It had been a pretty uneventful day. Twilight had joined Rarity and Fluttershy for lunch, and then for their regular spa date. Then she had gone home and decided to do a little light studying on quantum thaumodynamics before dinner. It wouldn’t do for her to fall behind on recent discoveries, after all. But now she was floating among the stars, with no memory of how she could have gotten there from the library.
At least, that’s what her eyes told her. But she could still feel the floor beneath her hooves, even if she saw only speckled darkness when she looked down. Plus anypony with even basic astronomical knowledge would know that the stars are all in one flat layer, so it would be geometrically impossible for her to have the actual stars all around her. Even though these were clearly the real stars. But that begged the questions of how she had gotten here, why she had been wrong about the stars, when she . . . okay, there were a lot of questions. All of which she was sure would become clear if she just waited patiently.
She decided that the question of why she was happy just to wait belonged on the list of questions.
After a minute or so, Luna walked up.
Wait, no, that wasn’t right. Luna just appeared, while projecting the impression that she had approached from somewhere out of sight. It was just really hard to focus on the lack of any memory of Luna’s arrival.
After a minute or so, Luna appeared, and spoke. “My apologies for this sudden meeting, Twilight Sparkle, but I must discuss a matter of great urgency with you.”
“It’s fine, Princess . . . ugh, wait, no, it’s not. How do I know it’s you? This place has been messing with my head, and I’m sure you’ve got a good reason for that. Focus, Twilight!” She gritted her teeth. “I want to trust you, but I can’t trust myself, so I need to remember not to trust you.” The desire to simply go with the flow was like a hydra sitting on her brain.
Suddenly the pressure was gone. The stars were obviously fake, there was no question that Luna had simply appeared, and Luna . . . was still obviously Luna. In retrospect, just the fact that the effect hadn’t been broken by her actively fighting it was sufficient proof that some alicorn at least had to be casting it, and she couldn’t imagine why Celestia or Cadance would want to trick her like that.
“When you used the Elements of Harmony on me, the magic tasted somewhat of cotton candy, apples, and something extremely spicy,” Luna offered. “Also, I keep asking you to call me ‘Luna,’ and you never seem to remember for more than a day.”
“Sorry, Luna. I don’t know what that spell was, but fighting it was making me very confused. Normally I wouldn’t need to accuse you of being an imposter.”
“No, the fault is mine. A little stupor usually makes dream meetings easier, but I should have known that you would only question everything more.”
“This is a dream? You’re in my head? I’ve never experienced this sort of psychic magic firsthoof!”
“Yes, this is a dream, though you are in my head more than I am in yours. I put you to sleep because I needed to talk to you and there was no time to fly down to Ponyville. So perhaps we could focus on that important business?”
“Sorry. What did you need to see me about?”
“A diplomatic emergency has come up, and I will not be able to monitor the night.”
“What happened?” Twilight interrupted.
Luna continued on as if Twilight had not spoken. “I will need you to fill in for me for at least one night. You will need to guide the Moon, guard our subjects from nightmares, and coordinate the response should any monsters become a threat to our subjects.” Luna looked at Twilight’s back. “And you will need to stop picturing yourself as a unicorn if I am to teach you the spells you need.”
“Oops,” Twilight chuckled nervously. Somehow it felt like a faux pas to still be appearing as a unicorn in most of her dreams. Maybe she was insulting Celestia by forgetting the ascension she had been given? Maybe she was implying that she thought unicorns were better than alicorns? In any case, a moment of concentration was sufficient to fix the error.
“Good. Now pay attention; these are complex spells.”
They were indeed complex spells, and Luna was very particular about their casting. It took probably the better part of an hour (and far more magic than Twilight could actually use in a day) before Luna decided Twilight was ready. But when she woke up, her magic reserves will still completely full, and she hadn’t even been asleep long enough for Spike to throw a blanket over her like he normally did when she passed out on a book. Dreams were a very good place to learn magic, it seemed.
Even so, sunset was fast approaching, and though she could theoretically raise the Moon from anywhere, she’d rather have Celestia nearby to make sure she didn’t drop hundreds of trillions of tons of rock on Griffonia. That could be embarrassing. Furthermore, the Night Guard would want her in Canterlot where they could find her in case of emergency, and the nobility would probably make trouble if a princess were so radical as to commit any acts of ruling too far away for them to show up and pretend to be important . . . being a princess could be very constraining, really. So there was no time for a proper dinner; there was only time to grab Spike and some hay to eat later and run to the train station.
And then to wait for twenty minutes for the next train to Canterlot, of course. Spike made it extremely clear that if she even thought about flying to Canterlot, she was free to go the night without her Number One Assistant.
Everypony was staring at her.
Twilight couldn’t actually see them, granted. One could not control a heavenly body with one’s attention on the ground, and so all she could see at the moment was gray dust and the occasional crater. But she was pretty sure that her magic was extended enough that she could feel their stares, and anyway it wasn’t every day ponies saw the Moon being raised from a train. She’d stare too if she saw somepony hovering near the ceiling with glowing white eyes. And frost on her coat. Can’t forget that some of the cold of the Moon was coming through the link. The spell was really never intended for raising the Moon to take so long.
And . . . done. The Moon was moving along its path (or something similar, at least), and she could open her eyes. And discover she was wrong. Nopony was watching her at all. In fact, she couldn’t even see the train. Just some pieces of what might have been the back wall of the caboose lying on the track below her.
In retrospect, maybe she should have taken the step where she anchored herself in place as a cue that she shouldn’t raise the Moon from a moving vehicle.
By the time she had flown the rest of the way to Canterlot, the Day Court had already completely disbanded, and Celestia had retired for the night. The only signs of life she found in the castle were the occasional guard, and Spike waiting for her in the throne room with a note from Celestia:
Good luck, my faithful student. I know you’ll do wonderfully at managing the night. I’d love to hear all about how it went at breakfast.
P.S. But you might want to move the Moon a little more south. It looks crooked.
Well, that was . . . motivational. Not as helpful as she’d have liked, but motivational.
Also, the Moon looked fine to her. There was really no need to struggle to push it around more before it was time to put it away. Really, no need at all. That weird slant was just an illusion from the idea being planted in her mind.
Perhaps now would be a good time to work on some other duty. Like patrolling dreams. It was never too early for that.
Never. Again. No matter how many times she might be called upon to cover for Luna in the future, she was never again going to start dreamwalking before a substantial fraction of adults would be asleep. Foal dreams were just too unpleasant to work with.
How were you even supposed to fix a nightmare when the dreamer was too young to have a proper grasp on language? Destroy the threat, maybe, and administer a hug, but that assumed that you could destroy the threat. And an endless sea of oozing, suffocating, all-consuming baby food was well beyond Twilight’s ability to handle.
Plus, she was still a bit traumatized from Shiny telling her the legend of the Smooze well before she was old enough to handle it. She almost drowned before she remembered she could leave the dream at any time. She could still feel it oozing through her fur and up her nose. She could taste it too, and it tasted like alfalfa. She hated alfalfa.
Say, how was the Moon doing? Flying low, she had to admit. And Celestia was right about it being too far north, as well.
“Spike!”
“Yes?”
“Take a letter, please. Esteemed philosophers of the Astronomer’s Guild, I apologize for the deviation of the Moon from its scheduled path. However, I think you should view it as an exciting opportunity to make new observations, and will be generous enough to not return the Moon to its normal trajectory. Signed, Twilight Sparkle, Interim Night Princess.”
“How do you spell that first word?”
Twilight was probably a bad pony for being relieved when a guard burst into to the room. But being the Princess of the Night was exceedingly boring when you weren’t trusted with most of the associated duties, and she had mostly just been staring at the Moon, hoping it wouldn’t crash into anything and trying to gather the courage to venture into Equestria’s nightmares again. A guard meant some sort of crisis, and that at least ought to be interesting.
She was somewhat less enthused when another two guards followed just behind him. And then of course they all tried to talk over each other, since apparently taking turns was not a part of their training. But from what she could understand, a sea serpent was approaching Manehattan, there was a griffon protest in Cloudsdale that was threatening to turn into a riot, and several hydras were converging on Appleloosa.
She asked, and yes, he really meant hydras wandering through the desert. Nopony had any idea how they had gotten there, but they were probably being attracted to the Appleloosa orchard because it smelled vaguely like water.
Obviously, then, the solution was to use water to lure the hydras somewhere safe. A couple rainclouds and a few ponies to use them to lay trails back to a swamp ought to be quite sufficient. And on the subject of obvious solutions, there were squads of the Day Guard that were specifically trained for riots, and no reason not to wake one or two of them to take care of Cloudsdale. Really, did she have to do all the thinking? She sent two of the guards off to work on their respective problems.
The sea serpent, though, required a bit more thought. A few questions revealed that nopony actually knew anything about this serpent except what direction it was going; the pony who had spotted it hadn’t stuck around to gather information. Perhaps she should investigate this issue herself.
In the interest of time, she had taken Luna’s royal chariot. She could do that while filling in for Luna, right? She certainly hoped so. It may have been overly Gothic for her tastes, but it was also an incredibly fast way to get around. And so comfortable!
But now was not the time to be thinking about chariots. She could see the sea serpent, swimming just below the surface, and now was the time to figure out what to do about that.
“Excuse me!” she shouted. The serpent failed to respond. “EXCUSE ME!” she repeated, this time magically amplifying her voice.
The serpent stopped and raised its head at least fifty feet out of the water. “YES?” it rumbled. “WHO’S TALKING TO ME?”
“TWILIGHT SPARKLE, PRINCESS OF EQUESTRIA.”
“Oh, a pony! Sorry about talking so loud; I swear my family must be practically deaf, and sometimes I forget that some things are more sensitive. I hope I didn’t hurt your ears.”
“. . . No, it’s fine, you weren’t that loud.”
“Oh, good. But what is a princess of Equestria doing so far from her nation? Did something happen while I was away to force a sudden diplomatic visit? Oh, I hope everydragon’s okay!”
“Far from my nation? We’re just off the coast of Equestria. You can even see Manehattan from here.”
The serpent looked behind Twilight. “That’s strange. That does look like a pony city. But just look at the Moon; I couldn’t possibly be so far north.”
Twilight blushed. “Well, actually, the Moon is taking a bit of a detour tonight. It was kind of a spur-of-the moment decision. Of Luna’s. Because I have nothing to do with it.”
“Well that seems irresponsible, to redirect the Moon without any warning. But I suppose it’s really none of my business. And if I’m off the coast of Equestria, I’d better get going if I want to be home by morning.” The serpent dove back underwater and started swimming south.
A moment later, the head popped back up. “But where are my manners? I’m Electric John, even if the introduction is rather late, and it was nice to meet you.” He dropped his head and returned to swimming.
And that was that. One more problem solved by bothering to try to do anything about it. Twilight was beginning to doubt the guard was even helpful at all.
Okay, maybe it was time to do something about the Moon. When it just looked a little off, that was fine. When it became clear that the Moon was going to be setting in the north tonight, it wasn’t the end of the world. But now it was about to hit the atmosphere and give the Crystal Empire the weirdest weather it had ever seen. And then probably crash into a mountain. And that was not really so acceptable. Cadance would never let her live it down.
It had taken fifteen minutes and all of Twilight’s magical muscle, but the Moon was now on a safer path. And the snow that had accumulated beneath her was actually pretty soft. A nap sounded lovely.
She was back in the inaccurate starscape. She really needed to remember to ask some time why Luna chose such a ridiculous setting for dream meetings.
And speaking of Luna, there she was. “What is it now?” Twilight asked.
“I think now is a good time to end the test and discuss your performance.”
“Wait, a test? None of this was real?” It turns out that if you want to grind your teeth audibly in a dream, you absolutely can.
“Nothing at all. You have been dreaming this whole time. If I do need you to take over for me, I cannot just let you go in without any practice.”
Twilight concentrated, and disappeared from the dream.
“That’s strange,” Luna muttered, “Cadance did the same thing when I tried to teach her about ruling the night.”
