Luna was stuck in her own mind again, but with more than just her personal feelings that tumbled over themselves. After listening to the plea of the demure pony back in the castle ballroom, her thoughts seemed to deviate from the mystical river that hummed a distracting tune for the last few months. This was the first of many small things that seemed to help a graceful wind of overshadow the black mist so that she could at least let in a little more light.

Because of this, Luna felt the release of a shiver sail through her. That's what true promise—like all those that came before it—felt like. They can tear us apart, but they can also pull us closer together. Like gravity.

In this case, it was unlike any promise she had come across, one flushed with silence and ambiguity that did not do the princess justice. Her response to Dream Catcher's question surprised her. Not in a shocking way, but with a kind of surprise that imploded an expression of complication, confusion, and most of all, captivation.

She began to dwell on her answer of what dreams actually are, doing her utmost to give a clear definition, but even now, thinking about what she had told Dream Catcher, the answer seemed a little shady.

There was no one answer to the question. It's like asking what the meaning of life is, as so many ponies have since the beginning of time. Young ponies in this day and age seem to be more enthusiastic, emphatic even, about knowing the one true answer. But there is none, or better yet to say, there are many. Many answers. No. Much more than many. Millions. Countless. Infinite ways to fill the void of the missing truth that surrounds the very purpose of existing that circumnavigates inside the minds of her loyal subjects.

Often times now, Luna would ask herself the same thing, but with different words. What am I searching for? Certainly there must be something in this world that is able to challenge my purpose, she thought. But what?

Finally, she had found the answer, or rather, a marker that will lead her to an answer. One answer that may help to shave off the prickling specks of dark energy that shrouded her in a lonely brume. All she needed to do now was head in the right direction.

For what felt like hours, Luna slowly made her way her private study across the hall from her bedchambers. Each step felt to drag on longer than the last.

Past the luxuriously polished stone pillars of the castle halls, down the narrow corridors in the flickering yellow light of dim lanterns, and through the tall double doors of her study did she finally breathe a sigh of relief for having completed another night's work. Not surprisingly, the court consisted of mostly unicorns. She wondered if there was a secret apartheid which could explain the lack of diversity. In fact, nearly all ponies who attended were unicorns, with exception to a couple of pegasi and Dream Catcher, the only Earth pony of the group.

Her thoughts dawned on Dream Catcher again. She just couldn't keep her mind off of her. Not that she wanted to, but it was only thing circulating through the deepest portion of her mind, orbiting what is known to be the part of the brain that controls emotion.

As Luna took her usual seat in the middle of the room where an intricately drawn circle surrounded by a series of symbols representing each visible star in the night sky. A nine-point star at the very center marked the southern star of Octantis, and directly above that on the ceiling, another nine-point star representing the northern star of Polaris.

The rest of the room was completely empty: no tables, so shelves, no other furniture or decoration. The only decoration Princess Luna cared for was the beauty of her own constellations, all of which were painted as a mural on the walls, accurate within a hundredth of a degree.

This was Luna place of peace, or at least it was the next best thing. Her true enchantment of peace belonged to the night sky itself, but she wasn't feeling like herself at that moment. This room—her study—provided for enough space and silence to give her the benefit of relaxation. She came here to meditate and dreamwalk, both of which were not always the different.

Instead of taking her normal position of sitting at the center, she paused before stepping into the southern circle. Looking down, almost expressionless, she began to walk parallel to the line of the circle. In her wordless pace, she kept her gaze at her hooves as each of her forelegs shot out in front of her.

In less than a minute, she stopped. She tilted her head slightly and looked up. A sudden idea exploded among all others.

Quickly and carefully, she stepped towards the circle, and within a few seconds of clearing the waves of incoherence from her mind, she activated her magic.

Luna's eye's glowed white as the full moon, filling her vision with a distorted lens that acted as the portal to the dreamworld. After doing this exercise countless times, it was almost effortless. Stepping through the doorway into the the place beyond reality, her body lifted into the air.

It took no more than a millisecond to pass from one realm to the other.

Luna opened her eyes. Upon their renewed phase, she was looking at herself like a mirror, only this was far more true. The blue alicorn was neither asleep or awake, but in between the plane of existence that defied all logic and ligature. Magic tends to do that. Bending nature and twisting temporal fields is its primary function.

She was ready to watch over her subjects, but there was only one subject in mind that she wanted to visit personally. Thinking back to what Dream Catcher had told her about her daughter, a sudden thought strung the very chords that her negative thoughts had trampled. First, she wanted to verify that the Earth pony was truth to her word. Luna still had her doubts. Those doubts never seem to go away.

While in the dreamworld, she was no more than a ghost. To a native, she'd be mistaken for a spirit; to an outsider, she'd be mistaken for a demon. She didn't need to use her wings to fly, floating uncharacteristically was never her style. Her current form would scare a filly in their sleep and mistake her for a nightmare, as demonstrated by Scootaloo's dreams. Luna used her wings to propel her semi-transparent body through the balcony of the room.

Once outside, the landscape appeared normal, but high in the sky was a web of strings. This web of strings stretched for miles in either direction, soon descending to the ground and into the homes of sleeping ponies. Each string originated from the dreamer, but flew skyward where is joined with other strings to create an enormous entanglement that was only visible to Luna.

The largest blob at the center of these ropes connected all of Equestria in an overlapping state of subconsciousness where the mind roams free and the lights sparkle in the company of stars, intertwined in a mass of infinity where no end had meaning.

Princess Luna turned east, her shifting form waited for reflex, and swiftly launched herself in the direction of Trottingham.

The trip took over half an hour dream time, but just under five minutes in real time. This time dilation is what gave Luna the time to traverse through thousands of dreams during a single night.

The city of Trottingham came into view, blooming in the darkness like a lone star, with its collective halo of light from fresh flames of house lanterns. Such a peaceful and quiet setting to witness, but even more spectacular with the overcast of neon threads reaching into the sky to join with the rest of the dreamworld.

Luna was only a spectator of the light, its glow clinging to the fog and fireflies buzzing to get one last flight in the cool autumn air. With their dance of illumination in the black space around Luna, their life calmed the turbulence inside her head that hadn't let up since they incurred their wrath.

As the the Princess glided to the rooftops of Trottingham's central district, she tilted her body left and banked to speed into a sharp helix, swooping down to the tallest structure. With one final flap of her outstretched wings, she gently touched down with her hind legs and let her front hooves dangle over the edge of the concrete roof.

It's been a thousand plus years since her banishment. The city below was almost alien to her. Equestria has changed so dramatically that it was hard to find her way around anymore. Even in Canterlot, the city that she once new lied buried beneath the renovations of modern times.

An era long gone. Nothing remain of her time. The customs, the dialect, the society. All gone, replaced by a radically different impression of a future that most ponies in her time couldn't even imagine.

Yet, she had to live with it, and it hadn't been easy. Her sister was all she can relate to and that little student of hers is a dying breed of ponies that cares enough about history—the good and the bad—to call her a friend.

Luna blinked. She wasn't aware her deadpan stare had taken over to paint a hypnotized visage that held more truth than any other expression. Down below where the city slept, Luna rose to her hooves. All the while, the countless buildings and homes silently housed ponies whose dreams flowed and spliced through the ether.

Ever so slowly, her head turned side to side for what she came here for.

Dream Catcher had said that her daughter lacked the ability to dream. That was the first clue. As suddenly as her thoughts were conceived, Luna shot straight up into the sky without a running start and let her frictionless form take over. Her elegant body, shaped into an uncaring, unprofessional, and undulating shape of paradoxical proportions, continued to rise vertically towards the black ceiling above while performing an aerial pirouette. Trottingham shrank into the hollow flat that was ground level, its lights fading into the shadow of the world.

Above her, the glowing plane of the dreamworld approached rapidly. Without slowing down, she pushed on through, fazing through the layer upon layers of the glowing sands that served as a visual representation of the dreamworld and continued on higher.

Before she could rocket any further, a couple more seconds and she's reach the upper atmosphere, she spun in the usual barrel-roll-like fashion and leveled out. As she reached the peak of her ascension, Luna stretched her arms out wide before tucking them in again as her body began to fall at a shallow angle before rising again to preform one final stunt. She tilted slight to the left at the same time her body did a full loop.

But before she could complete the loop, she shot straight down at the point of maximum acceleration. As her altitude was lost and to the sound of the frozen wind whistling past her ears, her speed increased tenfold to near the speed of sound. Gravity had little effect of her ghostly state.

Shooting straight through the frozen layers of the dreamscape like a meteor falling out of the sky, her sleek body began to spin ever so slightly. Her roll rate began to increase to the speed of a tornado, but not quite. She kept her descent speed constant.

As soon as she reached the point of no return, Luna finally stopped her spin and sharply puled up to level out where pulled several barrel rolls as her angle reached horizontal. Throughout this whole feat, she had her eyes closed. She already knew where she was going before her dive, and her direction after the point of no return was no accident.

There was only one place she wanted to go.

That place was the residence of Dream Catcher where little Twinkle Toe was presumably sleeping peacefully in her bed. She could really tell. The relatively small house, surrounded by many like it, stood in the dark.

That was the second clue. The strangest part of this whole tour to visit the filly was one simple fact. Unlike all other houses around Trottingham, there was absolutely no evidence of the dreamscape emanating from the house. No light, no glow, no movement. Complete and smokeless silence.

As Luna approached her destination, she spread her wings further to glide down and carefully land on the roof of the structure. With one last flap, she touched down on the very top of the chimney with any hesitation or hiccup. Brushing her wings along her side like the shivers from the frost of a cold night, she waited.

She didn't wait long, five seconds max. Her eyes were kept closed until she took a deep breath she'd been holding for a long while. Luna was alomst sure this was the right place, all was dark like the space between the stars. That thought may not have been comforting, but it wasn't far from the truth.

The Princess jumped from the chimney to the top of the roof to take her first step. Although she was just an apparition, she was still part of the physical world, having to obey some physical laws that even she could not bend.

While wobbling in place for a moment, she regained her balance and trotted to the edge of the angled roof. She looked down and found a single window sill on the second floor. Not quite a balcony, but enough for her to land on.

As she lowered her pale blue body to align with the window, she spread her wings to equalize her offset balance. The further away she was from the rivers of the dreamscape, the less control she had over her supernatural substrate, thus causing her to lose her focus and balance.

Luna peaked through the window of what she assumed to be the bedroom of Twinkle Toe. It was difficult to make out in the darkness. There was no night light and the moon was directly overhead. Even though she was like an angel of darkness who embraced and lived in black, this was something different.

Though, the dark was something a little magic couldn't fix. Luna cast a faint illumination spell, the most basic of unicorn magic, just bright enough to see the interior of the room. She scanned the space from corner to corner.

There, at the other end of the room on the far wall, was a bed. Buried in the covers was a small filly, whose head was barely visible from underneath the sheets, sleeping soundly on the pillow. There were toys strew on the floor and around the bed, but one in particular stood out to her. They here a pair slippers, and not just any slippers, but dance slippers, like those for a ballerina.

If that wasn't proof enough that the Night Princess was in the right place, the ceiling décor came in a rich navy blue with white dots. This appeared almost identical to her own chamber back in Canterlot Castle, with stars and constellations and everything. There was even a full moon painted on the wall to her left.

Luna couldn't be happier to see such a familiar sight in such a sad place. Sad in the way that it lacked the beauty that made her own room sparkle.

Returning her gaze back to the filly on the bed, she could only assume—and assume correctly—that this was none other than Twinkle Toe herself.

The very sight of the pony made her eyes misty and nearly made her shed a tear of sadness. The sympathy just wouldn't stop flooding. She wasn't expecting this at all. How could she not have known about this poor pony earlier?

The regal alicorn shook her head and breathed again, she needed to focus. Turning back to the Twinkle Toe, she took a step forward and fazed right through the window and walked inside the room. She wouldn't normally bring her secondary being into the home of another without asking (her dreamwalking involved making a clone copy of her self to enter a pony's dreams), but what she was about to do would justify her entering.

Luna stared at the bed for a long moment as if she was staring off into the distance, longing for rejoice. Her features withered the longer she stared, but with good reason.

She was thinking of a way to help Twinkle Toe find her way into the dreamworld without waking her up. In her long year alive as princess, she had never ever encountered a pony without dreams. This was a first for her and she had no idea what she was supposed to do. But, that never stopped her from creating a new spell on the spot to help the little filly.

But first, she had to figure out why Twinkle had lost—or never had—the ability to dream. It just seems like an unlikely occurrence. She closed her eyes to begin the process.

Princess Luna dropped her illumination spell and began to channel magic through herself instead of just her horn. As the power increased within her veins, she opened her eyes again as they glowed a spectacular white. Most of her magic was concentrated on trying to enter the dreams of little Twinkle Toe, no matter how small. Her first guess was that her dream state was just too small to be noticed.

She was wrong.

The spell dissipated as Luna could find no hint of brain activity or any connection to the dreamworld.

…

Wait...

Connection to the dreamworld? Of course!

Luna was screaming in her thoughts ecstatically and was shocked at the same time. This filly has the ability to dream, absolutely, but is merely disconnected from the dreamscape entirely.

But how and why?

Those were two questions Luna simply could not answer. She wouldn't know where to begin to find the answers. She was just as lost as the filly's mother.

Nevertheless, she needed to do something. All she had to do was find the break in the connection and stitch it back together, thus giving back Twinkle Toe the gift of dreams. It would be relatively easy if only the plane of the dreamscape wasn't to far away.

Not to worry, she thought, this task requires a little spark and a helping hoof.

Luna turned and exited the room from where she came and flew sky high to retrieve a sliver of light. A light known as imagination. Dreams was basically the imagination of the conscious amplified to infinity. It only took a small piece to set things right.

As Luna approached the ocean of the dreamworld floating above her, she paused. A sudden realization struck her profound and profusely. That very idea would come do define both her and Twinkle Toe as victim of the darkness and lovers of the night.

After her thought, the blue alicorn flapped her wings this time and shot straight through the glowing plane of dreams, stopped midair, flipped around, and left gravity guide her down this time. In her free fall back to earth, she fell through the dreamscape like an Earth pony fazing through a cloud, dragging a single thread of it along with her.

With the house directly below, Luna positioned her posture to align with the side of the house where Twinkle's window remained closed. On the the last leg of her fall, the Princess swooshed to the left and then back to the right directly through the window all while at subsonic speeds. But because she was a ghost of sorts, she was able to come to a halt directly above the sleeping face of Twinkle Toe.

Before Luna could complete her plan, she looked down one last time at the young features of the filly. Her little face had no expression. No smile, no frown, no other frightened or elated visage that would indicate a nightmare or paradise respectively.

Luna's heart was pounding. She had to do this. A long snaking piece of the dreamscape was behind her was waiting to hook up to the subconscious of young Twinkle Toe. But why did she stop? What is holding her back?

Luna could go no further. A battle of morals raged inside her, wondering and demanding her to rethink her actions. No good will come of this, said her negative side. This filly needed your help, said the other.

The ghostly princess just hovered there silently thinking to herself, leaning towards the side to the contrary of her original intentions. The deeper she thought of it, the more it reigned true.

She closed her eyes and sighed heavily at the same time. Retracing her steps and going back in time, she backtracked, flying outside the house again taking with the tangible rope of the dreamscape with her. Instead of returning it to where it belongs, she just pushed it away where it hung from the sky like a cosmic tire swing.

With one, two, three, four flaps of her large wing, Luna went back to check on Twinkle Toe one last time. This whole decision to retreat was for one reason and one reason only.

Twinkle Toe must discover her own dreams as would any other pony, to hope and to live as she desires. But, because her disadvantage was a disability, there was no rule saying she wasn't allowed to interfere, or provide a little guidance in this case.

Luna turned back to the dream rope hanging where she had left it, she flew up to it and plucked a piece of the scape from the very bottom. Right before her very eyes, the even smaller sliver manifested into an glowing orb, like that of a star in the night sky.

She then carried the orb back to the window. Pressing her horn to the glossy sphere, she used a little bit of magic to give it life and ensure that it won't turn into a nightmare.

Satisfied with her work, she held the orb in her hoof and blew on it with all her might. The orb floated through the window, over the hardwood floor of the bedroom, and cleared the bed frame before coming to a stop above the Twinkle Toe's head. In seconds, it sank into her fur where it glowed its brightest before fading altogether.

Luna watched the event unfold from the window pane, smiling warmly the whole time. She waited for a sign, any sign, that it worked.

She didn't have to wait long. Within seconds, she could make out movement beneath the blanket as Twinkle Toe grumbled, tossing and turning in her sleep.

It worked.

Luna's heart filled with a pride that she hasn't felt since Nightmare Night the year before, and now that a new Nightmare Night was fast approaching, she felt free again. She felt complete. She felt loved.

With one last look through the glass, Luna kissed her hoof and gently place it on the window pane. She then flew up high and took off in the direction of Canterlot.

Princess Celestia woke early. Or was it late. She couldn't tell with her eyes still closed but her mind wide awake. Her body was still getting used to the new bed she had slept in after replacing the old slab of concrete she called a mattress.

It was usual for the white Princess to go through her list of duties in her head before getting out of bed. There were definitely a lot for that day. It would take her every minute of the day and she was already exhausted from yesterday. Her little sister didn't make it any easier.

She also wonder what had gotten into that pony's mind. She sure hoped it wasn't a bad sign. The last time she ignored her sister it resulted in the destruction of the old castle, eternal night, and the temporary loss of a sibling. Talk about dramatic.

This was no time to joke. How Luna was behaving was serious business and to put it off till later might not be the wisest of decisions. Neither was yelling at her baby sister. That was the second to last thing she wanted to do and she had already failed to meet her own standards of dealing with a situation.

Nevertheless, it was a new day and she had work to do. It was already morning and the sun was up.

Wait...

THE SUN IS UP!

The most powerful of all being in Equestria tore her eyes open and rapidly scurried out of bed flying over to her balcony with breakneck speeds. Her tail dragged across the floor, but she didn't care. With her eyes wide open, her jaw was nearly missing from her mouth, having fallen to the ground.

Princess Celestia could not believe her eyes.

There, on the eastern horizon, was the sun. Her sun. The life of this world.

And she had not risen it that morning.

HOW?

Even though Celestia's authoritative, yet relaxed nature kept her from going off the rails to the point of over exaggeration and hysteria, this was impossible. This was... this... this... garh!

Celestia couldn't take it.

“Guards!” she shouted from the balcony. Even some citizens on the streets of Canterlot could hear her.

In less than a second, three armored stallions from the Royal Guard burst through her chamber doors.

“What is it your majesty!?” one of them replied loudly.

Celestia turned to them. “What is the meaning of this?” she asked, point over the balcony.

“The meaning of what?” another asked curiously, slightly afraid the Princess might be mad at them.

“This!” She pointed again. “It is morning.”

The guards were confused.

“O-of course it is,” said the third reluctantly, trying not to be snarky.

“And I wasn't notified!?” Celestia yelled again, clearly upset.

The three stallion guards winced at the Princess's outrage, but knew not the reason why she would get so angry at them for something they didn't do... or did do? They looked at each other, then back at the alicorn, who appeared to glow a shade of blood red.

“We are not quite sure what you mean, Princess,” said the first.

Without responding, Celestia looked past the guard, her gaze staring down the hall behind them through the open doors to her quarters. A thought hit her. While still fuming to the core, she stormed out of the room and down the hall.

In less than a minute, Celestia made it to the face of her sister's chamber doors. She used her magic to push the doors open, disregarding whether they were locked or not. She let herself in with her mane on fire, figuratively of course, but close enough to the truth that she was surprised her mane hadn't burst into flames yet.

She searched the room for Princess Luna and wasn't long until she found the pony she wanted to see. At her desk, Luna was busy with something, a quill in her magic and several pieces of parchment with words on every page.

“Luna!” Celestia said, trying to garner her sister's attention. “What is going on!?”

Luna didn't react of respond immediately, but continued writing whatever it was she was doing. Celestia quickly realized that it was the wrong approach to yell again, so she recomposed her posture and voice and tried again.

“Luna?” This time she asked, swiftly and softly.

“Hello sister,” was Luna's response without so much as pausing for a moment in her writing before starting up again.

“What is going on?” Celetia repeated. “What are you doing?”

“I am writing a letter to Dream Catcher. A pony who visited me in night court last night.”

“Why?”

“Because I must. She has gone through a lot to show up in Canterlot from Trottingham and I think it's fair I pay my respects to her efforts of helping me change a pony's life for the better and helping me learn what it means to hope.” Luna's entire response was flat. “Unlike somepony I know.” Her voice was slightly muffled because she didn't turn to face her sister.

Celestia was a little taken back by the display of hostility that she felt coming from Luna. She was sorry to have put Luna in this position where she began to question herself again. She sighed.

“Look Luna, I—“

“There's no need for apologies, dear sister,” Luna cut her off, her voice teeming with a hint of glee and uncontained amusement. “You should know we have to put our differences behind us, you taught me that.”

Celestia couldn't help but think back to the day Luna was free from the Nightmare by the Elements of Harmony. It was a day she would never forget. She wanted to say something, but was at a loss for the proper words to respond.

“Sometimes we don't understand each other,” Luna continued without turning around and kept on writing. “And maybe we never will. But, I look past what makes us different and focus on what makes us equal. I have waited so long to make it up to you for my grand mistake all those years ago, and maybe anything I do to fix it will always fall short of earning your trust back. I will never stop being your sister and I will never stop being who I am, but I want you to understand that what I do is not only in the best interest of myself, but for us both.

“Sometimes I can lose sight of my way through the woods, but the only way I can get back on track is to look for you at the end of the path. If only you knew my predicament as I do of yours. We have our moments of loss, but at the end of the day, the light will always rise, at least for me.”

Celestia looked solemnly at Luna for minutes, but felt like hours. She knew Luna could be poetic in her monologues, but for it to hit her this much was something she always treasured.

After a minute or two of silence, save for the scratching of the quill as Luna scribbled words onto paper, the Lunar Princess sighed. She stopped what she was doing and finally turned around. She got out of her chair and slowly walked over to her big sister.

“Truth is, Celestia, I rose the sun for you. It's the least I can do for all that you have done for me, and all I ask of you is your forgiveness.” Luna shed no tear nor sniffled like the white alicorn had expected. She was handling this very maturely.

“Oh Luna,” Celestia finally croaked, having trouble toning her voice to fit her emotions. “You didn't have to do that. I have already forgiven you. You are my sister, and I love you for as long as I live. No amount of bickering will change that.”

Luna remained quiet and still, releasing the tension that had been built up to take on any verbal onslaught or insult that she was waiting to get from her older sibling. But none came.

Startling her from her still stiff bones from the night previous, Celestia wrapped her large wing over Luna and pulled her into a hug.

“Thank you, sister.” Luna nodded.

“So how was your night?”

“Oh the usual.” Luna smirked.

The three most alleviating words Luna could ever come up with had been the bane of keeping her from falling into the abyss where Nightmare Moon had come from.

Three very simple words.

Let it go.

She would repeat them until their meaning evaporated.

Let it go.

Let it go

Let it

Let

–no

She can't

Let it go?

No.

Then what?

Only one option remains.

Held by truth.

That truth?

Answered by a spark

One spark, that's all you need.

A spark that grows and becomes a dream.

One dream.

One that flows.

One that speaks to her.

It says not to let go, but to let it flow.

Down to the core, through the heart.

Through the heart does it glow, out inside.

Memories to be written, wished to be revised.

Brought to the light does it shine.

Only then will contrite be left alone.

Apart from death.

Cycles among cycles.

Candid columns of granite hold up the roof above, made of stardust and shadow, radiating throughout the cosmic dark.

It dips and tangles, coils and curves, snaking and breaking, until the thin threaded branches have snapped and crumbled into dust, blowing away as the breeze of the crisp morning dew swirled without care.

And then, among the life that live in darkness shall the sun be made to rise above the cold mountains. May Twinkle Toe make her mother proud.

The answer lies within, where a dream awaits for the imagination to dance all night long.

Author's Note

"It took forever, but it was worth it."
- Rarity