Anonicorn: Revelation

>Dreams are bound in cyphers.
>Ponies, being similar to each other mentally, have cyphers based on a shared foundation.
>Obviously, you’d solved that foundation long before your banishment.
>Because of this, you usually only needed to cut through a few thin, gauzy layers to enter a pony’s sleeping mind.
>Your nephew, however, had a very different cypher, whose weave was far more dense than normal.
>When you told your sister this, she was despondent.
>She took it as something being wrong, another brick in the wall her friends and advisers were building between her and her dreams that her only foal might one day be normal.
>You knew better; density didn’t mean a lack of intelligence.
>Density meant the underlying dreamscape was more complex.
>Your nephew possessed a dream-realm more elaborate than any but his own mother.
>Tonight, almost a year after your premature return to Equestria, you’ve finally broken that cypher.
>You test the waters, then dive in.
>A strange cityscape surrounds you. It strikes you as similar to Manehatten, but some of the architecture is off in subtle ways. Unnerving ways.
>From down the street you appeared on comes a charging entity, huge and garishly colored and low to the ground.
>It’s approaching awful fast.
>One powerful downbeat of your wings puts you clear of its height. You realize its a vehicle; bound to the road as a locomotive to track.
>It passes beneath you without deviating from its course.
>You alight on a strip of lighter stone to the side of the main street, then start walking its length.
>A dreamer always tugs on you, ever so slightly, in their dreams.
>You set out to follow your nephew’s pull.
>The city is huge, sprawling in every direction. If your instinct wasn’t guiding you, you’d have gotten lost immediately.
>Vast numbers of the boxy road-vehicles pass you, at all times.
>Good thing you never have to walk across a street.
>Several times you fly up and over the congested roadways, taking side avenues and making turns.
>The just-shy-of-familiar architecture never gets any less uncanny.
>Eventually, you come across an intersection where all the vehicles are stopped.
>A smaller one sits in the cleared central square, listing.
>One whole side has been utterly destroyed, smashed in by a much larger and longer one.
>Bits of broken glass and twisted metal are scattered everywhere.
>As you approach the curious sight, you notice there’s blood pooled on the ground, near the crushed side of the smaller vehicle.
>A lot of blood.
>You feel a bought of panic coming on, until you realize the tug isn’t from the vehicles; it’s further down a side path.
>At the end of this alley, the creepy architecture falls away. The city gives way for a large park, running along either side of a river meandering through the dense buildings.
>At the river’s edge is a strange form.
>It looks like a creature, though one you’ve never seen before.
>Its form is difficult to discern, with what you’re guessing is its back to you, and partially obscured by clothing.
>Its forelegs are wrapped around its hindlegs in an awkward sitting position.
>You’d ignore it and move on but for one problem.
>Its between you and your nephew.
“Hark, dream-beast, for thy sovereign hath come! What hast thou done with our nephew?”
>The thing turns towards you in what feels like slow motion.
>Every move it makes reveals terrifying details.
>First, a foreleg meets the ground to its side. The gangly limb terminates in long, thin appendages that move like the leg itself has legs.
>Then the creature swings its head around to look at you, revealing a horrifyingly flat face, with a tiny shard of a jutting snout over an all-wrong mouth, like a pony’s nose had been cut off and the remaining face smashed in. Small, sunken eyes meet yours.
>It starts standing. And keeps standing. The monstrosity unfolds into a long vertical line, even straighter in posture than a minotaur, as tall as your sister. Its limbs lock straight, its clothing hangs off in odd folds, and its torso is as horrifyingly flattened as its face.
>Then that smashed face opens its maw in a too-toothy grin, and opens it further to speak.
>”Aunt Luna!”
>Your heart drops. Did your body fall asleep during your duties, and cast you into a nightmare of your own?
>You involuntarily recoil several steps back, wings flaring out in an unconscious effort to look larger. Everything looks sharper as your eyes take on a slit-like appearance and armor forms over your body; you’d been using Nightmare Moon’s form for more tense encounters in dream realms lately, but had slipped into it now unintentionally.
>Breathe. Breathe deep to call forth the royal commanding.
“NIGHTMARE BEAST, WHAT HAST THOU DONE WITH OUR NEPHEW?!”
>Before your new form and fury, the creature quails. It turns to face you fully, appearing larger itself with its awkward width, but steps back. Its horrible face twists into one of shock and dismay.
>It looks down at its body, holding out its forelegs with their leg-legs and turning the flat paddles that passed for its feet over.
>”Oh no. No, no nonono...”
>The creature drops to its knees, then falls on its side, curling up in a ball.
>Is it weeping?
>And you realize, with its strange body no longer obscuring your sight, there’s nothing behind it at all. Not even your nephew.
>That thing is your nephew.
>It takes considerable effort to will away Nightmare Moon’s appearance.
>You approach your nephew’s alien body slowly. He’s bawling his little eyes out, sobbing uncontrollably.
>You never knew him to cry much in real life; his infrequent expressiveness is a cause for some concern among close friends, and crying is at the bottom of the list of ways he emoted.
>You stand over him, unsure how to comfort a creature so large and awkwardly arranged.
>You settle for lying down in the grass, your body contoured to his back, and your head resting on his shoulder with a wing draped over his torso and limbs.
”Anon.”
>His sobbing lessens, but he doesn’t reply.
“Anon, thou- you shall be fine. Breathe, and listen to me.”
>The singular second person is for lessers, and nothing is greater to you than your nephew.
>It takes him a few minutes to fully comply with your command. Then, in a quiet voice, still hitching with occasional sobs, “Aren’t you disgusted?”
>Well, yes, but you can’t say that.
“Why would I be?”
>He sniffles a bit more, then picks his head up.
>You take your head from off his shoulder so he can look at you, hugging him tighter with your wing instead.
>Despite how small they are, his eyes are the most beautiful you had ever seen.
>Even with the tears in the way.
>”This isn’t the real me!. It’s… what I once was. B-before-”
”My dear nephew, the real you is asleep in your bed.”
>He stops, startled by your interruption.
>“Y-yeah.”
>With some effort, he sits upright, legs underneath his rear.
>You realize his general body plan is reminiscent of a bear, if you ignore how flat he is.
>He wipes his face with the backside of one forelimb. Its range of motion is astonishing.
>”Please don’t tell Mom.”
>You cock your head.
“Why not?”
>”She’ll be horrified.”
“I think not.”
>”Just don’t. Please. I know how she feels, I can see it in her face every time another pony talks about me. She doesn’t need more on top of all that.”
>You realize he speaks far more maturely than his age. His smaller facial features, the hollowness of his cheeks and under his eyes, the pitch of his voice. Was he a mature or nearly-mature specimen of his species, before his rebirth?
>“I’m sorry you have to see me like this. I hate this, how I used to be. I just want to be normal, like everypony else.”
”Nephew, I love you all the same.”
>He looks you over, then buries his face into your side, once more crying.
>You wrap your wing around him once more, bringing your neck alongside his head in a hug.
>After several more minutes, he calms down again.
>”I know what everypony thinks of me now, but I was never going to tell anypony. Not ever. I don’t know what they’d think then. I don’t want to be cast out. I don’t want to lose what I never had the chance to experience, the first time.”
>You brush your cheek against his mane.
“What would that be?”
>”A family.”
>You’ve never felt such a combination of heartache and warmth your whole long life.
>”This is my second life, but Mom’s the only mom I ever had. You’re my only aunt, Blueblood and Cadance my only cousins.”
”You were… an orphan?”
>He nods into your side, then wraps one of his forelimbs around your body.
>You suppress a flinch, for his sake.
>But you cannot say it’s entirely unpleasant.
>”I was bounced around orphanages a lot. Went to bad schools, hung out with bad people, because they were the only ones I had. Never had a true friend. Then…”
>When he finally starts speaking again, it’s really quiet.
>”Everypony thinks it goes black, when you die. They’re wrong.”
>At that, you can’t suppress your flinch.
>”Not at first. First it gets really bright. Pools of light, floating across and filling your vision. And it’s really cold, even in the middle of a summer day, but the cold burns.”
“Did you-”
>He turns and lifts a forelimb, extending it straight down the path you came from. One of the digits at the end continues the line.
>His gestures aren’t entirely different than a minotaur’s, you realize. He’s just spindlier, and his fingers more dextrous, possessed of a lighter touch.
>“I died down there. I didn’t even know how, until the first time I had this dream, and started it laying on the ground next to my car. I think, the first time, my brain just couldn’t really comprehend it. I think I died before I understood on a conscious level.”
“What happened next?”
>”Everything went inside out. The light became dark, the burning cold became a comforting warmth. I don’t remember anything, though I know shortly after I was born I was aware. I cant recall scenes, but I do remember knowing that I should be remembering but couldn’t.”
>Another long silence, then, “Those first few years were horrible, going through life aware of how incomplete my awareness was. It was horrible but for Mom. Her love and warmth and attention kept me sane.”
>He wipes his face with an arm again. You squeeze him with your wing, hoping he doesn’t start crying again. Instead he slowly turns his body around, so his back leans against you.
>”I was so happy to have a family that I did everything I could to get through. But you don’t know how hard it is. I feel like I can only think in little tiny pieces. Then in my dreams I’m stuck in this body that isn’t mine, with memories of a life that isn’t mine, thank all your stars I don’t have to deal with this while awake. This stuff happened in the past; the past should keep it and stop bothering me with what’s already done.”
>Looking away from you again, “Everypony thinks I’m mentally challenged or something, but they don’t know what it’s like to have a body that doesn’t work. You learn all this stuff the first time without thinking about it, but I’m aware of it, every moment. Try learning to walk when you’re always thinking about your hooves!”
>He shakes his head. “None of the other foals like me, except for Rarity, and that’s because she talks as little as I do so doesn’t care when I don’t talk back. And she moved away a few months ago, so now I just have you, Mom, Cadance, and Blueblood.”
”What about Twilight Sparkle?”
>He snorts. “What about her? I’m just an intelligent animal to her, one to try to teach some tricks. She’s only patient with me because I’m some sort of grand experiment, for her. I don’t like that. I don’t like her. But despite all of that...”
>He leans into your wing.
>”I’m finally happy with my life, and I can’t ask for any better than this.”
>You had no response for that. Everything all made sense now. His strange physical delays coupled with great cognitive ability. His lack of ability to move or communicate effectively. His distance.
>You put your head down on the grass, curving your neck around his legs, and nuzzled one of his thighs.
“I shall keep this our little secret, Anon. But I want you to know something.”
>He looks down at you, and you tilted your head to meet his eyes.
“I love you more than ever.”