I opened my eyes to oblivion. Nothing existed, save for light and sound. The sound is like thunder; billowing past me like a great wind, it tells me that I am currently moving, despite the fact that I am not only standing still but that I lack a physical body of any sort.
I continue to fall for some time, or at least I think it was some time, all I really know is that it ended with a bang. Not a loud one, but quiet, like one of those air toys that parents give to their filly’s and foals to play with when they’re bored.
Quite suddenly I find that I in fact do have a body, my own. It was odd, as I hadn’t noticed it come into being. While I was staring at my body I also noticed that I was now standing on ground; grey and dusty… and empty. I look up from the ground, and I think I know where I am.
The blue marble that is my world is floating in the distance. I was on the moon, I knew it the instant that I saw my world. I decided to investigate my surroundings, which mostly consisted of large rises of grey dust, and some rocks. I was contemplating scaling the nearest rise to find what was beyond when I found myself staring down the hill, into a deep valley of moon dust.
I looked around, despite the large quantity of dust on the surfaces around me, none of it was disturbed. It was as if I hadn’t moved at all. My eyes moved across the landscape, observing the valley, and I found nothing. Nothing but dust.
Of course, it was hard to see the entire valley, as at least half was encased in a shadow of the darkest black. I lifted my hoof, intending to traverse down the hill and into the shadow when I once again found myself suddenly standing before it. It seemed as if the shadow was darker down here than it was up there. For a moment I looked back up the rise, and I was only just able to see the top of my world over the edge of the grey rise. It made me feel… lonely.
It was cold down here, colder than ice. I could feel my joints locking up as I stood upon the edge of shadow. I decided to create a light that I may see into the shadow. I focused on the idea of my horn forging a bright globe of light… nothing came. I tried again… and nothing came.
Frustrated, I tried to look up at my horn, I think perhaps there was something wrong with it. Something rendering it unable to work. Upon looking up, I was forced to immediately lower my eyes, as the brightness of the light was blinding. I looked around, confused. The dust around me was sparkling and shining from the light my horn was producing, but where the shadow began, the light stopped. Not a single ray was penetrating the darkness before me. All light just… stopped.
I was filled with fear now, and with my fear came a noise, high pitch and screeching, that began to build in my head. I turned from the shadow and ran, and was instantly at the top of the rise again. Looking back down, just for a moment, I saw that the shadow was completely gone, and the valley shined as bright at its bottom as it did at its top. Yet the screeching noise remained, and it continued to build around me. Not in volume but in projection. It was getting closer and closer with each passing moment. I looked around, desperately searching for someplace to hide. My eyes contacted my world… my little blue marble, and I wished I could be there.
Something was off, though, as I stared at the world. Even with the screeching noise I noticed. The vast swathes of land were growing, expanding over the seas all the way to the edges of the world. It was not until the land reached the edges, and somehow continued to expand within the shape of the globe that I realized that it was not expanding, but magnifying. The scene displayed was zooming in on some continent that I had never seen before, well beyond the edges of Equestria. I saw mountains and trees, all in top down clarity, until it focused on what appeared to be a cottage from up here.
The screeching suddenly changed, moving from a noise in my head to something real… physical… and I jumped violently when I realized I was no longer on the moon.
I was now standing on my hooves before the cottage that I had seen from the magnifying glass. Around me there were seemingly endless trees, stretched even over the hills on the horizon. The leaves of the trees were all a deep shade of red, almost purple, and though there was a breeze not a single one of them stirred.
I could not tell what time of day it was, though I could see everything around me with clarity. Yet I could clearly tell that the lights in the cottage were blazing brightly, which would have been unnoticeable unless it was nighttime. I also noted a lack of any sound, save for the screeching, which I now perceived to be the sound of a kettle from inside of the cottage. I reached out my hoof to knock on the door, which I now stood in front of. But before my hoof even touched the door it opened a crack, and an old and cracked voice spoke out towards me.
“Who goes there?” The voice sounded as though it hadn’t spoken in centuries.
“It is I, Princess Luna.” I answered.
“Who?”
“L-Luna.” I answered a bit more hesitantly this time. I was confused, how did this pony not know who I was?
Upon speaking my name, without title, the door swung open to reveal an olden grey mare. She looked up at me with joy painted on her face “Luna! Wonderful to see you here, finally. Why in the world did you call yourself Princess? I’ve never even heard of a pony named princess.”
“Wha-“
“Come in, dear, It’s too dark for you to stay out there, come in and have some tea.” The old pony said this as she slowly hobbled back into the cottage, presumably to acquire the tea.
I, however turned to look behind me, and sure enough it was nearly pitch black outside. I could, however, now see the sky, glowing bright blue, above me in the pitch dark forest. I was about to question this out loud when the old pony called to me again.
“Child, come in and have some tea.”
When I blinked I found I was sitting before a short table, with a hot tea sitting before me, steam rising from the cup. I began to speak, intending to question what was going on when the pony interrupted me yet again.
“We’ll talk after we finish our tea, child.”
Why did she keep calling me child? If she knew who I was then she knew that I was older than her. Regardless, she said we could talk when we finished our tea, so I resolved to drink the entire cup now and speak with her as soon as possible. I looked down to my tea… and found the cup empty. When I looked across the table at the old pony’s cup I found that it was empty as well. The old pony was patting her belly, as if the tea she had just consumed was very tasty.
“Now wasn’t that tasty, dear? I love some good old tea, warms me right up! So what have you come to talk about child?”
“Why do you keep calling me child? I’m older than you!” I snapped indignantly. It was frustrating to be called a child, it lowers my respectability.
The old pony laughed when I said that, “Oh, Luna! Always such a spirited one! Everypony is a child to me.” She spoke through her cackling.
“Who are you?”
“Why, I’m the old mare.”
“What, what do you mean by that? Tell me who you are!”
“I am. I’m the old mare”
“You can’t mean THE Old Mare.” I said.
“Why not?”
“Because she doesn’t exist. That’s-“
“Just an Old Mare’s tale?” She asked, with a big grin on her face. It infuriated me to no end.
“Okay, what’s your real name?”
“I can’t remember. It was before my time, and yours.”
“That doesn’t make any sense.” It really didn’t, how can your own name be before your time? In order for you to receive your name you had to be in your own time!
“Oh, Luna. Does anything make sense here? How did you get here? Where did your tea go? Why are you eating a biscuit right now?”
“I’m not-“ But I was, my mouth was full of crumbling bits of a tea biscuit, which tasted very dry without any tea. I swallowed, with some effort, and then put my question to her. “Why don’t YOU tell ME?”
“Okay, you’re not really here. The regular actions like walking or drinking or eating don’t register in your brain, because you’re only here for the good bits.” The Old Mare’s answer was short and clipped, and her voice was warming up; obviously becoming used to speaking again.
“But WHY am I here?” I asked, my frustration somehow failing to where off.
“I barely know why I’m here. I do know my purpose, and that purpose is to serve.”
“Serve whom?”
“Any adventurer who comes to my cottage, today that would be you.”
So she served no true allegiances, which meant that I couldn’t trust her. “So are you going to tell me something?”
“You always have to rush; I would rather not say it while it’s still dark outside.”
“It isn’t dark outside; the sky is still clearly there, visible, for all to see!”
The Old Mare gave me an almost pleading look. “Don’t force me, child. I cannot save you if you force me.”
I stared back, deep into her eyes, and I spoke again. “Tell me.”
“As you wish, the moon is a void.”
“What in the wide world of Equestria is that supposed to-“ Before I could finish speaking I found myself standing on the grey dust of the moon. When I turned to look at the world I saw only flames.
Upon turning back, I realized that I was standing right on top of the original hill I that I had stood on moments before. The shadow was back in the pit. I blinked, and suddenly the shadow was looming over me. One last time, I blinked, and everything was dark.
Then I woke up.
***
“What do you think it means, sister?” Celestia asked. It certainly seemed like a prophecy of some sort, but there was no way of her knowing that. Luna was the dream expert, and she would interpret one of her own dreams.
Luna looked at her dear Tia, and knew not what to say. “I don’t know what it means. All I know is that there’s trouble brewing.”
“How do we fight it?”
“I have no idea. Can you even fight against a dream?” Luna asked.
“Can you?”
“I don’t know. Nightmares are one thing, but this seems real. I have never encountered something like this before.”
“Then what can we do?”
“I guess… I’ll just have to enter the dram again.”
