedroom at the tip of the tower. I walk back to the precipice of the lonely balcony and again let my horn come alive with a luminescent glow. I can see where every pony sleeps; I can see them as they wonder into a land of dreams. In my warped view of reality I can derive whether a pony is calm or stressed as they sleep under my watchful eye. I see a warning ‘light’ blinking on a PonyVille citizen, the inhabitants of Canterlot seem to never have restless sleep. I follow the red flashing flair down to a quaint confectionary in the town square. I phase through the mortal coils which restrain the common pony and find the distressed sleeper. An earth stallion lies next to his unicorn spouse, the colour are unreadable in this light, or perhaps the lack of it. I enter into the proverbial cloud of the mind and investigate what troubled the earth stallion.

His dream plays back like some gritty crime drama. I look around for the subject in the dream. I hear a loud crying emanating from an alleyway, I wasn’t aware PonyVille had these. In spite of my speculations I head down into the alley. A unicorn holds something away from a stallion. She is screaming for him to go away. There is a small bird skeleton lying, half-submerged in an upturned bin. The stallion is trying to take something from the mare. She pulls the parcel away, I inch a tiny bit closer in my ghostly form and come to a painful realisation. The stallion has blood on his muzzle and tiny downy feathers clinging to his lips. The skeleton submerged in the bin is no bird but a young Pegasus. I think to intervene, to help put an end to this grim facsimile. I see the bundle closer and it is foal, an infant unicorn. I have no qualms now to cut into the procession.  I put myself between the couple but they both look straight through me, as if I were made of cellophane. They continue arguing, I am powerless, and perhaps this dream was not just a nightmare but a reality these ponies could not escape. I was sure we were between some ordinary buildings. I am to be proven wrong as the things that barricade us are not just bricks and mortar. They are two unquestionably huge pink hooves. I look along the hooves, hoping that maybe pony anatomy had some hold in the dreamscape and am pleasantly surprised. It is a pony, a mare I know. She is one of those one’s my sister rants on about every waking hour of the day. Its pinkie and she is salivating down to what was once the alleyway. And then all becomes clear. The stallion and Mare are keeping the foal away from her. Their words start to make sense, talk of starving and living on the streets. I never thought it pertinent to ask another pony the nature of their affairs but I had long questioned the living arrangement of the pink party mare. I know it is not place, I know I should not tamper with the way things are. Knowledge can be a burden. I do take the initiative. I turn to the two and hush their row.

“If you can’t afford my sisters tax then let the pink one take the flak”

“But we can’t throw her out” They defy.

“And if you do not, this dream will soon break through and destroy all that makes you wonderful, all that makes you… you”

“She is our friend” They protest as one.

“She will kill you in time my dear friends. Mr and Mrs cake; stop playing pretend”

I phase out from the scape and vacate the quaint confection castle and once more scan my augmented reality. I see another disturbance flaring up in a vibrant rounded building. I head over to understand the cause of the distress. I enter into the niche boutique and walk on the tips of my hooves up the narrow stairway. One nearly pinches oneself for being such a fool; I transit into the snoozing mare’s dream. My pupils instinctively constrict to the laborious display of satin gowns and pretty shiny things. Blaring spotlights act as pathfinder for the mystery mare behind the stage curtain. Overzealous tympani of drums and strumming of harps welcome the entrance of the not-so mystery mare.  Low and behold it’s Rarity. But what ill omen doeth preside in her dream? She looks fairly happy; she is in the sycophantic construct of her one-track mind. The lights swivel to illuminate Rarity who is now visible on stage. She is… She’s naked. How impractical, but this is her nightmare. I go over to remedy the mistake. She’ll have none of it.

“Aaaaaaaa” She screams. “What have you done with my clothes?”

“I’m the princess Rarity; please get back behind the curtain”

“Oh you’re a princess? That does not give you the right to ruin my fashion show!”

“Princess… Of the night, I am in your dream. Ringing any bells?”

“Luna… How are you going to fix this?”

“Put clothes on…” I say before exiting stage left from the egotistical machination of pettiness.

And I pop out of this dream also. I look to the obelisk standing proud in the town centre. The Mare must be having a lot of trouble sleeping; I have been involved in a number of her dreams now. I leave the thinking for later and ascend up to the open top-floor window. The curtains tickle my sides as I pass through. The Mare tosses and turns in another nightmare. I roll my eyes at my disdain for frequenting her dreams every single day before letting go and falling in. And thou it is yet a repeat of yesterday’s escapades. A further stale, tired office set in a really boring version of PonyVille. A frustrated mare thrashes her hooves against the desk as what I perceive to be a pedestrian problem. She has mountains of paperwork bowing her desk. She has lots of work to do, she always will. I wish she would quit her cheese snacking midnight habit. She will always have this dream; to be busy is her life. I find myself useless and am about to leave when something different happens. In the schedule of the mundane where everything has a place a free radical flies into the room. It literally flies into the office. It is a Pegasus. It looks tired, it smells something terrible. It is exasperated and lulls onto the matted floor of the office.

“What is wrong with him?” I ask.

“Oh you needn’t worry. It’s a weather thing” She mumbles.

“A weather thing?” I question, pondering the meanings of this explanation.

“Yes, do you want to ask me any more stupid questions? “

“I’ll go on the negative with that one. Do you not see the unconscious Pegasus?”

“I told you it’s…”

“Yes, yes I know. A weather thing” I concede in annoyance.

“ They've been dropping all morning” She adds.

“How do you mean?”

“The Pegasi, it’s a weather thing. I’m sure it’ll clear up” She repeats.

I go to the window.

“Why are there Pegasi falling from the sky”

“It’s a weather thing… Could you please leave? I have paperwork to finish” she passively orders.

I see I can make no impact and again skip merrily out of the dream.

I think about the odd change of events in the dreamscape. Quite artistic, poetic in a way; it reminds me of something I saw once in New Yoke. Ah, bespoke galleries with valet cart-parking and complimentary cranberry juice. How could it not be heaven? These flies of the minds grasp my attention momentarily before I can get back on task. I look over to our apple purveyor and make haste to another blinking beacon of restless sleep. I make not attempt to take in the views as I go and don’t even nosy around the house when I get there. I pass through the floor of a basic bedroom with not a thrill to be seen. Applejack is so uncouth she has fallen from her bed. Still she has a hard head so I don’t reach for the phone or dial the emergency services. Do we even have emergency services? The dream war still rages so I pep myself up before diving into the nether.

I look around; I am in a bed that is not mine. I roll over and pull the duvet off of me. I’m amongst four thin walnut posts in a bed that feels like it is full of straw. I note a tear in the fabric and am delighted to confirm that the bed was indeed full of straw. Despite the homely welcome I drag myself from the bed. I feel weird, one cannot place a hoof on why but I assure myself it’s just part of the dream. I try my darnedest to avoid the squeaking floorboards, it is a fantasy however, all the floorboards squeak. I walk into the door, not through it. I nurse my sore snout and open the door. I hear a mumbling in the other room. I am not ofay with the mapping of the establishment, although I end up where I need to be apparently. It strikes me as a tad peculiar that I haven’t seen Applejack in the dream yet. Hmm, is she so modest and altruistic that she dreams of others? Either that or she has personality issues. I am in the room with the elder of the Apple bushel. She is making breathy, prejudiced and slightly racist remarks. I almost look down to avoid the awkward encounter but then stop myself. I never look down when I am in this state, the vile repercussions of seeing through one’s own body is enough to turn the strongest of stomachs. I am meek. I walk towards the bed and then hear the voice of the south-country mare.

“…It’s better this way AJ. Better she goes quiet than suffers in one of those God-Forsaken homes”

The words spew from my own muzzle. I have not control of my faculties. I risk a quick look down and almost vomit from the ensuing realisation. I am not me, I am not in my own coat, I am not even an alicorn anymore. I look down. I am Applejack, her stout orange hooves trail beneath ‘me’. I am now without control of anything. She takes her hat off and gases into the hood of it. She closes her eyes and by a knock-on effect I am blinded also.

“You said your goodbyes when she was in that hospital bed. She doesn’t even know who you are. Be honest with yourself now AJ. She goes tonight, she suffers no longer”

The well of the hat fills with her tears, it glides to the floor. I am just an audience to what happens now, I cannot change a thing. Perhaps her will was so strong that my influence faltered. I hear a crackling of static in her ears as she leans over her grandmother and picks up a pillow from her side. The static roars louder, louder to the point I can’t see straight. Her vision distorts all the surrounding colour of the room blend into one. The only pigment that remains is the cursing mare writhing on the bed. Applejack presses the pillow over her grandmother, smothering the air from her lungs. I can’t just watch, it is heart-breaking. I physically pull myself away from her eyes, I have to claw my way out of her dream. I can feel her grip leaving as I feel I grow distant from her. I am back in the bedroom. I am me again. It feels like I have taken part in the running-of-the-leaves, I can hardly catch a breath. I peer over the quilt and am behoved to see no Applejack sleeping there. I hear a grunting, choking and grunting, like if somepony was… Suffocating? I canter through to the elder’s board and abandon my ghostly alter-ego. I see the dream not just bleed through, but become reality. The orange mare looms over her sleeping grandmother, she is holding the pillow tightly as not to let go. I take a few steps before throwing my hooves around her barrel and jerking her away from the atrocity she means to commit. I lower her carefully to the carpeted floor, she is still asleep. Whatever troubled her in the day had followed her into her nightmares. I would have never thought Applejack to be a sleepwalker let alone a sleep murderer. I don’t know her story, only that she is another of the ponies my sister speaks so fondly of. I place the pillow under her head and kiss her snout as I leave.

‘Expectations’

I take my time on the journey back. I know she will be there. Maybe I should take a peek at what my butter-wouldn’t-melt sister fantasises about. I land on the lonely balcony and see that my sister has postponed her sleep in order to catch me. Her agenda is nothing new to me.

“What do you call this?” Celestia demands.

“Call what my sister? I have procured the items you requested…” I begin to explain/

“Is that a fact? Well I am woefully low on…”

“Bananas, I know. I bought the entire stock off the merchant” I assure her.

“Is that all I mean to you?” She asks, her ego growing three times in size.

“I can’t make bananas magically appear. You know how conjuration works”

“Then why did you not check the market in Appleoosa? Quite the contrary to the name, they have quite a huge supply of bananas”

“The merchant said you purchased 600 the other week. How was such an amount possible?”

“We have an understanding”

“So you really expected me to fly out to Apple…

“Off course not, you should have teleported there”

“You know I’m no dab hoof at that”

“I shall fix your laziness in the morning sister. Now back to work” she pontificates.

She leaves me reeling from her extensive vocabulary and astute annunciation. I decide a quick powernap is in order. I trot to my room and open the door. I am then snowed under an avalanche of hoof boots. There is a note attached to the soul of one but I know what it will say; a nicely worded yet dreadful punctuated dig at my character, nothing noteworthy. I suspect she wants to awaken to her perfectly polished Thursday hoof boots. She even has allocated days for the bloody things. I coil up on my bed, nothing special, but I like it. I feel I have earned some shuteye and let my weary eyelids fall where they may. I hear a muffled voice and a poking in my shoulder. It is most unwelcome. I stir nonetheless, like some common house pet. I am under no illusion that my sister had poked me but she is not there anymore. I stumble from my room, my lack of sleep catching up with me. She is waiting around the corner, ironically the tower is round, and where are the corners? She is tapping her hoof on the floor, a hoof with no boot. It must’ve been a message. She plants another sticky note on my forelock and totters back to her bedroom.

“If you want your bucking boots cleaned then hire somepony. Hire a Pegasus, although you seem to have a vendetta against them”

“I don’t have the slightest clue what your sleep deprived brain has concocted. Goodnight sister”

She pops her head around the corner and shines a little grin.

“Oh and don’t forget the boots”

I stop myself from saying what I want to say go back into my bedroom hollow. I slam the door behind me and open my large panoramic window. The stupid little accessories are still strewn asunder about my personal space. I find the absolute edge of the carpet and pull it up around the boots. I tie it all up together and levitate the load out of the window and tumbling to the ground below. She can deal with that in the morning. One more blinking mauve beacon shines on the horizon. I can so no more, how am I to govern all nightmares when I can at a stretch manage only PonyVille? Time travels at a different rate in the dreamscape. It is true that I am not the only one who can change the course of dreams. My royal guards who pull my chariot as well as the security detail who guard my room, they too can play the night piper and let the ponies of Equestria sleep at peace. They however cannot sustain this activity; the energy it takes to propel oneself into a mind and then tear oneself away is much more than the semi-mortal wards can muster. The night is young; I open my wings and once more set off for PonyVille.

A house in a tree is my destination. It is hollowed with beautiful Victorian style windows. I touch down on the balcony and find the doors to be closed. In knowing this particular mare I surmise the doors are locked as well. I am correct. I phase in through the physical boundary and appear again in a room so organised it could have been a laboratory. A mare wracks her brains in the sober bed. I tip toe over to her side and tuck her escaped leg back under the quilt. I find it calming to listen to them sleep sometimes. I lower an ear close to the warm breath and feel tranquil. My tranquillity is spoilt as the petite alicorn lets out an almighty chorus of snoring. I fall on my rump, embarrassed at my unprofessional conduct. I enter the dream.

I rematerialize back in the same room. Twilight has moved, well I don’t expect ponies to dream about dreaming. I go to a small alcove which leads out to a balcony overlooking the town. The architects of the world we both imagine and the one we live are not the most inventive of ponies. Whenever they can they will add a balcony to a new build, some sort of craze. I push the doors apart but they disintegrate at the touch of my hooves. Twilight turns around and sighs deeply.

“Don’t you see it Luna?”

“See what my umm little sister?”

“Can’t you hear them burning?”

“I can’t see anything. There is nothing down there”

“No, for now you can hear it, when the day comes you will see it”

“What am I supposed to be seeing?”

“See them burn” She replies as the sun rises.

What imagining is this? The thoughts of an innocent and young mare should not conform to this. Below lay the writing few, for most lay dead in the morning dew. They grasp at the air waiting for death’s sweet release but this release never comes. They are left the witnesses of whatever has befallen the townsfolk. They are left to learn the example that the dead have set.

“Why is this happening?” I beg of her.

“It’s all I can see Luna. Every dream for months now, they have all been this exact same one”

“Why do you see such things?” I calmly request, the stress of the situation is noticeable in my tone.

“For the failures of pony-kind”

“How have we failed?”

“They fail because they do not fear her” She preaches, gesturing her hoof to show she means every pony.

“Who is this ‘her’ you speak of?”

“I cannot speak any more. Be gone Luna”

“I am night princess, this is my domain” I correct her, but my hubris has no place here.

She lights her horn and sends everything spiralling down a metaphysical plughole. I am spat out from the reverie and slide across the floor. It was like I had been ejected forcefully from the dream. I look behind me to only see the photoflash aftermath of Twilight teleporting away. Had she woken just from me being in her dream? How could a dream be so lucid? I turn back to my natural heading and walk straight into Twilight.

“Leaving so soon?” She sneers.

“You told me to. Forgive me for being cooperative”

“I won’t. Now on your way”

The mixed messages do nothing but sow more seeds of doubt. I fly back for Canterlot Castle and the royal tower which reaches up for the heavens. It’s at least as close to heaven then any of us will get before the bell tolls for the final time and we go into the night.