Journey to the Brother Side of Equestria

"Hi, Lumin! Hi, Aurora!" Dolphin Dream said to the pair of mares. "What brings you here at a time like this? Are you betrothed? Am I the first pony you told? Will you invite me to the wedding?"

Lumin picked up the nearest stone with her magic and threw it right at Dolphin's left eye. She quickly blinked, but the stone still left a visible mark. Though she suffered minimal to no brain damage, Dolphin was still confused. She had no idea why her best friend would hit her with a stone!

"What did you do that for?!" Dolphin asked. "All I did was ask a question... or two... or three... or four... or five!"

"It's not about the question, DD!" Lumin exclaimed. "It's because you need to listen up now! There's something strange going on in the Dream World, and I, er... we need to know what it's about!"

"And you've come to me because my last name is Dream?" Dolphin asked. "Dolphin Dream's not even my real name! You know that my real name is Sea Swirl!"

"It's not about your name, DD!" Lumin exclaimed She must hate me for calling her that! she thought. "It's about the dream you had! I was in it!"

"How did you know who was in my dream?" Dolphin asked. "Are you a spy?"

"Simmer down, Swirly!" Aurora exclaimed in the best Applejack impression she could muster. "She ain't no spah! But she sure knows what's goin' on. Don't you, Aria?"

Lumin simply nodded her head. It could be worse. she thought. She could've done her impression of Twilight! "I am not a conspiracy nut!" my flank! "I entered your dream through a Dreamwalking spell," she explained, "which, as its name implies, is a spell that allows its caster to enter a sleeping pony's dreams. Very few ponies know how to do it, as it's not as simple as levitation or teleportation."

"The way you're saying that kinda makes it sound like you're bragging!" Dolphin replied.

"She's bragging with rights, Dreamy!" Aurora rebutted. "She practised with me seven thousand times before getting it right." she lied.

After that, Lumin heard a strange double-slithery noise, like two snakes were doing a mating dance. But snakes don't do mating dances! She thought. It must be another Serpentina! I thought that they only came to ponies who lied in dreams, not in reality!

The Serpentina started hissing, and it just happened to speak coherent Latin. "Septem Flammae Draconis." it said. Since the other two ponies didn't speak enough Latin, Lumin was the only one of the three who could understand it, and it meant "The Seven Flames of the Dragon." What this meant to Lumin was unknown and, at least as she thought, irrelevant to the dreams.

"Did you hear that, Aurora?" Lumin whispered.

"Hear what, Aria?" Aurora asked, also whispering. "Is it a secret? I love sharing secrets! Especially if it's with y..." Lumin covered Aurora's mouth with her hoof.

"It was a snake speaking Latin." Lumin whispered. "Do you know what that means?"

Aurora shook her head.

"It means that the Serpentinae are real!" Lumin tried to keep whispering, but it was loud enough for Dolphin to hear. Oh, drat! Lumin thought. Now DD knows about them! She lies almost all the time! What are we gonna do?

"Why does that matter?" Aurora asked. "They're just snakes!"

"They're snakes," Lumin answered, "Who can sense, and will come to, a liar! And you just lied about me! You know what that means?"

"No, what does it mean, Aria?" Aurora asked.

"If you die in the dream, you wake up." Lumin quoted the Dream Lord from a story she read called Lucy's Choice, which she had read countless times before. "Ask me what happens if you die in reality!"

"What happens?" Aurora asked.

"You DIE stupid, that's why it's called reality!" Lumin answered rudely. "And I'm pretty sure that Serpentina bites kill you."

"Oh." Aurora replied. "That doesn't answer what it means, though."

"It means my brother's in a world of hurt right now!" Lumin exclaimed.

Dolphin was utterly confused. She didn't hear any of the pair's conversation until this point, and she didn't know at all what they were talking about. "ENOUGH!" she yelled. "You were about to tell me about entering my dream," she said weakly, "and what it had to do with you two searching for me."

"Oh, right, the dream!" Lumin exclaimed in a tone that suggested that she forgot what they came there for, which she did. "When you were a bucking Princess, I was being chased by these two-headed snakes called Serpentinae, Singular:Serpentina. They come to ponies who know about them when those ponies tell lies. The more truths you hide, the more snakes chase you. I told the dream version of Aurora that I was late for a date with Caramel, which was a lie. I was actually trying to find out the secret about those snakes. Twelve of them just appeared out of nowhere and I had to get on the hot air balloon!"

"The hot air balloon part sounds familiar," Dolphin replied, "but I don't remember seeing any snakes, especially not with three heads or a time-head."

"I never said anything about a time-head!" Lumin exclaimed. "That's not even a real thing! And I said the snakes had two heads, not three! There's a picture of one in Two-Headed Mythological Mysteries by Star Swirl the Bearded." Lumin looked through Dolphin's unsurprisingly small library and, to her unsurprise, it had only romance novels. Not a single informative book. She decided to do a quick teleportation spell to get to Golden Oaks. I could find any book ever written in there, as well as learn more about Star Swirl the Bearded from Twilight. Maybe I should go there more often! she thought. But for now I'm just asking her for one book and I'm out.

When Lumin got to the outside of the library, her tree-branches' leaves fluttering in the breeze, she instantly saw Twilight and Spike trying to alphabetise the books by author instead of title. The "S" section was overflowing with Star Swirl books, so Twilight moved a few of them to the "B" section with her magic. Spike had to use his claws, as fire-breath is only good for sending scrolls to Twilight's contacts, mainly the other Princesses.

"A little help here!" Spike hollered when he heard the hoofsteps, but didn't bother to turn around and see who it was. "Twilight and I are trying to sort the boo... woah!" He fell off the stack of ten books he had made, and then, as if by magic, the stack collapsed into a pile of fifty.

"Spike!" Twilight exclaimed. "I can't sort these books and greet our guest at the same time! Just rebuild the tower of books and get back to sorting, STAT!" Then, in a more calm and collected tone, she said "Hello, Lumin! It's been a long time since you came over here for a book!"

Lumin wanted to ask Twilight if she was psychic, but knew that she didn't have time for that. "I'm here for Two-Headed Mythological Mysteries by Star Swirl the Bearded." she requested.

"I think it's in the pile of books that Spike failed to clean up." Twilight replied. "Spike! Lumin wants Two-Headed Mythological Mysteries! Can you find it?"

"I'm alreday holding it!" Spike answered. "Wait, who's Lumin? I don't remember hearing that name."

"That's because she usually only comes up to me after midnight, when you're in bed." Twilight replied. "She's the yellow Unicorn with the black-and-white mane and a Cutie Mark of four pairs of music notes and a red four-point star."

Spike turned around and said "Never seen her bef..." Before he could finish his sentence, he saw Lumin Aria, in all her glory. "Amazing! She's almost as beautiful as Rarity!" Spike fainted onto the book-pile, still clutching that book so that it wouldn't fall.

Lumin siezed the book with her magic and went on her way, this time walking instead of teleporting. When she got back to Dolphin's house, Aurora and Dolphin were waiting for her. "I found the book, DD!" she exclaimed, tired from walking that far. "I'll flip it to page 42, where the picture and description are." She flipped the page and then handed the book to Dolphin.

Dolphin Dream read aloud these words: "Let's see... it says 'Serpentina. Scientific name: Sepentina dicapita. Place of origin: Draconia. Description: A two-headed snake which can sense when a being is lying and slithers towards that being. In the Dream World, it causes the victim, regardless of race, to cast an unwilling spell bringing them back to the normal world. In the normal world, the spell sends them to Draconia instead.' So it doesn't kill us?"

"I guess not." Lumin replied, still pretty sure that it did and that Draconia was some kind of gate to Tartarus. "What are we waiting for? Draconia could be where my missing brother is! Everypony tell a lie, now!"

"I'm not excited at all!" Aurora exclaimed with excitement.

"I don't think that you two are in love!" Dolphin exclaimed.

"I don't wanna go!" Lumin exclaimed.