Author's Note

This is likely to be less-than-well received, but is necessary. I am moving, and this was written in about fifteen minutes. So cut me some slack on this chapter. The next will be better.

Sweet Dreams Are Made of These: Luna POV

I've always loved the dreams of my little ponies. It is a small victory that, despite their waking adoration for my older sister, I was privy to their deepest, most basic selves. I knew my ponies in ways Celestia never could.

Their hopes.

Their fears.

Their desires.

The pony mind is a wondrous thing, and it is my duty to guard it when it's most vulnerable. This mind, however, was not that of a pony.

I entered the dream as easily as any other, finding myself in a sea of tall, scarlet grass. Odd colors were nothing new to me, dreams rarely concerned themselves with such fine details. The burnt-orange sky above was written off just as easily. The only thing that struck me as odd was my isolation.

I was completely alone. The dreamer almost always manifested in their own dreams. The only explanation for the absence was either a complete loss of self—incredibly rare, and a sign of severe mental trauma—or a dream-world more massive than a normal pony could conjure.

Neither seemed pleasant for me at the moment. The dreamer would have to have lived as long as Celestia or I to have a mind that strong, and nothing that lives so long is completely stable.

The wind sent waves through the field of red, and with nothing better to do, I began to explore.

The air was...different. It seemed thinner, somehow. Though I didn't need to breathe, it was a nagging thought in the back of my mind that should this have been reality, I'd likely suffocate. It was difficult to tell which direction I was walking, due to the presence of two suns—two, it irked me slightly but I shook it off easily enough—so I was forced to simply walk until I found something interesting.

It was almost hard to call this a simple dream, now. The natural laws seemed to hold just as well here as in reality, despite the slightly lower gravity. Not as low as the moon, in fact barely a noticeable difference from Equestria, but enough to make note of. It seemed less like a dream and more like an alien world. Even Celestia can't conjure entire worlds in her dreams...what is this?

"Gallifrey."

The voice caused me to let out an undignified shriek and whirl around, coming face-to-face with an alien yet familiar sight. I'm ashamed to say I recoiled as the human—no...he was too short. But he looked human, aside from the strange, chubby proportions. Larger head and torso, slightly larger eyes, small button nose and mouth, and little chubby limbs.

He looked almost adorable. Perhaps this is what human foals looked like? I pushed the thought from my mind. "Would you mind repeating that?"

The child looked out over the alien landscape with a vaguely sad expression. "Gallifrey. It's the name of this place. The red fields of Gallifrey."

I was stumped. I've never heard of such a land...This is the strangest dream I think I've ever seen! "And who are you, little one?"

The chubby-faced human looked at me—more looked through me, I noted with worry—for several seconds before finally responding with a single word. "Koschei."

I blinked, the strange name unwieldy and foreign to my tongue. Even stranger was the immense sense of loss the empty place exuded. What would normally be a flowing, wondrous place right out of a fantasy felt...hollow. It crept into my bones. I did not want to be here longer than necessary. "Why are you here? Should you not be at home?" I asked, wings twitching anxiously at my sides.

Koschei looked on with his unwavering gaze, before sitting down in the tall grass. I noted with absent amusement that the top of his head barely cleared the flora. "I'm running away. My friend is coming with me, we're gonna steal a time-machine."

Now I was concerned. While the concept of time-machines was beyond me—Starswirl had declared time-magic too unpredictable for general use, and the matter had been dropped—the idea of a foal so casually planning to become a thief and abandon home was troubling. I contemplated settling down beside the boy—or what I assumed was a boy—but thought better of it. With such a dreary atmosphere, getting too comfortable would be unwise. Nonetheless, I was here for a reason, and had to press on. "Why are you running?"

A small, chubby hand reached out and grabbed my leg just above the fetlock, and the scene before me melted away.

It looked like a castle chamber, when I regained my bearings. A dark room, and by the damp coolness, deep in the heart of the structure. Koschei, now in more professional robes, was standing beside me. He appeared transfixed by something, a fluid blue glow rippling over his skin and into his eyes. I followed his gaze over to—

Stars, what IS that?! Immediately, I was just as enraptured by the chaotic fissure, the glow from the deep blues and purples showing such wonderful and horrible things. Everything was poured into me all at once, far more information than could possibly be processed in a thousand lives shoved into my mind. In just a second I felt as if my head would explode. A minute, and I was hoping it would.

It's too much...Oh sister, I can't take it! But just as I was about to rip myself away from the dream, a peculiar sound reached my ears.

Thu-thu-thu-thump

And I was again greeted by blackness.

However it was not long until I was met by another scene. Koschei seemed older now, perhaps his early teens. The faint thumping haunted me, but it was easily tuned out. The teen was pacing back out in the field, dark bags under his eyes and the beginnings of stubble on his chin. "Koschei!" Dark eyes turned to me, but the boy, now nearly a man remained silent. Continuing, I walked towards him cautiously. "What was that? That..." The image of the hole in reality flashed into my mind, causing me to shudder and nurse the beginnings of a migraine.

The boy gave a smirk, the first expression other than indifference I had seen on his face. Turning fully towards me, he began, "that was what Time Lords call 'The Untempered Schism'. A gap in time and space." His smirk turned into a full grin. "What you saw was just an echo of it. A memory. If anything but a Time Lord were to look at it, their brains would burn up from the information." His fingers tapped out the four-beat rhythm against his thigh. "Time Lords make children look into it to 'inspire' them." His grin fell into a bitter frown. "No wonder the lot of them's completely mad..." Tap tap tap tap. Koschei looked up towards me with a somewhat accusatory expression, continuing the tapping against his leg. "So tell me princess...what are you doing inside my head?"

Thu-thu-thu-thump, thu-thu-thu-thump, thu-thu-thu-thump, thu-thu-thu-thump, thu-thu-thu-thump, thu-thu-thu-thump, thu-thu-thu-thump, thu-thu-thu-thump, thu-thu-thu-thump, thu-thu-thu-thump!

I gave a cry of alarm and bolted upright, my usually flowing mane plastered to my skull with sweat. Trembling, I slid myself out of bed. What kind of malevolent beast could eject me from a dream?

I composed myself, before I levitated a blank scroll and quill towards myself.

Dear Twilight Sparkle,

There is indeed something incredibly wrong with Mr. Saxon's psyche. I fear there may be a malevolent force in his mind, much like during my transformation into Nightmare Moon. Currently it is only affecting his subconscious, but it is powerful. I can't go into full detail of what I saw in him, but I request that you bring him to Canterlot immediately for further testing. I only hope we can fix this before my fears are realized.

Sincerely,

Princess Luna of Equestria