Not So Golden Slumbers

“What are you thinking about?”

A smile touched the grey unicorn’s lips, though she kept her eyes closed. “The same as when you asked last time,” she said, readjusting her head against him. Having horns often made cuddling a prickly affair, but they had learned to cope. After all, unicorns would not get very far in life if they speared everypony within reach.

“Humor me.”

This time, Misty Moonrise did open her eyes. A sky of deep purples and blues greeted her, flickering with countless silver flecks. Several planets loomed there as well, a few large enough to be accompanied by moons. One enormous gas giant dominated the southeastern horizon, encircled by mesmerizing rings and orbited by three moons, each of a different hue. A comet blazed across the painted sky, trailing pink and lavender stardust.

The land below was illumined briefly by the falling star’s passage, revealing rolling hills of silver grass and chalk cliffs. Blue-stemmed flowers sprouted from the earth, taller than trees and flaring muted emerald and pink petals. On the banks of a gently winding river, a grove of willows wove one another’s vines into braids as they sang in some lilting, soft language that Misty could not understand. All around wandered strange creatures of every size and form: some hovered on gossamer wings, while others lumbered on anywhere between two to eight legs; some had long necks and thin noses, but others had huge eyes and floppy ears; some darted among the ferns and mushrooms, giggling merrily; and most bore the carefree smiles of children.

A tiny firefly flitted up and tickled Misty’s muzzle. She wrinkled her nose, and the firefly bobbed on its way. Twisting around to lay on her stomach, she stretched, and then settled across her special somepony’s chest. The brown unicorn stallion beneath her smiled, the cosmos above reflected in his earthy eyes. Misty leaned closer, and her snowy mane fell like a curtain to hide their exchange from prying eyes.

“For once,” she said, “I am thinking of absolutely nothing.”

Cloudy Day caressed her face with a fore hoof, raising his head slightly. “Except?”

They were so close, their muzzles were nearly touching. Misty’s heart quickened. “Except—”

The world rippled. Everything, from the grass to the giant flowers, the fairy creatures and singing willows, the earth, the sky and planets, the very air—it all lurched in a sudden, jarring vibration. Gritting her teeth and pinning her ears against the chaos, Misty pushed herself away from Cloudy and raised her gaze to the sky. The planets remained, but the stars had vanished.

What in Equestria does that mean? she puzzled. Of all the strange impossibilities that could occur in the Never—the realm of dreams—the disappearance or changing of objects in the sky were the most real and the most worrying. While the Never may be reimagined by the dreamers touching it in their sleep, it still had some influence on the sky. Any dreamwalker worth her salt knew that. It was a widely documented, unchanging constant in a malleable and ever-shifting pocket universe.

“Is something wrong, Misty?” asked Cloudy, sitting up.

Misty barely spared him a glance. Dreamers rarely even recognized when they were dreaming. This was Cloudy’s dream, and, to him, everything in it seemed real. But dreamers could not feel when something happened in the Never, not like dreamwalkers could: a fleeting notion that something odd had happened, a brief sense of déjà vu, but, usually, they remained utterly oblivious. It was why, no matter how many times Misty explained that she was actually, physically in Cloudy’s dream with him, Cloudy never seemed to remember, nor to take her words all that seriously. Telling him yet again would yield no better results.

“No, it’s nothing,” Misty lied, sapphire magic beginning to swirl around her horn. She finally tore her gaze from the troubling sky to instead level it upon Cloudy. “I’m just hearing things, I guess.”

Cloudy tilted his head slightly, one ear quirked sideways, but, just as Misty had known he would, he let the disturbance pass without another word and laid back down on the silver grass. Though the glow of Misty’s magic tinged his fur and cast his shadow on his other side, Cloudy did not notice—a blessed side-effect of the spell Misty was weaving. She stood and quietly departed Cloudy Day’s dream. As she melted into the stem of one of the giant flowers, she glimpsed a phantom of herself take her place beside Cloudy.

On the other side of the dream, the Never spread all around in a variety of forms, from the mundane to the fantastic. They were hazy and veiled when viewed from the outside, but the spires of great cityscapes, the clouds of the open sky, the vivid colors and unnatural shapes of creatures only as real as their dreamers imagined them to be—it was all visible to a dreamwalker such a Misty. But it was rude and an invasion of privacy to trespass, or even watch, others’ dreams without cause, and Misty could neither see nor feel any nightmares that would have waived the courtesies of dreamwalking. In truth, she could only bring herself to visit Cloudy in his dreams because he had given his permission in the waking world.

Ignoring the many strange and wondrous imaginations surrounding her, Misty focused her thoughts and morphed the Never to her will. In the blink of an eye, she stood atop a lonely mountain peak, from which she could view the ever-changing quilt of dreams to every horizon. A full moon hovered in the otherwise empty night sky here, hoary and silent, but a sight to soothe some of Misty’s concerns nevertheless. Had the Never been in any serious danger, that white face would have been the scarlet of a blood moon. But the stars were still gone, which meant there was, indeed, some sort of threat, however minor.

But what could it be? Misty shook her head, scowling at the inky oblivion above her. A dreamwalker she may be, but there remained so much she had to learn. Perhaps Princess Luna will know, she reasoned, a sudden gust of wind billowing through her mane and tail. The Moon Princess was definitely the most skilled dreamwalker alive, and it was she who guarded her subjects’ sleep. Sometimes Princess Luna left other dreamwalkers to aid those dreamers with the more minor nightmares, but, for the most part, she always knew what was happening in the Never. She would know what that warping meant.

* * *

Early that morning, Misty trotted through the halls of the Canterlot Royal Palace. Her hooves rang against the polished tiles, though this corridor was lined with tapestries that dampened the echoes somewhat. The sun had barely risen, but the golden light of dawn flooded through the tall windows as strongly as it would at midday, and ponies in the white and gold servant uniforms of the Sun Princess were already about their daily chores. Misty spied a few ponies wearing the dark blues and purples of the Moon Princess, but these were spare sightings, as the night shift had come to an end with the setting of the moon.

Misty had scarcely turned down the hall leading to Princess Luna’s private chambers when she all but trotted into the regal alicorn herself. Princess Luna’s deep navy coat, with its black splash on the hindquarters and crescent moon cutie mark, was slightly mussed, and her starlit mane and tail could have used a brush—although, Misty was hardly one to talk. She had forgotten to do as much with her own hair. Again.

“Princess Luna, something strange happened last night. The Never—” began Misty, but then she had to scramble out of the way lest she be trampled.

Princess Luna did not even seem to see Misty, her eyes focused on the floor beneath a deeply furrowed brow. Her ears were back, and her wings rustled restlessly against her flanks. Misty could hear her muttering something under her breath, but could make nothing out of it. Princess Luna swept past Misty with neither a word nor a glance, as if Misty did not exist. Then Princess Luna abruptly stopped, head snapping up and eyes widening.

“Princess… Luna?” Misty asked, taking a tentative step closer.

Without warning, starlight erupted from Princess Luna’s horn. Misty Moonrise shielded her eyes from the blinding burst with a raised foreleg. When the light had faded and Misty’s vision had cleared, Princess Luna was gone.

Ears drooping, Misty was left rooted in place. Her mentor had just… teleported away from her? Without saying anything? Misty’s shoulders slumped, and she shuffled her hooves on the tile. Why was Princess Luna ignoring her? Had she done something wrong? Had she made Princess Luna angry? Sure, Misty had not been quite as social as she could have been during her visit to Canterlot, but had she really been so wrapped up in herself that her own teacher wanted nothing to do with her?

Echoes of a conversation they had shared only a few days prior sprang to mind: “You cannot hide away among these books forever, Misty Moonrise. A single loss should not set the mold of one’s life.”

But that had been only a week after all of Misty’s friends had moved away, and Misty had wanted to be alone more than anything else. Not that it was an excuse for outright ignoring Princess Luna’s advice, of course. Misty knew she was in the wrong, and that she should listen to her teacher. But had Misty’s actions then brought about Princess Luna’s sudden cold shoulder now?

Or was it something else entirely? Misty was not the only pony in Princess Luna’s life, after all. She was not even Princess Luna’s only student, but, for some reason, Misty had always thought her bond with Princess Luna was… different. Special. It was a silly notion, thinking oneself more important than another, especially in the eyes of a sovereign. Nevertheless, the tightness in Misty’s chest was unchanged, and the heaviness in her heart remained.

Then an even worse thought crept through Misty’s mind. Her eyes grew wide and round. Did Princess Luna regret taking Misty as one of her pupils? Did she no longer wish to teach Misty at all? Was Misty just a nuisance now?

Misty shook her head and stared at the floor. She did not know what to think anymore. Whatever she had done, if she had done anything, she surely deserved this. She must have brought this upon herself somehow. Princess Luna was not a cruel monarch, nor an unkind teacher. She was a gentle soul, mysterious at times, confounding at others, but pure and genuine. No, Princess Luna could not be at fault. The only one that could possibly be at fault was Misty.

But what had she done?

* * *

The following night, Misty sat alone atop her mountain in the Never, still struggling to come to terms with Princess Luna’s behavior toward her. The full moon was unchanged, as was the empty night sky. Whatever had happened the previous evening, the Never obviously did not feel terribly threatened by it at the moment.

As if to spite her thoughts, the dream world rippled, just as it had last time. Misty’s ledge shook so fiercely that cracks split all along its face and chips of rock plunged earthward. Rather than wait for it to crumble beneath her, Misty shifted her location with a thought. Apparently, this was not the most opportune moment to do so, for Misty was suddenly and violently yanked clear across the Never’s shifting expanse. She tried to slow herself, to halt, but a surge of powerful magic had caught her in its throes. Bracing herself, Misty squeezed her eyes shut and surrendered to the relentless current. Air and dreams rushed past her, through her, the former tangling her mane and tail. The latter sent shivers through her body every time she was ripped into and out of somepony’s dream.

Then she was on the ground, tumbling through tall grass. By the time she rolled to a stop, Misty felt bruised from the tips of her ears to the frogs of her hooves. Biting her tongue on a groan, she slowly pushed herself up. The world still seemed to be spinning; she waited until the dizziness passed. Once confident she could move without swerving, Misty opened her eyes to see where the Never had left her.

The land for miles around was flat and barren but for the tall grass, empty except for one patch. A glittering, swirling dome of starlight separated that portion of the dreamland from the rest of the Never—a thin and translucent veil, but a barrier nonetheless. Encased within was Ponyville, though it was not quite the Ponyville that Misty knew. The houses were running rampant, with eyes and mouths in place of windows and doors, twisted horns and bat wings, and scaly arms and legs swiping at fleeing ponies. Winged, quacking muffins swarmed in the purple sky, and in pursuit of them, firing streaks of golden magic, was… Big Mac? As an alicorn prince, of all things! The pegasus mailpony with her unmistakable walleyes towered over even the windmill, with a taller, far more muscular Spike sitting astride her back, resplendent in knightly armor and brandishing a lance. A tiny pegasus filly with abnormally large wings swooped through the air alongside Rainbow Dash, who had donned a dark, sleek suit reminiscent of a comic book superhero. The rest of the Council of Friendship was there, too, with Applejack in similarly outlandish garments, Fluttershy riding atop a gruesome, disfigured monster that might once have resembled some sort of furry mammal, and Princess Twilight directing a mob of flying books. So many ponies were taking advantage of the impossibilities made possible by the Never, Misty could not track them all.

A shared dream, she realized, gaping. But there was only one pony Misty knew who could create shared dreams, let alone one that encompassed all of Ponyville.

In the center of the chaos, Misty at last spotted the conjuror herself. Floating in a sphere of magic, Princess Luna trembled and grimaced, the spirals of her horn gleaming white and hundreds of writhing threads arcing from the tip. Her beautiful face was contorted by the strain of maintaining the enormous dream, sweat glistening on her brow. Tears streamed from her eyes in rivers as Princess Luna watched the citizens of Ponyville rush hither and thither.

“I cannot hold this dream together much longer!” Princess Luna gasped. “Equestria will fall… because of me!”

And then Misty saw it—a beast of deepest space, cold and unfeeling. A midnight titan unrivaled, a creature of nightmares, it rose above all else in the wavering form of a unicorn. The sheer power radiating from it was beyond anything Misty had witnessed or experienced before.

“I think it’s feeding off your guilt, Princess Luna!” shouted Princess Twilight.

The massive creature suddenly swept its head across the sky, its horn rending a gash in reality. No, a gash to reality! Light poured through the fissure, white and pure, and the monster roared in triumph.

“I created the Tantibus,” Princess Luna admitted, tears redoubling, “to give myself the same nightmare every night… to punish myself for the evil I caused as Nightmare Moon…”

The creature—the Tantibus—strode forward on silent, weightless hooves. It was crossing the Veil! No wonder the Never had warped so forcefully! If that thing made it into reality, if the Never were to flood into the waking world…

Misty quickly banished such horrible thoughts, scowling and summoning her magic. Why was she standing on the outside? Her teacher needed her! However, no sooner had Misty bolted into a gallop than the memory of Princess Luna stalking past, without even a glance Misty’s way, flashed behind her eyes. Her legs locked straight, and she skidded to a halt just short of breaking through the barrier containing the shared dream.

“… make sure I never forgave myself for how much Equestria suffered because of me,” Princess Luna continued. “But it seems I have not learned my lesson, for now I have only made you suffer more…”

Would the princess even want Misty’s help? Would Misty just make things worse? If Princess Luna did not want to speak with Misty, why would she welcome interference by the very pony she had shunned? But the Tantibus was almost halfway through the Veil. If Misty did nothing, how could she ever face Princess Luna again, knowing she could have helped, but had not? Misty pinned her ears against the chaos raging within and without her. What if I do the wrong thing, and Princess Luna distrusts me even more? What if I upset her further?

“How can I forgive myself? I am no better now than I was then,” sobbed Princess Luna. “My creation is about to turn the world into a living nightmare!”

“But look at what you’re doing!” yelled Princess Twilight. “Nightmare Moon would have wanted the Tantibus to turn Equestria into a nightmare—you’re doing everything you can to stop it! Don’t you see? That proves you’re not the same pony you were then!”

Stamping a hoof, Misty cast aside her doubts. No matter what came of it, she had to help her Princess! A spell igniting her horn and fresh vigor pounding in her veins, Misty charged through the magical barrier. From inside the dome, the Tantibus somehow appeared even larger, and the full force of its aura bludgeoned Misty in the heart like a warhammer. The dream magic rushing from the Never toward the tear in the Veil thrummed through her bones and howled in her ears.

“Everypony who knows you knows that Nightmare Moon is in the past,” Princess Twilight went on. “We all trust you, Luna. Do you trust us enough to believe we’re right?”

After a pause, a smile graced Princess Luna’s face. “I do.”

In an instant, the Tantibus recoiled from its escape. It swiftly shrank to no bigger than Princess Luna herself. The rip in the Veil healed without a scar to show it had ever been torn. Magic winking out, Misty dug in her hooves. She watched from the outskirts as the Tantibus obediently returned to its creator, its form melding into that of the princess. Princess Luna’s tears dried, and her distorted countenance smoothed to one of acceptance and peace.

Ducking her head, Misty Moonrise turned away. She had wallowed in indecision too long. Not that her contribution would have made any sort of difference, it seemed. Princess Luna clearly did not trust Misty as much as she did the Council of Friendship. If the Princess of the Night did not think she needed the aid of a fellow dreamwalker—one of her own students—then who was Misty to argue with her? An alicorn millennia old was powerful and wise beyond anything Misty could ever hope to accomplish or learn. It had been foolish of Misty to believe she was more than a passing fancy in the eyes and life of such an immortal as Princess Luna. So, quietly, Misty departed the shared dream, as if she had never been there in the first place.

Only a few seconds after stepping outside the magical barrier, Misty heard the Never close upon the shared dream as Princess Luna brought it to an end. It was soft, hushed, as a whisper of a newborn’s sleeping breath. The Never was not a boisterous place by nature; it needed no fanfare to signal the close of one dream among an ocean of dreams.

Where do I go from here? Misty asked silently, gazing upon the Never sky. The stars had returned, shimmering and twinkling without a care in the world. Princess Luna did not need her. Princess Luna probably cared little about what became of Misty. And there were no bad dreams to be patrolled this evening, not where Misty could sense them anyway. Even if a dreamer had been in the midst of a nightmare, though, Misty was in no frame of mind to perform the duties of a dreamwalker right now.

A familiar aura brushed against her consciousness, warm and kind and willing. Ears still drooped and eyes downcast, Misty followed the aura to its origin at the edge of a dream. Calling upon her magic just long enough to cast the spell that allowed her to enter the dream without disturbing the dreamer, Misty stepped through the haze into a scene with singing willows by the river and planets in the night sky. Not far away stood the dreamer himself, watching Misty’s approach with pricked ears and a downturned mouth.

“What’s wrong, Misty?” asked Cloudy Day when she stopped before him. “You look so… lonely.”

Folding her legs beneath her, Misty laid down in the silver grass. “I’ll be fine,” she answered softly, watching the fairytale creatures dance and frolic in the planetlight. “I just… need to be with somepony right now.”

After a moment, Cloudy settled into the grass beside her and slipped a foreleg around her shoulders. His silence was unjudging, as warm as his love and as safe as his embrace. Misty leaned her head against his chest, closing her eyes. Listening to his heartbeat, she let the events of the past two days fade into memory. She may not be special to Princess Luna, but she was special to Cloudy Day, and that was enough for Misty.