Alone and Drifting
Drifter is a broken Unicorn, incapable of using magic. He has no place, no mark, no purpose; depressed, he's already tried to take his life once. His life has become an endless series of padded white walls and medication.
But when a broken Unicorn is granted a vision of an apocalyptic future, what will he do to stop it?
The endless silence gnawed at his skull like tiny rats, trying to eat away the defenses of his mind and devour his sanity. He had held it off admirably so far, but with an active mind, a complete lack of stimulus was slowly sending him mad.
Drifter didn't really have a problem with this though. Perhaps it would be nice to be crazy? He could be free then, in a sense. He would never escape the four walls of his soft prison.
Clinically depressed, he had been admitted to the Insane Asylum until the doctors could figure out what was wrong with him. They had even gotten Princess Celestia herself to pay a special visit to him to try and jog him out of his rut. But nothing had worked.
Drifter was a unicorn, a mild yellow in colour and brown of mane and tail. He was neither tall, nor short. Neither fat, nor skinny. He was simply...Himself.
And perhaps that was the problem? Everything was wrong with him.
When he was but a foal, he had had a bad magical accident. He had fallen a great deal of height, and landed on his head. He didn't remember much after that, but he remembered the pain from when he first awoke. The splitting pain that had torn at his consciousness every second of every minute of every hour for weeks after the accident. His horn had been shattered, rendering his magical ability null. Some of the doctors said he could still do magic if he applied himself...but he had tried, and failed.
He had tried and failed a lot. Everything he ever tried. He failed. It was years after the rest of the Unicorns in his class got their cutie marks that he had given up the search for his own. Just let it happen, they said. Just let it come on its own.
But his cutie mark never came.
A unicorn with a broken horn, no cutie mark, and no place in the world. He didn't even have any friends. All of the people he had considered friends had moved on after school. Grown up and found their calling, and never even contacted him afterwards.
He was, as his namesake called him. A drifter.
He had found his way to Equestria.
It has been Hearts & Hooves day. Everypony was with their special 'one', and he was not. He was alone. He was wise to the world, and held no secret hope that someone would come and hand him a letter from a 'secret admirer', or that somepony would ask him to be their special one. That was the kind of fantasy for a naive foal to have. And he was far beyond that stage.
But what he wasn't expecting was for the happiness of other ponies to hurt.
He watched them, together; at the park, at the cafe, at the theatre. They were inescapable. And for some reason...it hurt. It just hurt. It wasn't the same kind of pain as his horn breaking. The kind of pain that could still wake him up in the middle of the night in a cold sweat. No. This was different. This was a kind of soul-eating pain like a hole gaping in his chest, burning in his throat and his eyes while his heart longed for something he did not, and would never have.
And he hated it. He began to hate those that had what he did not, and by the end of the day, he wished the entire world would just disappear. And then...he hated himself.
It was easy to concoct a cloud-walking potion. He didn't need magic for that at all. And then, it was up the side of the tallest mountain he could find, a step on to a cloud as it passed by, and then, he was ready.
Ready to end it all.
Vertigo took him over as he looked down...and down....and down. The fields were mere patchworks on the quilt that was Equestria, and the ponies seemed no more than ants scurrying to and fro over the ground.
Closing his eyes and taking a deep breath, he closed his eyes and stepped off the edge of the cloud and into nothingness.
He still remembered the swooping sensation of falling, but he kept his eyes closed. He didn't want to know when he would hit the ground. The last thoughts to run through his head was that it was over. No more lonliness, no more uselessness. Just a broken unicorn gone from the world. Nopony would notice. Nopony would care.
But somepony did notice.
In a twisted parody of 'luck', the Wonderbolts had been training in the area, as Drifter was told during his recovery. He felt hooves wrap around his midsection, and then his fall slowing. He tried to struggle, but before he even managed to wriggle his way out of the grasp, the unyeilding ground met them both.
And then, he awoke here.
His new home.
His new prison.
Four soft padded walls, and a soft padded door with a single window, with a Wonderbolt in full dress, with a two-tone cyan and blue mane ruffling his hair and telling him 'You'll be fine' before leaving him alone with his new friend; silence.
Well, silence wasn't always there. Sometimes, the screaming of the other ponies chased away the silence, but it was reassuring sometimes. To know that he wasn't alone in this hellhole.
And then his life devolved into sleeping, waiting, and 'sessions' with a 'counselor'. They tried to get to the bottom of his 'disorder', no matter how many times he told them that he was merely broken. He had no place in the world. He just...was.
Even Celestia tried to tell him that he had a place. He just had to find it.
He had told her that his 'place' was the graveyard. His cutie mark could be a clock. Counting down the amount of other peoples time he wasted.
And so it went.
No visitors. No 'play time'. Nothing. They were all scared he'd deliberately choke himself on something.
They didn't even have the respect for him to let him have free use of his hooves. He was hobbled constantly with heavy manacles and a chain, front legs and back. He could only take short, shuffling steps. And even then, he couldn't lift a hoof to feed himself. So he was spoon-fed by one of his counselors.
And nearly every day, he wished for that when he stepped off that cloud, that no one had been there to save him. It would have been over. But now, he was trapped. Trapped in his own existence.
Sleeping. Waiting. Sleeping. Waiting.
He didn't even dream.
Until, one day, for the first time since he stepped off the cloud; He dreamed.
Uniform white. Everything was white. Just like his cell. His prison. There were no features. There were no artifacts. No edges. Just endless soft white, somehow not blinding, but utterly bright at the same time.
Drifter tried to listen; no noise came. But colours did. A blinding array of colours. The...rainbow factory?
The colours resolved themselves into a place he had never seen, but instantly recognized. Cloudsdale.
Pegasi went about their daily business, winging this way and that, rainbows were manufactured and bottled, and given to pegasi to spread across the sky in a triumph of colour. A rainbow pony was tending to the clouds, a necklace glimmering at her throat.
One pegasus was reading a book, lazing on a cloud, and something about her stuck with him, from her violently red mane, to the glasses perched on her nose, and the cutie mark of a broken tower on her blue flank.
And then, suddenly, he was somewhere else. Hard-working Earth ponies tending to their gardens and to their fields, pressing the apples they collected into cider to be poured into barrels, consumed by happy, smiling ponies. One pony tending to the apple trees was wearing a golden necklace.
And then he was in Ponyville, watching ponies laughing and playing in a fountain while watchful parents talked amongst themselves and ate cupcakes without pause for trouble. The one selling them the cupcakes, pink, was also wearing a splendid necklace.
There were ponies wearing fancy clothes, sipping expensive drinks. Ponies doing everything. A unicorn, again with a necklace.
And then he was in the woods, watching rabbits and butterflies, watching a yellow pegasus tending to a den of snakes, of all things, her own necklace glimmering.
And then in the far off kingdom of the Griffons, watching the regal creatures flying in formation.
And then, all of Equestria.
He could see the different lands of Equestria laid out in front of him, like when he stood upon the cloud, but so much smaller. He could see everything. It was all so far away, but somehow, he could still see the ponies on the ground. So many. So varied. Going about their day.
And then, something drew his gaze to the sun. The gift of Celestia.
And then...the moon!
That was...exceedingly odd. Even in a dream. The sun and the moon did not coexist. One set, while the other rose.
But, the moon was starting to move in front of the sun, slowly blocking it out.
Was Luna trying to block out Celestia's gift?
After a minute or so, the sun was completely hidden, with just the outside edges of it visible. A black disc with flared yellow edges of brilliance. It was beautiful...and utterly terrifying at the same time. There was something unnatural about it. Something completely surreal and terrifying on a base level. He wanted to turn and run. He wanted to look away, but he was stuck, staring. He couldn't stop watching.
The brilliance around the black disc that was the moon became more and more intense. It grew in strength and brightness, until it was almost blinding. And then it began to burn.
It was so brilliant, and so utterly destroying as well. Drifter heard, and felt the pain of thousands of ponies as their skin began to burn and they were blinded in an instant. He felt his fur catch alight, and the blood in his veins begin to boil. He felt the pain of the ponies as they were burned to death. And then. There was nothing.
Sight began to return to him. Slowly.
And what he saw made him wish he didn't see at all. Equestria lay in ruins; the land was scorched bare, the trees were no longer green, but black and twisted. The grass was a black backdrop. The clouds were all gone. The sky itself was no longer blue, but grey and ashy. Fish lay dead, boiled in the evaporated water of their former homes, now dry and barren. Cloudsdale had fallen, the rainbow factory burning brightly in all the colours of the rainbow while the remains of the cloud factory belched out smoke to blacken the sky.
And somewhere. Somewhere there was laughter.
Laughter.
In this absolute devastation, there was laughter.
Drifter could see him, walking amongst the burnt fields as though they were a plain of flowers, bending down to scoop up a collection of white ash and throw it into the air like confetti, bouncing and dancing around underneath the falling motes as though playing. Drifter realised with horrer after a few moments that the white ash was all that remained of a pony.
Around his long neck lay the necklaces of the ponies from earlier, each of the brilliant gems cracked and broken.
The dancer paused, and then slowly, slowly, began to look upwards.
Drifter felt his heart begin to pound faster, and he wanted to fly away. Wanted to hide. But there was nothing to hide him any more. A pair of mismatched eyes focused on him, and he felt his heart explode into his mouth, while the gaze slowly narrowed, and a mismatched clawed hand lifted to sprinkle a spray of white ash between their locked gazes, in a threatening fashion.
Discord.
Wakefulness hit Drifter like a angry Griffon, and his head shot up, finding himself screaming hoarsely at the padded roof of his cell, writhing on his back, the chains between his hooves taught as he tried his best to run on the air to escape the vision of doom in his mind.
He tried to tell himself it was just a dream. But the vision of those red eyes watching him was seared into his mind. Terror was filling his heart. He had to run. He had to hide. This room was not enough. The apocalypse was coming, and here he was, chained up in a padded room with a locked door.
And he was still screaming. He couldstill feel the pain, the all-encompassing pain. His flesh burning, combusting, the blood in his veins boiling. It was almost exactly like his horn breaking, but so much more real. So much more fresh.
The door burst open, and a doctor tumbled through in a hurry, rushing to his side to try and calm him. But where the others hooves touched him seemed to sear and brand his flesh. He was in agony. No dream had lasted this long after he awoke. This could not be normal.
Suddenly, he felt his hooves spring free and smack against the padded wall, and he rolled rapidly to his hooves. The doctor cried out in alarm, and in reflex, Drifter gave him a swift kink from his hind leg, right to the jaw, sending the doctor sprawling out, unconscious, as the panicked, pained unicorn bolted out of the door so fast he rebounded off the wall in the hallway.
He heard ponies calling out, but he ignored them, wide, panicked eyes looking left and right.
A bolt of magic sizzled past his ears, trying to subdue him, and he quickly veered left, sprinting down a hallway and towards the closed door at the end.
A nurse on the other side of the doorway opened the door to check what the commotion was, and was just in time for the door to burst open as Drifter slammed his full body weight against it, sending the nurse splaying out across the floor in a mess of uniform and spilled pills.
The front door was less guarded. No ponies ever made it this far out of the facility, and Drifter literally burst out of them, snapping the hinges and sending the doors spinning away to fall flat a few feet from the entry. And then, he was free. But he barely noticed.
He sprinted away from the Asylum and into the woods without hesitation, dodging trees with a completely and utter disregard for his own safety, heart pounding and chest heaving, trying vainly to suck air in through his mouth. But years of being locked up had robbed him of his ability to run for any distance for any length of time, and eventually he had to slow down, stopping and splaying out hard as his legs grew weak, collapsing into a pile of panting unicorn.
His mind began to return to himself. The terror began to fade. The pain began to recede. His horn fizzled once or twice, and he shuddered at the shocks of pain it caused, clasping a hoof over the broken end and rubbing it slowly as though trying to probe a wound. It had been a long time since he'd tried to do magic. It always hurt. Like applying an electric shock to an open wound.
After a minute or two, he found himself able to think straight again. He was outside, under the stars. It was night. The moon was high in the sky, and the faintest sounds of a search echoed from further back in the woods. Searching for him.
He crawled to his hooves, and immediately collapsed again, panting and shuddering. His legs were shaking so hard they couldn't support his weight any more. He waited a few more moments, before trying to get back up, quivering a moment before his legs decided to take his weight, beginning to walk shakily away from the sounds of the search, trying to get his wind back.
He didn't know why he was shaking so hard. Was it the blind running? Or the fear?
Drifter looked left and right for a moment, pausing and recoiling, sure he was going to see those red, demonic eyes watching him from the shadows.
Maybe he was going crazy?
He entertained the idea, for a moment, of just sitting down and waiting for them to find him. It would be better. If he was going crazy, he belonged back where he had been. Back with the screamers and the mutterers. But...something about his dream spurred him to walk onwards. He couldn't stop it. He had to continue.
Maybe it was fear. Fear of his dream. Fear of returning to the silent, endless boredom of his padded prison. Fear of going crazy. But he kept pushing through the wood until he pressed branches out of the way and was met with a moon-lit vista of woods interspersed with lakes and streams.
And high above it all, borne above the earth on clouds;
Cloudsdale. City of the Pegasus.
Beneath Cloudsdale
The city of the clouds was wreathed in roiling waves of white, constantly moving and shifting, while the architecture of heavy stone pillars and resplendent archways was supporting so high above the ground in ways that were completely unnatural. The haze of stars, twinkling in the night sky, were barely visible through the fluffy clouds supporting the great city of the Pegasus, and the faint light of the moon washed down over everything, bathing it in the muted white glow.
The city itself seemed to drift back and forth as he watched, moving, and yet hovering in place; a chain of clouds in the night sky with buildings resting atop them.
It was wonderful, and his dream really didn't do it justice at all. It was a shame he would never get to visit it at all.
Drifter sat down for a moment, staring up at the vista. So strange. Underneath Cloudsdale was untouched woodland and lake systems, the moonlight glimmering off of water no doubt teeming with fish, while above it, a large, busy city moved, in perfect harmony.
After a few moments though, he felt the need to move. The sounds of the search were still audible, faint and far away; but they weren't going to be giving up any time soon. He needed to find somewhere to hide until they passed.
He ambled his way down the hill, taking time to be careful. His legs were still shaky and unable to support his weight. Watching where he was stepping, it was a few moments before he realised he was still wearing the heavy manacles around his hooves. Now that was odd. He had assumed that they had been taken from him....somehow.
How had he even escaped?
He peeked down at the manacles for a long moment, and found a single length of chain still attached to one. Following it to the end of its length, the last link just...ended. There were no marks. No stretching. No deformation. It was like the link holding to it had just given out and loosened. Maybe he had been kicking so hard that it had just broken the chain? Yeah. That had to be it.
Pushing the thoughts out of his mind, he instead sought a place to rest, stepping carefully down the slope until he reached the base of the hill, stumbling over towards a large fallen log; it had been a large tree, and was no mostly hollow. After checking it carefully for hidden Discords lurking in its dark reached, he gently shooed some bugs away from the entrance, and then crawled into the fallen log, turning to face the entrance and then resting his head on crossed forehooves, watching the entrance. He wouldn't sleep. He couldn't sleep. He didn't want to see those things again. No. He wasn't going to chance it.
His eyes blinked open as the chirping of a bird startled him awake, and his head shot up, a cry of pain leaving him as his broken horn impacted the roof of his makeshift home and caused a shock of electric pain to shoot down his spine, bringing him back completely to the land of the conscious in an instant. He blinked slowly, and then his ears pinned back against his skull, and he tried to back his way further into the hollow log until he hit the plug of dirt that was resting at the other end of his temporary sleeping spot.
Drifter didn't know when he had fallen asleep, but at some point, he had. And now, they had found him. His doctor, the very one he had knocked unconscious what could only have been hours beforehand, was resting placidly on his stomach in front of the entrance of the fallen log, watching him, his head resting on crossed forehooves, seeming calm and quiet.
"Ah, you're awake." he said with a smile, lifting a hoof to shift his glasses on his head, even though they were now bent from the force of Drifter's kick.
He suddenly felt very ashamed of himself.
"I know you're scared, Drifter. You had what we call a 'bright dream'. It was probably a nightmare, considering how much screaming you were doing. We call them 'bright dreams' because a Unicorn's reflex in those kinds of nightmares is to use magic to free themselves. But your horn is broken. I assume it hurt?" the doctor asked sympathetically.
Drifter blinked, his cheeks flushing faintly, giving a helpless nod. "I-It h-hurt everywhere..." he murmured quietly, literally the first words he had spoken for years.
The doctor nodded again in sympathy. "And that, combined with the nightmare...well. It's no wonder you bolted from the facility the first chance you got." the doctor said understandingly, lifting a hoof towards the unicorn to offer to him. "Come on out of there, Drifter. It's all all right now. Nopony blames you."
He gave a sad little bit of a nod, beginning to lightly creep towards the entrance of the hollow log. "I-It was just a d-dream?" he asked, his voice hoarse from lack of use for so very, very long.
The doctor gave a nod, and drifter paused at the entrance of the log, not quite ready to come out yet.
"B-but it was so real...It hurt. I felt it burning. And D-Discord was watching me." he stammered.
"Tell me what you saw." the doctor said with a soft nod, his tone soothing and soft.
"I-I saw Equestria...Everypony w-was happy and going about their b-business...but t-then the moon blocked out the sun." he explained.
"An Eclipse, yes. They speak of them in some of the older tales. When Celestia and Luna decide to hold a big celebration, they might make an eclipse as a show of their power, and their gifts. It is perfectly normal." the doctor explained with a slow nod.
"B-but n-not this one." Drifter said, shaking his head vociferously. "T-this one was b-bad...it burned. I felt it. It hurt...it hurt so much..." he whined softly in the back of his throat.
Nodding soothingly, the doctor crept over closer, to gently rub a soothing hoof through the broken Unicorns mane. "It's okay Drifter. It was just a dream. Come back with us to the hospital and we'll give you some nice pills that will make sure you don't dream. It won't hurt you again." the doctor said with another soothing nod, his tone gentle and assuring.
"N-no more dreams?" Drifter asked hopefully. That sounded nice.
He could go back with them and -
But wait.
...Them? 'Us'?
His eyes slowly moved upwards, and he saw one of the guards with a net, poised on top of the log to catch him, and the doctor quickly leaped away. "Now!" he cried.
Drifter blinked once, and the net was cast.
His body snapped into action, and he dived in the opposite direction to the doctor, his horn catching on the leading edge of the net, yanking his head backwards and making him cry out with the pain of his broken horn being caught in the heavy length, the horn itself sparking and crackling with electrical magic, the unicorn turning and then yanking his head to get it free from the entangling net, before he bolted into the woods at top speed.
A guard tried to crash-tackle him, but Drifter ducked under the clumsy fore-hoof swipes and just charged onwards, towards the safety of the trees, while the guards and the doctor pursued him.
The sun was rising in the East, highlighting Cloudsdale, and casting long shadows, breaking the woods into patches of dappled sunlight and shadowed darkness. Drifter sprinted through the trees as fast as his body would carry him, though after only a few hundred metres he felt himself getting weak once more, his chest burning, from his stomach, to his throat. It felt tight, like iron bands were pressed around his chest, and he found it increasingly harder to maintain his pace.
Eventually, he just collapsed next to a lake, panting hard, scooping water up over his face and neck with a hoof to try and cool himself down. He couldn't let them catch him. They would take him back. The doctor was a liar. He couldn't trust him. Not after he lied. He didn't care if he was crazy. He would be crazy on his own. He would listen to the voices and the dreams in the Everfree forest if he had to. But he was not going back to padded white walls and the silence. Definitely not.
He could hear the crash of hooves through the underbrush coming closer and closer, and, whimpering softly, he dropped himself down in to the reeds by the side of the water, splaying himself out and hoping that they wouldn't stop to inspect the waters edge closely. It wasn't like he blended in very well, but he could keep his nose above the water, and the water was murky enough to keep most of him hidden.
As he heard the doctor and the guards come to the waters edge, he dropped himself down into the water as far as he could go, his nose and the tip of his broken horn poking up out of the water. He was breathing so hard through his nose that he was sure that they would hear it.
His eyes were closed, and he couldn't see anything, and he didn't know how long he was down there for; but he heard muted sounds from under the water, distorted by the water itself.
"He couldn't gave gone far! Split up! It's just one crazy unicorn! Find him!" the doctor was saying, and he heard muted 'Yes sir!'s from the guard ponies who were looking for him.
And then, there was a different voice, possibly...female? Calling out to them. "I saw it all! He went that way!"
"Thank you, ma'am!" called the doctor, and then was the sound of heavy hoofbeats cantering away around the edge of the lake.
It was a minute or two later that he felt the sensation of a hoof against his nose, covering up his nostrils, and he gave a helpless squirm, breaching the surface of the water after a few moments and gasping for air, dripping with water and shuddering, still shaky from all the running, staring at the pegasus in front of him who looked slightly familiar. She was blue, with a mane of shocking red, and something about her struck him as odd. She was familiar, and yet he was sure he'd never seen her before.
"Whatcha doin'?" she asked casually, raising a brow at him, her stunning green eyes looking him up and down.
Drifter suddenly felt self-conscious, what with his bedraggled mane and tail, now waterlogged, soaked through and damp. His broken horn. His completely untended appearance. He didn't even know what he looked like. "Uhm...h-hiding." he croaked, clearing his throat a few times to try and make it sound less raspy and airy.
"Hiding? Well, you weren't doing so good a job. They would have found you no trouble." she stated proudly. "Saw the whole thing from up there." she said, pointed with a hoof at a cloud high in the sky. "Was hardly fair, what with them having five people after you, and you on your lonesome. They seemed to think you were crazy." she said rather calmly, watching him.
Drifter recoiled, considering running again...but this newcomer was a Pegasus, and she could fly faster than he could ever run.
"I...I...I think I am crazy." he admitted with a shake of his head, and a faint sigh, dropping until his nose almost touched the water. "You shouldn't have helped me."
The Pegasus raised her brows at that, and then shook her head for a moment, giving a little bit of a giggle. "Silly; crazy people don't know that they're crazy." she explained. "So just by thinking that you're crazy. You're not." she said with a firm nod, seemingly having made her mind up.
"B-but...I had a horrible dream." he stated flatly, his ears splaying once more.
"...A horrible dream? and that makes you crazy? Okay, now I'm beginning to believe that you are crazy." she stated.
"It...I...don't know." he stated. It did sound pretty stupid. He had a dream, and that was why he was crazy? A dream? Maybe he was sane...or maybe this was a sign of his insanity. But she said that knowing that he was crazy made him actually sane...so it was a paradox. It made his head hurt.
"I...don't know anything anything more." he whined, covering his head with his hooves a moment, and then mincing out of the water to flop on the shore of the lake, sighing.
"Well, what did 'ya dream 'bout?" the Pegasus asked.
"I dreamed about Equestria being destroyed by Discord." he said with a helpless shake of his head.
"Well, that's a pretty nasty nightmare, but it doesn't make you crazy." she chided.
"It felt real. I could feel the pain of my flesh burning...and all the other ponies burning as well. I could see them all. And then, Discord was dancing through the ashes." he shuddered faintly at the memories, so fresh.
"Dreams can be pretty realistic. Though, never felt pain in any of mine. I always wake up before that." she said with another vigorous nod, tossing her mane to the side for a moment and peering at him. "But you just gotta remember, it was just a dream, yanno?"
Drifter gave a slight nod. "I know...I guess. It was just so real. I could see the ponies cutie marks and everything. The cloudy rainbow, the ballons, diamonds, magnifying glass, ruins, winged lightning, clouds -"
The Pegasus cut him off. "Woah wait, you saw a pony with a cutie mark that was ruins?" she asked, ears pricking upwards at him.
Drifter blinked once and nodded slightly. "Yeah, she was....blue with a red mane." he said, blinking at her. So that's why he felt like he recognized the Pegasus in front of him. She looked just like the one from in his dream.
"That's impossible." she stated.
"I dreamed it. Anything can happen in a dream." Drifter replied sullenly for a moment.
"No. It's not possible." she repeated, shifting to the side and lifting her wing to show him her flank.
On that blue hide, in perfect detail, was a cutie mark of ruins.
"That's impossible." Drifter parroted, his head canting a little bit to the side and eyes narrowing, blinking once or twice and then shaking his head hard. "Impossible." he repeated.
"You're telling me." she stated, rolling her eyes and then moving to face him properly again, shuffling her wings back down to a more comfortable position, sitting down on her haunches and watching him suspiciously. "You some kinda con-pony?" she asked flatly.
"W-what? No!" he protested. "What gives you that idea?"
"Well, you were being chased by all those people, and suddenly, you're acting like you never saw my cutie mark when you were in the water there. I say you're a con-pony, trying to get something out of me." she accused.
"I'm not, promise!" he said, his ears flattening, head lowering a little bit.
"Well I don't believe you." she stated in response, shaking her head once and then turning, spreading her wings to fly away.
"W-wait!" Drifter said, bounding out of the water towards her, making her recoil slightly and prance away from him. "I can prove it!" he said desperately, unwilling to give up tangible proof that his dream was more than just a dream.
"Prove it? How?" she asked.
"Well, I've been being chased since you saw me, right?" he asked, raising a single brow.
"Uh-huh." she admitted.
"Well, I don't have wings, and my horn's...well....broken." he said sullenly for a moment.
"I noticed." the pegasus replied flatly.
"Well, I know what you were doing on the cloud!" he stated with an earnest nod.
"And how could you know that? No way you could have seen what I was doing from all the way down here." she replied calmly.
"...Exactly." Drifter said with a grin and a nod.
"Well?" she asked after a moment.
"You were reading." he replied with a smug grin.
"Nice try, con-pony, but I was napping. Good guess though." she said, turning to leave again.
"But...but..that's what I saw." he protested, giving a soft sigh after a moment, shaking his head, defeated. "I'm sure it was you...the cutie mark was the same and everything. And you were wearing these big red square glasses." he sighed and turned away. Looked like his dream was just that. A dream. He was crazy. And trying to draw other ponies into his delusions. That wasn't a good sign.
"...Big...red....and square?" the Pegasus asked quietly from behind him.
He gave a slow nod in return. "Yeah...but you were sleeping. So it doesn't matter. I'm just...crazy. I'm not going to try and drag you into it." he said with a shake of his head.
"You're not crazy." The pegasus said firmly, sitting back on her haunches, watching him.
"And why is that? Do you have a pair of big, red, square glasses?" he asked, a single ear pricking upwards, turning to look at her over his shoulder.
"Well...uhm...yeah." the pegasus replied in a tiny voice. "I...k-kinda hate how they look on me...so I only ever wear them when I'm sure no one is watching." she explained in a hushed tone.
Both of the unicorns ears perked upwards at that. "And the book?" he asked excitedly.
"It was a book on ancient cultures and the deities they all worshiped." she replied.
"I was right!" Drifter said, bouncing in place a moment, stamping his hoof in triumph, and then slowly pausing. "B-but...if the dream was real..." he trailed off as the implications began to hit home. "We....have to stop it." he said faintly, his ears pinning back once more, the unicorn going from bouncy, to subdued, in a matter of seconds.
The pegasus gave a single nod at his words. "Uh-huh. But there is the question of you being chased around and all that." she stated.
"I...kinda escaped from the Asylum on the other side of the forest." he admitted with painful honestly.
Recoiling slightly, the Pegasus took a step backwards. "So...good reason to think that you're crazy, then." she stated.
"I'm not crazy!" Drifter protested, giving a soft sigh and shaking his head once. "At least...I hope not...actually, I take that back. I hope I am crazy. I don't want any of what I saw to be real." he said with a pointed shudder.
"Then you best be explaining why a completely sane pony was in the insane asylum." she stated rather flatly.
He winced for a moment, not quite sure how to frame it into words, and rather ashamed about the fact as well. "W-well...I was...kinda...on suicide watch." he admitted with much hesitation.
"Suicide watch?" the pegasus asked, wincing slightly. "That's...not very good. Why?" she pressed.
"I don't want to talk about it." he said, shaking his head once and letting his hair fall over his eyes to hide himself from her, before he realised how incredibly, incredibly stupid he must look like that, and tossed it back out of his face, holding his head high and glowering at her.
"Alright, alright. I get it!" she said with a faint huff. "Don't need to stare holes in me. What's your name?"
"I'm just...Drifter." he admitted after a moment. "Only thing that fits, really."
"That's a pretty lonely name you got there, Unicorn. I'm Deep Six. You know, because I like digging up old stuff everyone thought was lost." she said with a grin.
"That's...an odd name." he said lamely.
"Well, not all of us can be awesome." she stated calmly, waving a hoof. "Now. How are you gonna stop the apocalypse?" she asked calmly.
Drifter blinked once. "Right down to business then." he squeaked.
"What, you wanna small-talk when your vision was about all of Equestria getting ashed?" she asked bluntly.
"I...guess not. But...uh...crazy weather we're having, huh?" he asked hesitantly, trying to smile and managing a very weak one.
"Can it, Mister." she stated flatly, waving a hoof. "Now, tell me more 'bout your vision."
Drifter stammered a moment, not sure where to start. No one had really shown any interest in what he had to say before, let alone something as mundane as one of his 'dreams', and it was throwing him off-balance.
"W-well...Discord came in and burned everything." he said with an earnest nod.
".....And?" Deep Six asked, waving a hoof slightly for him to continue.
"And then...I woke up." he added lamely.
"Details!" she cawed, waving a hoof at him angrily for a moment.
Drifter cringed slightly. "W-well...I saw all the ponies. F-from Cloudsdale to Ponyville...a-and some of the Griffons too. I saw a bunch of different ones...but you were the first." he said with an earnest nod.
"Haven't even met me and you're already dreaming about me. I'm just that awesome." she stated, giving a smug smile.
He felt his cheeks burning at that, and flicked his head to hide himself in his hair again, stammering even worse. "A-a-and there were ponies wearing j-j-jewels!" he recalled with a vigorous nod.
"Jewels? Plenty of ponies wear jewels. Diamonds are a mares best friends." she sing-songed.
"B-but these were huge. A-and all different colours and shapes." he explicated.
"Sitting on gold necklaces? Big and kinda shiny?" Deep Six asked, raising a brow.
Drifter nodded in confirmation.
"Sounds like the elements of harmony. What about the Ponies wearing them?" she inquired.
"W-well...the first one had multicolour mane and tail. She was blue." he recalled, thinking.
"Rainbow Dash. Definitely. No one else looks like they dye their hair with rainbow paint." she said, wrinkling her nose a little bit.
"S-so...we go there first?" he asked helplessly.
"Sounds like a plan!" Deep Six said with a nod and a grin at the unicorn. "Race you there!" she stated, turning around and spreading her wings.
Drifter just stared.
After a moment, she peered back at him, raising a brow slowly, before a look of dawning realisation crossed her features. "Oh riiiiight. You're a unicorn. No wings."
Drifter gave her a look that said in no uncertain terms; 'Duh'.
"I'll go get you a cloud walking potion, just wait here!" she said with a smile, zipping away into the distance.
Nodding slightly, the Unicorn sat down, shaking himself a little bit to slough some of the water still dripping from his body. His ears pricked slightly, and he listened for the sounds of the doctor or the guards returning. At least now he knew he wasn't absolutely crazy. Deep Six was his proof. If the doctor came by, he could just use her as his escape ticket. But then he thought how that would look. 'Hey, doc. I'm not crazy. I totally met one of the ponies from my dream, she'll be here soon, you'll see!'. It even sounded stupid in his head.
Thankfully, Deep Six wasn't gone for long, returning with a jar clasped in her mouth, backwinging to a neat landing and transferring the jar to a hoof. "Glad they keep a lot of this stuff lying around." she said with a grin. "Lots of earth ponies like to see where clouds and rainbows are made."
He gave a little bit of a nod, peering down into the jaw for a moment, and then downing the contents in one big gulp, making a face. It tasted just as bad as he remembered.
"Well, let's go then." he said, squaring his shoulders and starting to walk towards one of the hillsides surrounding Cloudsdale. He'd have to find a passing cloud and hitch a ride up on to one of the larger clouds around Cloudsdale.
Deep Six followed after him, humming to herself as she rolled lazily this way and that in the air above him. "So, what are we gonna do when we find Dash?" she asked after a moment.
Drifter blinked once, peeking back at her over his shoulder. "Well...I...Dunno." he admitted with a defeated shake of his head. "I'm just a crazy pony and she's not going to believe us. Who would?" he asked.
"I do." Deep Six replied with a soothing tone in her voice.
"But you were in my dream. There's proof I could show you to convince you." he pointed out.
"Well...just use your manly charms to convince her." Deep Six suggested with a giggle.
Drifter blinked and stared at her for a long, long moment at that, stumbling over a stone. "...what?" he asked blankly.
"Oh, c'mon. Big manly colt like you must have some secret suave words to proffer a lady, yes?" she teased, in the most sweet tone she could muster.
He blinked more, feeling his cheeks burning again, and the pegasus drifted on ahead of him, waving a hoof back at him. "Hurry up! Or I'll make you blush even harder!" she giggled innocently, zipping on ahead towards the hillside.
Huffing faintly, the Unicorn set his brow and then began to bound after her. It was time to go find the bearer of the first Element of Harmony then.
'Ah yes, hello? Equestria is going to end horribly in a vague amount of time if I...don't do something with the element of Harmony you're protecting. So uhhhh, please help?'. It would be hard to convince a crazy person that this was real; and he doubted that any of the bearers of the Elements of Harmony were crazy.
He paused at the base of the hill, looking up towards where Deep Six was waiting next to a cloud for him, with Cloudsdale high above them, floating placidly in the sky.
Let the fun begin.