AN: Sorry this took so painfully long! I'll try never to let it happen again. Special thanks to Night Assault, IShipItAllAndThenSome, and stephanie the neko, for worrying about my life and my health. If not for you guys, I would never have felt guilty enough about this story to get off my ass and update. I've been applying to colleges, getting into some, becoming a club president, making female friends, being in the school play, and going to police brutality protests. Life is an adventure friends, lemme tell you.
Punky Print's Log: Day 233
Since my first delivery, I haven't seen Ironhide. Guards very rarely come down from the wall to walk through the streets, as if they think we are contagious. I still turn towards the portrait when I stand outside any door to a house, but if he is ever there, I don't see him.
The mixture most requested is the dreamlessness potion, once the first stallion had gone a night without seeing a standing corpse in his dreams, news of the potion's ability spread quickly. Some have been mistrustful of Mystic because they think he withheld it from them before, but no unicorn can doubt that his potions wipe the decrepit stallion from their dreams, so none will outwardly accuse him of it.
With all the dreamlessness potions I delivered, one would think I would remember to ask for more for myself. However, it slipped my mind entirely. The dreams did not start again until a few nights after I'd finished off the last of the potion, some residual affects keeping my nights quiet.
When the potion wore off, the first thing I saw was darkness. Around me gnarled trees twisted their naked branches into the starless black sky, like talons of creatures clawing their way to freedom. The ground pulled on my hooves like mud, even though the dirt was dry. Hot breath from behind me brushed my mane across my eyes, but even if I turned my head as far as I could, the source of the breathing remained just out of my sight. I pulled my legs out of the dry dirt as fast as I could, but still by the time I could turn around the sound of a single creature breathing had multiplied into a rattling, groaning mob I could feel towering over me. I only caught a glimpse of it before I woke up screaming.
When I opened my eyes, the world was dark. I blinked, my blood turning frigid when I realized that the darkness, too complete for nighttime, was not from my eyes being shut. This darkness was my own sight. I screamed, scrambling for something solid to grip in hopes of proving that I'd woken up at all. I stumbled out of the hammock and tripped over a soft bag directly underhoof. I hit the floor with a startled cry, and heard somepony coming near quickly in response.
"What is the matter, little one?" I felt Mystic gather me up and pull me close enough to feel the rumble of his voice in his throat and fumbled my way into returning the embrace, my hooves still shaking as I cried.
"I-I can't see..." A hoof under my muzzle tilted my head in another direction, but my vision didn't change. "My eyes, they..."
"Your eyes seem fine, little one."
"They're not, I-"
"Have you done anything differently today," He asked with a calm but firm voice over my own panicked objections. I felt my eyes widen as I blushed with shame.
"I haven't been taking my dreamlessness potion. I think it's been a few days."
"That shouldn't affect your mental state..."
"My mind is fine! It's my eyes," I wailed. To my frustration, Mystic seemed perfectly calm as he ran a hoof softly over my mane to soothe me.
"Listen to me, little one," he began, his voice low and even, "your eyes are undamaged. You are in my home. Your sister sleeps in the corner, the work tables are at my back on the other side of the room, there is no sunlight. Your eyes are undamaged, this should all be clear to you." As Mystic described different parts of the house around us my agitation seeped from my muscles, clenched to the point of aching. My breathing, choked and erratic from sobbing, slowed. Mystic's house appeared to me slowly, like a figure approaching through fog. I would have cried with relief if I had any tears left. I laughed instead, a high and grating noise.
"What in tartarus," I said between laughs. "What is this? How am I seeing again?"
"You were panicking, I hoped that if you calmed down, whatever else afflicting you might cease." He smiled barely and briefly, and I had never felt so grateful to see somepony so stoic. "I'm glad it worked."
"Yeah, me too." I curled further into my mentor's lap, still feeling vulnerable and scared. "This is the morning Inky and I have to find somewhere new to stay, right?"
"Unfortunately. You can only live permanently in your own family's house." Mystic's hoof, which had still been petting my mane, stilled. "You should wake your sister and pack your things, little one." I nodded and stood up; as I righted the bag I had tripped over earlier and replaced it's contents, Mystic left the house.
"Are you alright," Inky asked me when I woke her up, her eyes focused on the puffiness around my own.
"I'm fine, but we have to pack." Inky sighed and nodded, still drowsy.
"Where's Mystic?"
"I'm not sure. He went outside for something." Outside, there was an ominous thud as something hit the side of the house. Our bags already on our backs, we ran outside.
Mystic was slumped against the right side of the house, injured but awake. He wiped blood from his jaw as a unicorn guard and two earth pony guards laughed, ignorant to Inky and my presence.
"Really, you think you could keep those little mares? Like a little family?" Mystic glared up at the unicorn, but stayed on the ground.
"You guards are the highest law here. I only want to adopt them, but I would need your kind to recognize it-"
"Oh, our kind? And what about your kind makes you think you deserve it?" The unicorn guard stepped close to Mystic's prone form, leaning down until his filthy breath tossed his mane. "You exiles are lucky we even count you shacking up as a marriage." Inky and I stood shaking around the corner of the house, too afraid to confront him and too angry to turn away. "You might be able to pass for the wolf-whisperer's relative by some stretch of the imagination, but nopony would ever believe you were related to the little dirthoof-"
"What did you just call my sister," I raged, tearing away from the side of the house and nearly barreling into the guard. Behind him the earth ponies looked uneasily at their fellow guard, suddenly unwilling to step in. "What did you just say-"
The guard drew his spear, yellow magic holding it aloft and pointed at my throat.
"Step back, exile. Now!" I glared at the guard, staring him down. Our muzzles contorted in hatred as our eyes bore unblinkingly into one another's skulls.
"I'm not touching you," I said, backing away calmly. The lava in my veins cooling to deadly quicksilver I stepped away, my voice quiet and calm. "I'm not doing anything."
As the guards left, the earth ponies eerily quiet, Inky and I helped Mystic back to his feet. It was easier than we thought, most of his injuries concentrated to his face. Inky's face was dark and pensive as she looked up at my mentor.
"You tried to adopt us," she said, her voice hollow with disbelief.
"Yes," Mystic replied, his voice flat in the wake of his failure. Inky, her muzzle unreadable, wrapped her front legs around him in a silent hug. We spent the rest of the morning finding and settling into our home for the next two days.
AN: See you next time! (And hopefully, sooner!)