FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

The next few days were quiet and without incident. My two guardians, Brighteye the cremello and Swiftsure the roan, barely left the cave except for some exercise two or three times a day. Only one left me alone at a time, and it was easy to know when an absence was upcoming as somepony would teleport into my cave a few minutes before. I am sure recognition signals of some sort were exchanged, and identities confirmed, though in the very proper and correct manner I was never party to any of it.

I was feeling better by this point, more myself. The injury was almost undone and now it was simply a matter of encouraging the spinal column to knit back together properly and to make sure that the musculature supporting it was secure. I could feel my lower quarters once more, though moving anything below my foreshoulder was troublesome and painful.

"I'm not sure, Seth." Feverfew, one of the physicians assigned to me, frowned and put his left hind hoof back and out a little: one of his unconscious signals, this suggested genuine puzzlement and careful thought. He was a little smaller than other ponies, more slight, and lacked the elegant horn that curled out of the foreheads of many in this land. "Despite the injury you sustained when you landed, there was nothing to suggest why you would have fallen as you did. Bruising and contusions to your shoulder flight muscles were consistent with a fall from height, but nothing else. Your heart and lungs are sound, your sternal muscles are sound, we can't perceive any aberration in your brain that might cause it... It's a mystery, and that's a fact."

It *is* a mystery, one I've been turning over in my head for several days. Why would I come here? Why would I have the vision of some dragon I've never seen in my mind's eye, and why would I feel drawn, compelled almost, to come and seek him out? --- No. It didn't work like that. I was just *there*, without conscious choice. One moment I wasn't, and the next moment I was.

"Feverfew," I begin carefully, "how much do you know about the dreamweave?"

"Not that much." The stallion's expression is thoughtful; he takes a couple of steps sideways to bring himself up to be able to look at me. "Let me rephrase: I know enough about it to be able to control my own, and to enter someone else's when invited, and to control the space around me in someone else's dreaming, but that's about all. I don't understand *how* it works. If I'm honest," he continues, now pacing a little, "I'm not sure anypony really knows *how* it works... just that it does. Someponies are better at controlling and manipulating it than others, and there are creatures who exist in it."

"Really?"

"Yes." This from Swiftsure, whom I have discerned is a mare with a dry, cynical sense of humour and gifts for song and unbidden kindness. When she speaks, which is not often, she is always concise and to the point without being curt. "I have heard of one. A mouse. He lives in a castle, which exists in the dreamweave somewhere. I heard that Princess Luna took a pupil of hers there once."

"Hum." I smile at the thought of the elegant, proud Luna paying court to a mouse in his castle. "How interesting."

Swiftsure's eyes gleam brightly. "I heard it through the usual channels. It is true, though."

"Those 'usual channels' are often filled with muck, Swift," says Brighteye, trotting in from outside. The shafts of sunlight that enter the cavemouth on this sunny-and-cloudy day cast lighter patches on his gleaming coat, and as he passes by me he tosses his neck and tail and prances just a little in place. It is no secret that I find males desirable, and when I see this I cannot help but wonder. Perhaps he is just showing off. In any event, it is nice to see his broad, supple body, and the darker, blonde mane that matches his tail perfectly.

"Perhaps. But, you know, a mouse that lives in a castle in the dreaming?... There are levels of truth and levels of exaggeration, and this one falls just in the place between them. Besides, who would invent a rumour like that?"

"True." There are quiet clinks as Brighteye levitates his armour into place and it locks in upon him. His haunches are towards me, as though attempting privacy, but the angle of his tail as the haunchplate settles into position is, well, suggestive.

"Here's a question," I say. "The other night - before you were assigned here - I dreamed I was being threatened by someone I couldn't really see. At the end, it had a stiletto at my throat. If it had pushed..."

An uncomfortable silence fills the room. With a troubled look on his face, Feverfew says, "Seth... there are some questions you don't want answers to."

"No, he does." Swiftsure's response is immediate and firm. "He does, don't you, Seth."

It's a statement, not a question, but it demands a response. "Yes, I do."

Feverfew had returned his attention to my back but now he turns to glance back at my two guards. Both lie on hay close to the fire, which is kept safely in place by a ring of large stones. Their casques are on the ground next to them, their one nod to comfort, and they return his glance. At last, and quietly, Brighteye says, "Seth... if it had pushed, you would be dead."

The words don't shock me. From everything I've seen here in this land, the dreamweave and the real world -- is this the real world or is this just fantasy? -- it's clear that they are tightly coupled. In my travels I've heard stories about souls coupled to bodies by some thread, usually silver, and I'm familiar with the ways of magic for autoprojection and teleportation and scrying and telemilos, but otherthis is entirely new.

"I see."

"Do you?" Swiftsure's question is direct. "You see, but do you understand?"

"Swiftsure -" begins Brighteye.

The roan cuts him off. "Do you understand what that means? It means that, until or unless you learn how to manage the dreamweave, you're vulnerable as a newborn pony. It means that someone else will have to be with you every moment of your time here -- and you still don't know what you're doing here, except for mooning over that dragon. And it means that someone else will have to put *their* life at risk to protect you." As she spoke she rose and stepped over towards me. I had never heard her speak with so much passion: cold fire glowed in her eyes and her voice, though low, resonated through body of the cavern.

"Swiftsure!" The rebuke comes in another voice, quite unexpected. All heads turn, and in the entrance to the cavern is a jet-black pony who moves on assured hoof-falls into the body of the cave. The shadow resolves into another shadow, one whose mane seems to shimmer with starlight and whose primary coat ripples with a reflective, shiny blue tinge.

"Princess Luna!" says Brighteye, scrambling to his hooves and levitating his casque towards his head.

"Brighteye. Feverfew. Hullo, Seth." She nods to us in turn as she approaches, but her attention is on Swiftsure, who has turned fully by this point to face the princess. "Captain Swiftsure, you will explain yourself. *Now.*"