Dreamscape

Chapters

Chapter 01 – The Letter
Chapter 03 – A Self-reflection
Chapter 04 – Dream Limbo 101
Chapter 05 – Magic Training
Chapter 06 – The Dangers of a Magic Overdose
Chapter 07 – Luna’s Labyrinth
Chapter 08 – Into the Valley of Death
Chapter 09 – Traps, Trials, and Tribulations
Chapter 10 – A Hop, Skip, and a Jump
Chapter 11 – The Nightmare Realm
Chapter 02 – Nocturnal Predation

Chapter 01 – The Letter

Dear Luna,

I am writing to you in the hopes that you will consider discussing your dominion over the dream realm with me. You see, my special talent also lies outside of the waking world and I feel that we will both greatly benefit from working together.

For you, this relationship will provide an opportunity to share your burdens and knowledge. I understand how hard it must have been for you to be so alone for so long, and if friendship is what you seek, then that is certainly something that I will be able to help provide. As far as danger is concerned, I would not be writing to you if I was not absolutely sure that I was up for the task; while studying at Canterlot University I took several classes to strengthen and amplify my magic, so I am well-prepared for any danger that we may encounter during our many exciting adventures together. In addition, I recently found myself able to cast a dream-walking spell, and I have traveled through other ponies’ dreams every night since then. I now have a great deal of experience with this and know exactly what I am getting in to.

For me, this relationship will provide a unique opportunity to learn from the master—a chance to really discover who I am and just how much I can do. If you just give me a chance to prove myself, then I am sure that you will be greatly impressed by my abilities. I would like to meet with you sometime soon to discuss my internship position in greater detail. I look forward to working with you in the near future.

Sweet dreams,

Lucidity

Celestia silently studied the scroll her sister had just set in front of her, unsure of how to react to its contents. After a short time, she opened her mouth to speak, but changed her mind and quickly shut it again, gathering her thoughts a moment longer before finally saying, “Surely this is not as it appears, dear sister. I am confident that this pony did not mean any disrespect towards you in writing this letter.”

“No,” Luna replied evenly, clearly trying to hold back her rage, with mild success. “We have detected her intrusions for some time now. We refused to believe it could be possible, but now…” Resuming her furious pacing, she noticed her older sister magically pick up the accursed letter and begin to look it over once again. With a snarl, Luna forcibly wrenched the ireful message from her sister’s grasp in a field of her own aura and promptly crumpled it into a tight ball, setting the paper scroll ablaze with a small burst of incendiary magic from her horn. Allowing the smoldering remains to fall from her telekinetic grip, Luna whispered under her breath, “She will pay dearly for this insolence.” She watched as her many minute tendrils of magic fire encircled the small pile of ashes now littering the castle floor, snaking and coiling harmlessly across the flagstones until they were eventually extinguished into nothingness.

“Luna,” Celestia started cautiously, interrupting her sister’s train of thought. “I know what you’re thinking, but you really shouldn’t—”

Luna, however, hadn’t heard a single word her sister had said. All of her concentration was focused on one thing—the signature at the bottom of that letter. It was emblazoned in her mind like a wound that could never heal, constantly itching and burning at her until the time came that she would rise to action. “Lucidity,” she muttered darkly before vanishing in a bright flash of light, the silence following her teleport punctuating the finality of her act.

“—jump to any rash decisions,” Celestia finished lamely.

§§§

“I’m not worried,” Lucidity tried to reassure herself. “I’m not worried.” Letting out a long, drawn-out sigh, she thought aloud, “It’s no use. Even if I’m not worried,” at this point, she honestly couldn’t tell anymore. “It’s my nerves that are killing me.” And repeating this mantra sure isn’t helping anything, she added as a silent afterthought.

Turning around, Lucidity could see a young unicorn mare barely out of university, her mane a golden waterfall of curls cascading down onto the stony greyness of her coat below while a matching tail gently glided along the light current of air wafting into her cottage from a nearby open window. Lowering her gaze from the pony’s sea-blue eyes, Lucidity could also see the mare’s cutie mark: a trio of deep-blue Z’s zigzagging down her flank.

“Come on, you’ve been training for this moment for years and, besides, there’s no turning back now.”

“But what if you fail? What if you’re not quite as good as you think you are?” the reflection asked, clearly paranoid as it voiced Lucidity’s deepest fears through worst-case scenarios. “Luna isn’t going to go easy on you, you know. If you make the slightest mistake, then that’s it—game over.”

“I know, but I have to try,” she said a little too forcefully, trying to convince herself more than anyone else. “I mean, this is my special talent we’re talking about here; I can’t just give up. And it’s not like I could just choose to study astronomy or something. The stars are way too boring for me to enjoy doing that.”

“Thou darest insult our night sky as well!” a powerful voice boomed. Dark storm clouds swirled about Luna, marking her descent as she made her way down towards Lucidity’s home. “Thine mettle was almost certainly forged from either a mind more dense than lead or nerves stronger than steel, and we sincerely doubt it is much of the latter.”

Lucidity galloped outside, shocked to find herself face to face with the one pony she wouldn’t have expected to meet outside of her wildest dreams. The first thought to cross her mind was that Luna was much taller in pony than she had expected. The second was: There is no way that I’m going to be able to do this.

No, pull yourself together, the nervous mare silently reprimanded herself. You can do this, Lucidity. You’ve been waiting for this opportunity your entire life. If you let your nervousness force you to quit now, you’ll never be able to forgive yourself. The words gave her some reassurance but didn’t do anything for her shaking legs or fear-induced near-paralysis. And besides, she said inwardly before gulping audibly. What’s the worst that could happen?

As if on cue, a downpour of rainwater suddenly came from above, soaking the pair. Looking up, they saw a familiar, wall-eyed pegasus waving at them from atop a recently emptied storm cloud. “Sorry,” she shouted awkwardly once she had gotten both of their attentions before continuing to disperse the clouds Luna’s entrance had attracted.

“Um, would you like to come in?” Lucidity asked nervously.

“Fine,” Luna replied, her glare never lessening as she entered the other mare’s home. “If but only to get ourselves dry again,” she added with a snort. They walked over to the fireplace and sat down in silence, trying to warm and dry their coats. Luna felt her self-control start to wane as she waited expectantly for Lucidity to explain herself. Her own inaction was eating at her insides but she continued to say nothing, instead choosing to grant the disrespectful mare one final chance to redeem herself before she decided to resort to anything too… permanent.

After a few minutes of awkward silence, Lucidity finally spoke up. “Thank you for arriving so promptly, Luna.” Seeing that her guest’s perpetual glower hadn’t increased, she continued, slightly emboldened, “I assume that you’re here because of my letter?” Luna, in response, kept scowling at her, silent and unmoving. More and more of Lucidity’s nervousness began to show, her ears lowering and voice beginning to approach a pleading tone as she suggested, “Maybe we should start making some arrangements, then?”

At that, Luna went completely ballistic, roaring, “Arrangements?!” Lucidity sank lower and lower into her chair, fearing that this meeting may not have been such a good idea after all. “Dost thou thinkest that this is some sort o-of... game?” she sputtered, her words almost failing her as her frustrations boiled over to the point where she very nearly broke into the Royal Canterlot Voice.

Then, without any warning, a sudden change overtook Luna, stopping her wild, ranting gesticulations as her body tried to process the change that was just starting to form in her mind. It was barely noticed by Lucidity, but she had no idea what she was witnessing or what its cause was. It was as if somepony had flipped a switch and, for the briefest of moments, left an entirely new pony in Luna’s place. Luna’s eyes, however, immediately flooded with recognition as she silently mouthed out a single word, “Umbra.” No, she asserted. Not again. Taking several deep breaths in an effort to calm herself down, Luna slowly fought to regain control of the situation.

“Thou wast a fool to summon us here,” Luna whispered softly, almost to herself, once she had become composed enough to speak again. A solitary tear dropped down the length of her muzzle, heavy with the burden of traumatic memories long repressed. “Even more so for knowing we could not refuse.” Standing up, she spoke again, this time her voice coming forth much more forcefully. “No, there will be no arrangements made this evening.” She spat out the word with contempt, as if it were a poison that had tainted her throat with its vile presence. “Verily, for if thy thirst for power is so great, then there is but one way through which thou mayst receive it.”

“You don’t mean—”

“Lucidity of Ponyville,” Luna continued in the full Royal Canterlot Voice, ignoring the other mare’s interruption. “We hereby challenge thee to a magic duel.” She paused for a moment to allow the full effect of her words to sink in before continuing in a slightly more-controlled tone, “Thou knowest of the risks and stakes involved, we presume.”

Dumbly, Lucidity nodded her head, unable to believe what she was hearing. She’s actually giving me a chance, she thought to herself, unable to believe her luck. Out of nowhere, a flash of blue light filled the unicorn’s vision and, letting out a large yawn, Lucidity realized that she had suddenly become extremely tired. Her legs and eyelids felt heavier with each passing second and she nearly collapsed from exhaustion, instead turning the motion into a not-so-graceful flop from her chair to the floor. Turning her head, she could tell from the princess’ regal form outlined by her still-burning fireplace that Luna had gotten the same idea, albeit falling on the ground much more gracefully. The two equines attempted to stare each other down from their respective fallen positions for what seemed to Lucidity like hours though she knew it couldn’t have spanned even a full minute. Finally, after attempting to stifle yet another yawn, Lucidity felt her eyes close for the last time.

Opening her eyes again, the first thing Lucidity noticed was that she was definitely not in her living room anymore. She looked around carefully, now finding herself in an all-white, flat plane that appeared to have absolutely nothing in it. What is this place? the grey unicorn thought to herself.

As if reading her mind, the lunar diarch chose that very moment to materialize behind the young mare. “The Dreamscape,” she answered coolly in response to Lucidity’s unvoiced question.

Giving a small yelp of surprise from the shock of hearing another pony’s voice, Lucidity was slow to respond to the princess’ remark. “R-really? It sure doesn’t look like it did when I was visiting other ponies’ dreams.”

“This is because we are currently in Dream Limbo,” Luna explained in a strained voice, her face a fragile dam of calm holding back a raging river of rising resentment already starting to spring leaks. Stepping in front of the unicorn, Luna exclaimed, “Let us commence battle immediately!” She rose up into the air and could not help but smirk when Lucidity’s only response was to look down at her own hooves, unable to make a sound. “What is wrong, my little pony? Wast this not thy wish, ‘a chance to prove thyself’?” she asked mockingly, allowing her voice to reach royal volumes as she referenced Lucidity’s catalytic letter. “Well here it is.”

Chapter 03 – A Self-reflection

Lucidity’s head whipped around at the sound of the disembodied voice, causing her to wince slightly from the sudden movement. “H-Hello? W-Who’s there?” she called out nervously, torn between the fears of having her question be met with silence and somepony actually responding. Seconds passed by, and it seemed that the former would win out as silence echoed noiselessly throughout the white emptiness making up Dream Limbo. Before long though, a slight shimmering began to answer Lucidity’s call. She caught it in the corner of her eye and turned around so as to better observe what was occurring.

A strange wave pattern had appeared in the center of Lucidity’s vision, slowly spreading outwards like rings in a pond before suddenly coming to a stop. The ripples in reality rapidly receded, coalescing into a bright pinprick of light. It stayed like that for just a moment, before quickly expanding into a startling, white flash that temporarily blinded the blue-eyed unicorn mare. As her vision slowly returned to her, Lucidity found herself face to face with an eerily similar-looking, blond-maned equine.

“You are,” the newcomer said simply in response to the question posed upon her arrival to the Dreamscape.

“Huh?”

“I’m you,” she clarified in a voice not unlike Lucidity’s own. Still not entirely convinced, Lucidity lifted a grey hoof up into the air and her double mimicked the action. She put it back down, prompting the other pony to do the same. Before she could follow it up with another motion, however, her doppelgänger interrupted, “Are we really going to do this?”

“Sorry,” Lucidity replied. “It’s just, when am I ever going to be in this situation again, you know?”

“The next time you look into a mirror,” came the sarcastic reply.

“Oh, ha ha, very funny,” Lucidity shot back. “You know what I meant.”

“Naturally. I am you, after all,” the other mare said teasingly.

“And just how is that possible exactly?”

“Well, I’m the physical manifestation of your subconscious. Right now, we’re using the Subconscious Plane as a sort of gateway between worlds through which we can communicate and interact.”

“Oh…” Lucidity responded awkwardly, not having any idea what all that had meant. An empty silence filled the Dreamscape as the utterance echoed away from the pair. That explanation created more questions than answers, Lucidity thought to herself. Trying to fill the void her words had left, she attempted to rekindle their conversation. “So what should I call you, then?”

“Well, considering that I’m mainly composed of parts of your personality, I think Lucidity would be a good fit, don’t you?”

“But won’t that be confusing?”

“Only to others,” Lucidity teased.

“So, why exactly are you here?”

“Don’t look at me, I’m you. I can’t tell you anything you don’t already know.”

“Then how did you tell me about the Subconscious Plane? I’ve never even heard of it before, much less known it existed,” Lucidity pointed out.

“You came across the term in a book a few years back. Just because you skimmed over that little tidbit doesn’t mean I didn’t take a good look at the information and save it for later.”

“So I guess that means you don’t have any ideas on how to get us out of this nightmare?”

“Not really, no. I’m just as clueless as you are. But hey, two heads are better than one, right? I’m sure we’ll be able to come up with something.”

“Even if those two heads are really just one pony?” Lucidity pointed out.

“Yeah, well… strength in numbers and all that. It’ll be fine, you’ll see. We just need to keep moving and focus on finding the way out of here.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, there clearly isn’t anything useful out here for miles around. Our only option is to go and look for the way out. Unless you happen to have a better suggestion?”

“No,” Lucidity conceded. “Alright then, let’s go.”

After what may have been many more miles of marching—the uniformity of the Dreamscape made it impossible to tell whether they’d actually made any progress or not—nothing had given the nomadic duo any indication that their search would be fruitful any time soon or end up as anything other than an abject and utter failure. “You know what we could do…” Lucidity voiced after an extended stretch of uncomfortable silence had passed between the two travelers.

“What?” Lucidity quickly responded, always grateful for a break in the monotonous lull of their journey in the form of an opportunity to talk to herself.

“Instead of just wandering around aimlessly—which clearly hasn’t accomplished anything except to waste our time—we should be preparing for another ambush from Luna. There’s still a lot that we don’t know about this place, and it would do us a lot of good to try and learn more about it.”

“And how do you plan on doing that?” Lucidity countered.

“Well, we could try to solve the mystery of your appearance for one, and Luna’s sudden disappearance after her last attack for another.”

“Don’t forget about that weird metal dome that just appeared randomly out of nowhere.”

“Right. Maybe we could do some investigating into, or try experimenting with…” Lucidity’s voice faltered, the day’s events finally catching up to and overwhelming her. She suddenly felt very panicked: pressures and stresses mounting, life-or-death duels, and an infinitely empty prison—it was all too much. She was about to completely break down when a sudden, eerie calm overtook her.

Lucidity stared blankly ahead, encountering the exact same scenery that she’d been seeing ever since she’d first arrived to these white lands. It was all around her, that constant, unchanging, blank backdrop that continually taunted her with its minimalist appearance. And just like that, she snapped. “Gah! Why is this place so empty?” she angrily shouted into the Dreamscape, with nothing but its oppressively silent, blank, white walls to answer her.

“Are you okay, Lucy?” Lucidity asked worriedly, using their shared foalhood nickname in an attempt to placate the clearly distraught mare.

“No,” Lucidity sniffled. “I’m not. I-It’s just…”

“Look, I know being trapped here must be incredibly hard on you. Not to mention that this whole Luna fiasco has probably frazzled your nerves in half.” Holding up a hoof to stop Lucidity’s oncoming objection, she continued, “Don’t even try to deny it. I’m you, remember? Now, where was I…? Oh, right! Look, you had a great idea there, Lucy. We just need to figure out what makes this place tick. All we need is a good starting point, and all our knowledge of the Dreamscape will easily snowball from there. Until then, we should probably just try and avoid Luna. Although, it wouldn’t be a bad idea to have a contingency plan for that, just in case. So, what do you say? Are you ready to show this place who’s boss!”

Still too emotionally drained to say anything in response, Lucidity simply nodded her head in agreement, following her subconscious’ lead as they once again strode into the vast unknown—this time, however, with a few clear goals in mind and, for the first time, the beginnings of a solid plan.

Chapter 04 – Dream Limbo 101

“Okay, so the first thing that we need to do is figure out what’s been causing all these strange appearing and disappearing acts.”

“Right,” Lucidity responded, already feeling better than she had when they’d first started this leg of their journey. “Let’s start with you. Are you sure that you have no idea how you got here?”

Lucidity shook her head in response. “Nope, not a clue. It was just suddenly—poof! Subconsciousness to consciousness, just like that. It’s a pretty strange feeling actually.”

“That reminds me, how do you know that you’re my subconscious? I mean, I didn’t know, and I thought that you couldn’t know anything I wasn’t already aware of.”

“I dunno. I just sort of knew, you know? Maybe taking residence in a more physical form gave me some sort of innate, instinctual knowledge of what I was. Or maybe you subconsciously suspected I was your subconscious and I picked up on that. In any case, I have no idea how I got here and know next to nothing about the Dreamscape, so…”

“You’re right. This isn’t getting us any closer to finding a way out of here.” Lucidity let out a deep sigh, wondering which options were left to them at this point. “If only there was a way to test out some spells,” she lamented. “But there’s nothing in here to levitate and any sort of flare would only draw Luna’s attention.”

“What about me?”

“Huh?”

“You could try to lift me,” Lucidity clarified.

“No, you’re too heavy for me to lift. I’d need something much smaller to practice with.”

“Wasn’t that the whole reason behind you taking those magic-strengthening courses in college?”

“Those were focused in magic theory, remember? Not real-world application. Miss Postulate even told the class multiple times that a lot of what we were learning wouldn’t be feasible in the real world. A large portion of what we learned in our last year was impossible to test empirically and had never been proved.”

“Well, considering that we’re not exactly in the real world right now…”

Lucidity stopped abruptly and turned to face her double. “Wait. What did you just say?”

“That we’re not technically in the real world right now?”

“Yes, exactly! We’re not in the real world, we’re in the Dreamscape. That means that right now, we’re—well, I’m—dreaming. And you know the only way out of a dream, don’t you?”

“Um, Lucidity. I don’t think that’s such a great idea...”

“Oh, hush. You’re my subconscious, not my conscience. And besides, what’s the worst that could happ—?”

Lucidity quickly jammed a hoof into her conscious self’s mouth. “Are you crazy?” she hissed. “Do you have any idea what saying something like that would probably do to us in here? And as far as worst-case scenarios go, how do both of our deaths sound? Or even worse, an eternity trapped in Dream Limbo.”

“What do you mean?”

“What I mean, is that dying in here will only make things a lot, lot worse.”

“And just how exactly do you know all that?”

“I just feel it somehow. But trust me, it’s not a route we should take except as a last resort.”

“Yeah, I guess you’re probably right. Do you have any better ideas?”

“Nope, I can only think of things you would already be able to come up with, remember?”

“It sure doesn’t seem that way.”

“Well, I’m more attuned to your thoughts and memories than you are. Those kinds of things just stick around in my head for a lot longer, that’s all. Especially the things that you’ve already forgotten about.”

“How convenient,” Lucidity remarked dryly.

“Sooo?”

“What?” Lucidity asked, unsure as to what her companion was driving at.

The grey mare stood fully upright in response, wobbling on her two hind legs as she quickly gestured at the entire length of her body before her off-balance posture caused her to collapse back down onto all fours.

“Alright, alright. I guess I could try to lift you with the help of some aural cross-bracing. Now lie down.”

Her subconscious quickly complied, eager to begin. “Sure thing, Lucy. Anything to get off of these sore hooves for a little while,” she joked.

Lucidity screwed her eyes shut in concentration, straining to form a mental construct of the structure she needed to build in order to lift her doppelgänger into the air. She tried to fit her light-blue aura around the model, shakily at first, but more confidently and assuredly as she continued adding more and more magic to her design.

Eventually satisfied with her hornwork, Lucidity reopened her eyes and was dismayed to find a dismal scene awaiting her. What she had thought had been a well-constructed lifter had turned out to be nothing more than an azure mishmash of aura, looking more like a tangled knot than anything else.

Her subconscious studied the creation with a mock-critical eye as Lucidity let it dissipate back into the Dreamscape. “Well, that wasn’t too bad anyway, for a first try,” she said at length. “But seriously though, don’t let that attempt get you down. With some more practice, I’m sure you’ll pick up this theory stuff in no time.”

“Not likely; this is some pretty advanced magic. Besides, don’t you remember the grades we got in some of those courses?”

“And do you remember what I said about this not being the real world?”

“What are you getting at?” Lucidity asked cuttingly, trying to get to the point.

“Well, for example, in the real world, I doubt that anypony could separate somepony else from their subconscious, much less managing to do so without causing irreversible harm to either party. The physics of the Dreamscape probably operate much differently from those in your world.”

“And just how do you know all that again?” Lucidity asked, one eyebrow raised.

“I don’t; I’m just guessing. But that doesn’t mean I’m wrong.”

“It also doesn’t mean you’re right.”

“Well, aren’t you being a glass-half-empty sort of pony today,” Lucidity said in an overly exaggerated, accusative tone.

“Nope, just realistic.”

“Well, in any case, I bet all that magic theory stuff is a ton easier to do in here—while you’re dreaming. I think it’d be worth it to at least try out some of what you learned in school and start practicing it until you get your skills honed. Besides, if we want to be able to fight back against Luna when she launches her next surprise attack, we’ll have to do better than bright lights and loud noises. What we need are good, strong, defensive spells, and I think I know the perfect one to start with.”

Chapter 05 – Magic Training

“C’mon, Lucy! You can do it,” her subconscious shouted over the buzzing of the unicorn casting a dozen different spells in her most-recent effort to sustain the magical creation she was attempting to build.

Lucidity’s horn was shrouded in a light-blue aura, fiery to the touch from the demanding workload it was being put through as it channeled a wide array of spells whose purposes ranged from feedback loop prevention to magical buildup monitoring. The grey unicorn felt like she was about to burn out from keeping up this large of an energy expenditure for so long but pushed her worries aside, instead trying to focus on finding the faint, practically nonexistent ley lines of the Dreamscape through which she would be able to feed her magic much more easily.

“You’re almost there, Lucidity! I can feel it. Just remember what Miss Postulate taught us. ‘Imagine pressing your magic together, concentrating the aura into a more solid mass. Visualize your finished product. Keep the thaumaturgic fields bound together tightly.’”

“I know,” Lucidity responded through gritted teeth. “But it’s a lot more difficult than it sounds. It’s almost as if these fields don’t want to stay together.”

“Hmm… Maybe this type of magic induces a charged current in the flow of aura. Try flipping some of the fields’ orientations.”

Lucidity’s body tensed up as she strained her horn even further, trying to straighten out the various aural matrices she was working on by reversing some of their polarities and then attempting to line them up properly again. With an explosive crash, everything suddenly snapped into place, the accompanying flash of light bright enough to blind the blue-eyed mare for a few moments. As the light cleared, a large, shimmering, translucent-blue dome formed around its caster, protecting her from further harm.

Lucidity collapsed onto the ground, her body exhausted and energy depleted. Her horn dimmed down to a faint, blue glow, glad to have a rest from how overworked it had been. “Ow,” she deadpanned groggily, still dizzy but otherwise relieved to find that most of her safety measures and precautionary spells had held up in spite of the accidental magic discharge.

Once her ears had finally quit ringing, Lucidity stood back up to find her subconscious beaming at her from across the glassy barrier. “Woohoo! Great job, Lucidity; I knew you could do it!” she whooped and cheered excitedly.

The object of Lucidity’s adulation smiled back appreciatively before noticing that they still had a bit of a dilemma. “Um, Lucidity. How am I supposed to get out of here?” She leaned against the wall of her magic enclosure, testing how well it would fare against the force of her weight being placed on it, but found the dome to be quite secure and impenetrable.

“Yeah, that could be a problem,” her subconscious conceded as she searched the shield’s surface for some sign of a flaw or weakness that her conscious counterpart could exploit as an escape route. “Hey, wait a second,” she called out, remembering something. “Isn’t this thing supposed to be mobile? Try shrinking it down and dragging it along in tandem to your movements.”

Lucidity reached up and prodded her sore horn, wincing a little but satisfied to find that it would still be able to function even after the earlier, violent backlash. Her horn’s low thrumming—soft and slow now that it was no longer swamped with various spells—intensified as Lucidity experimented with changing the size of her protective dome. She found the now-properly aligned thaumaturgic fields to be a lot easier to manipulate and control—thankfully so, since she didn’t want to overdo anything and risk her overworked horn spazzing out a second time.

Eventually, her fiddling resulted in a roughly pony-sized bubble, its reduced size meaning that Lucidity could now use her magic to push it alongside her with relative ease. “Alright, this is fun and all,” Lucidity commented, her voice just loud enough for her subconscious to be able to hear her through the pale-blue dome. “But I think my horn needs a rest from all this magic for a while. How do I get rid of this thing?”

“Can’t you just drop the spell holding it all together?” Lucidity asked pointedly.

“No. I’m afraid that if I do, it will expand all out of control again and trigger another massive explosion. We have to find a way to let it disintegrate calmly, without it blowing up.”

“That could be difficult; all that energy’s gonna have to go somewhere,” Lucidity pointed out.

A moment of silence passed between the two unicorns as they tried to come up with a solution to this newly discovered dilemma. After a while, Lucidity piped up. “What if I just start undoing the shield’s framework piece by piece? That way, the energy will be dispensed slowly—in short, small bursts that can’t do a lot of damage.”

“That might work…” her subconscious said cautiously, shuffling backwards a couple of steps just to be safe. “But I guess there’s only one way to find out.”

“Alright.” Lucidity took a deep breath in and slowly let it back out. “Let’s do this.” She screwed her eyes shut in concentration for what was hopefully the last time in the next few hours, mentally prepping herself for the difficult task that lay ahead, and once again brought her still-painfully throbbing horn to full power, its loud humming serving as a constant reminder not to push herself too far.

As she worked on finding the best way to safely dismantle her protective shield, it started to shimmer slightly, slowly oscillating between a pale, near-translucence and a strong bluish color closely resembling Lucidity’s own aura as the occasional strand of magic strayed and collided against it, the contact causing the dome to come back in full force for a moment before it settled back down into a lower, more stable energy state once again. Not too long after she had begun, numerous holes started to appear on the sphere’s surface, signaling that the unicorn’s work was beginning to weaken the bonds holding the magical contraption together. As more and more of the thaumaturgic fields were disabled and discarded, the dome began to disintegrate more quickly.

Its disassembly soon started to lose control, and any remaining magical energy was quickly dragged away in dangerously large waves, dispersed into the distant reaches of the Dreamscape with loud sizzles and pops that were soon accompanied by bright blue flashes of light.

“Well that wasn’t too bad,” Lucidity commented a couple seconds after the lights and bangs had ceased. “Definitely more controlled than I thought it would be. And I think you got most of its payload away before that nasty chain reaction took over.”

Lucidity, now totally exhausted from magical overexertion, gave a weak nod in agreement before wordlessly wobbling over to her subconscious.

Her companion met her halfway, offering the drained unicorn a shoulder to support her and help her stay standing. “Do you think you’re okay to keep going, Lucy?” she asked worriedly, concerned that the toll of all her recent spellcasting may have strained her consciousness a little too far.

“I think… maybe I should… rest a little first,” Lucidity pronounced slowly.

“I think you’re probably right,” the other mare agreed, seeing Lucidity’s already half-closed eyelids, heavy with fatigue. She gently helped the tired pony down onto the ground so she could recover from the stresses of the last few hours.

Chapter 06 – The Dangers of a Magic Overdose

“Feeling better?” Lucidity asked once her conscious counterpart had finally stirred from her pseudo-slumber.

“A little,” she admitted. “I didn’t really get any sleep though. At least my horn doesn’t feel like it’s trying to stab my brain anymore.”

“Well that’s an improvement,” Lucidity said good-humoredly. “Still, you should probably try to take it easy on complex magic-casting for a while, just to be safe.”

“Oh yeah,” the other equine agreed emphatically. “No more giant magic shields for me. That thing required way too much energy to make.”

“Do you think that’s what that weird steel dome thing was when we first arrived in Dream Limbo?”

“I doubt it. That one wasn’t all clear like mine was, and besides, I’m still pretty sure it was made from some sort of metal, not magic.”

“Well—”

“Where art thee, Lucidity?” a voice inquired cuttingly, its words easily carrying across the wide-open plane of Dream Limbo and startling the pair of grey unicorns currently inhabiting its vast, white emptiness.

“What was that?” Lucidity asked fearfully, looking up in the direction she thought the sound had come from.

“It’s just Luna trying to psych us out again,” her subconscious replied. “We better get moving though; we don’t want her to catch up to us.”

Lucidity nodded in silent agreement, taking the lead from her doppelgänger as they quickly cantered away from the sounds of Luna’s relentless goading.

“Cease thy incessant cowering and face us like a mare,” the disembodied voice continued.

“Just keep going,” Lucidity whispered softly to the grey equine running alongside her. “If we don’t respond, she might not be able to track us.”

“Hiding shalt only delay the inevitable, Lucidity. Appear before us now so that we may be finished with this petty foalishness.”

“Argh! Isn’t there any way we can lose her?” the target of the lunar princess’ threats lamented.

“Not unless you somehow mastered teleportation at some point in the last thirty seconds,” her subconscious dryly remarked.

“Do you think that I could?” Lucidity pondered seriously.

“What do you mean?”

“Well, if my magic is stronger in here than it is out in the real world—”

“Just try it!” the subconscious equine interrupted, worried that Luna would appear at any moment.

Lucidity charged up her horn—slowly at first in case not enough recuperation time had passed since the dome incident—and began to prepare an advanced spell that she had never cast before and knew almost nothing about. She started by collecting a large bundle of magic in her horn. Once the concentration had gotten high enough, she readied the spell to release it all in one burst. In a flash, she had opened the floodgates, allowing the torrent of magic to encapsulate her and Lucidity and, hopefully, transport all of their respective particles to a different position while retaining their original orientations.

Slightly disoriented, the two relatively unharmed unicorns looked around their new surroundings, relieved to find Dream Limbo to be as blank and, thankfully, silent as ever.

“Well,” Lucidity began, trying to catch her breath as her body adjusted to the effects of losing the energy that had been drained away by all of her strenuous spellcasting. “I think that actually worked.”

“Thank Celestia,” her subconscious commented in response. “That was a little too close for comfort. But I think we learned something important from that little encounter.”

“Oh? And what would that be?”

“That if we want to have a chance against Luna and win this magic duel of yours, then we’re still hopelessly underprepared and outmatched.”

“Well, in all honesty, I’d still like to try and find a way out of here that doesn’t involve me having to be in a fight against Luna to the last mare standing.”

“I’m not so sure there is another way out of here, Lucy. In any case, we still have a lot of work to do on your spellcasting before Luna shows up again. Now, in a fair fight, she would be able to take us both on without breaking a sweat.”

“Obviously,” Lucidity returned without much enthusiasm. “Are you saying that we should find a way to cheat?”

“No, I’m saying that we should find a way to artificially increase your magic’s potency.”

“Sounds like cheating to me.”

”Yeah, well, all’s fair in love and war,” Lucidity fired back. “So anyway, I think that the first thing we need to do is work on strengthening your defensive magic.”

“Yeah, I’ve never been very good at that sort of thing,” the grey unicorn admitted. “And that shield I made earlier takes way too much time and energy to be of any use during a fight.”

“True, but what if you tried creating one on a smaller scale?”

“I think that even that small, mobile shield would be too difficult for me to cast on such short notice.”

“Well practicing the smaller one once couldn’t hurt, right? If you think you’re up to it, that is.”

Lucidity tapped her horn once experimentally and then gave a small, curt nod. “Yeah, my horn should be fine for a little while longer at least. I guess I can give it a go.” She planted all four hooves firmly on the ground, preparing to go about the process of compressing her magic to the point where it would be solid enough to bear the weight of several powerful spells hitting it at once without shattering into a million pieces.

Lucidity watched herself work at a distance, silently observing the shield’s construction and noting how the unicorn making it was faring throughout the entire process. As she looked at the dome just beginning to form—its light-bluish color coming and going in patches all across its exterior—an idea suddenly came to her. “Hey, Lucidity! Instead of making a giant sphere around your whole body, why not just place a small wall directly in front of you instead? I mean, Luna will most likely only attack you from one side at a time anyway, so why waste the extra energy, you know?”

Lucidity, red in the face from the effort she was putting into her spellcasting, responded in clipped, rasping pants, “Okay. Sounds good. I’ll try that.” She willed even more of her magic forth, the increased flow of energy causing her horn to grow brighter and her creation to follow suit until they were both pulsating with her azure aura. With a steady output of magic now in place, Lucidity turned her attention to reconfiguring the thaumaturgic fields in order to keep them confined to their new shape.

Once she had finished tinkering with the design, Lucidity opened her eyes, delighted to find a glittering, blue wall of energy waiting in front of her, ready to shield her from any and all frontal assaults that might arise. “Well, that wasn’t nearly as bad as last time,” she joked, smiling weakly as she marveled at what she had managed to build.

“Try moving it around,” the other mare suggested. “See if you can place it behind and above you.”

Lucidity quickly complied with her subconscious’ commands, finding the creation to be cumbersome to pivot around herself at first, but able to rotate much more easily once she had gotten the hang of it. After playing around with the magical barrier for a little longer, Lucidity began undoing a couple of the key connections, careful not to set off the same chain reaction as last time. As the structural integrity of the wall was weakened further, however, she began to find it harder and harder to keep its combustion levels in check.

Desperate not to have another external outburst of energy, Lucidity soon found herself taking in more magic than she could safely manage. Before long, her horn’s natural resistances had become overloaded and all of her connections with the wall were cut simultaneously, completely severing off any control that she had had over its release of energy. Seeking out some sort of magical conduit to absorb its excess aura, Lucidity’s shield soon settled for her own horn, bombarding it with magical energy.

It was all over in a single, painful instant, and Lucidity, vision swimming, dizzily tried to stand back up but found her body to be uncooperative.

“Lucidity! Lucidity! Are you okay?” her subconscious shouted as she ran over to help her fallen companion get back onto her hooves.

“Huh?” was all the grey mare managed to murmur in response to the sudden commotion, her mind still fuzzy from everything that had just happened.

Waiting until the dazed pony’s head was clearer, Lucidity tried asking again, “How do you feel?”

“I-I feel… good. Great, actually.” A sudden change overtook the blue-eyed unicorn, her horn glowing brightly of its own accord as she shouted, “Quick, give me a spell to cast!”

“Oh, um, okay,” Lucidity said confusedly, puzzled by her conscious self’s sudden enthusiasm. “I guess you could try practicing some more teleportation?”

“Great idea!” she announced unnecessarily loudly, quickly bathing herself in a bright, blue glow as she prepared the spell. In a flash of light, she was gone, reappearing just behind her blond-maned doppelgänger. A moment later, she had vanished again, this time teleporting to Lucidity’s right. Another disappearance, and then she was popping up right back in front of the other mare. “I feel like a million bits!” she exclaimed joyously, a smile wide enough to rival a certain pink baker’s shining up on her face. “I’m on a magic high and it feels wonderful!”

“You’re just lucky all that magic didn’t kill you. In fact, it’s amazing that you’re still able to stand, much less do anything else,” Lucidity said half-seriously, half-smiling, as she struggled to suppress the happiness her consciousness’ excitement was starting to cause her to feel in turn.

“We should go confront Luna right now,” Lucidity said in a tone that didn’t lend itself to kidders.

“What?” the other unicorn asked disbelievingly, hoping that her double was somehow joking.

“Yeah, it’ll be great! I’ll be all zap, zap! And then Luna will be all like, ‘Oh no, I’m dying!’ It’ll be great! She won’t stand a chance!” Lucidity babbled excitedly, wildly teleporting all across her subconscious’ field of vision as she demonstrated her idea with exaggerated pantomiming.

“Lucidity, I don’t think—” Before she could articulate another word of protest, however, the half-crazed unicorn had already charged up her horn to maximum power as she prepared a teleport for two.

Chapter 07 – Luna’s Labyrinth

Shaking off her strong sense of vertigo, Lucidity glanced forwards, only to find a monstrous fortress looming over her. The stone behemoth was a marvel in its own right, stretching higher than she could see and ornamented with seemingly infinitely intricate designs which only appeared to multiply and grow more complex the longer she gazed at the masterful masonry. Its façade was adorned with an enormous, breathtaking crescent moon gleaming with a brilliant, pearly white glow that shined as both a beacon and a challenge to all who laid their eyes upon it. Towers spiraled off the main body of the castle like branches shooting off a tree—beautiful, complex, and so natural that one would be tempted to think the stronghold had always had a place there amidst the otherwise-all-encompassing emptiness of Dream Limbo.

Turning her head to the side, Lucidity noticed that her subconscious was also gawking at the majestic tower that had held her entranced for so long. Lucidity turned to face her conscious counterpart, the look on the former’s face saying what they were both feeling. “Wow,” Lucidity breathed appreciatively, looking back towards the castle before them. “Just, wow.”

“Hey, how are you feeling?” her subconscious asked tentatively, wondering what had happened to all of the grey unicorn’s extra energy.

“Well, the high’s definitely gone. Now I guess I just feel normal,” Lucidity replied softly, not wanting to disturb the tranquil sight they were both witnessing.

“But…” the other mare pressed, trying to weasel more information out of her consciousness.

“That’s about it, actually—just normal. My horn feels fully recovered though, so that’s good.”

“Well, I guess we’ve found our ticket out of here, then,” her subconscious said, looking back towards Luna’s fortress.

Glancing sidelong at her companion, Lucidity prompted, “Time to storm the castle, huh?”

“I’m afraid so,” her double agreed.

“Well, there’s no time like the present,” the blond-maned mare added, stalling as her nerves started to eat at her.

“Then let’s go.” Lucidity trotted forward confidently, her consciousness trailing along considerably less so behind her. All of a sudden, the leader of the pair was stopped by an invisible barrier, smacking straight into it face-first. “Ow,” Lucidity muttered, rubbing her sore snout with a free hoof.

“What is it?”

“I’m not sure. I guess Luna must have put up a force field around this place to stop us from getting in. Do you think you can teleport us inside?”

“I’ll try.” Shutting her eyes to better concentrate, Lucidity focused on the task set before her, feeling out the ley lines she would need to move both her and her subconscious through the barrier and into the fortress awaiting them. Opening her eyes again, the surprised unicorn remarked, “Well that’s odd.”

“What is it?”

“I can’t teleport us into the castle.”

“Do you think this force field is magic proof?”

“That’s the strange part: I can sense a way for us to move past this barrier, but it’s as if the castle itself is what’s blocking my magic.”

“So just teleport us inside the barrier, then.”

“No, that would be too easy; I think Luna expects us to try that. For all we know, she set up some magic sinkholes that will drag us Luna-knows-where the second I complete the spell. Besides, the other strange thing I noticed is that this force field doesn’t seem to have a top—my magic can’t penetrate the base but goes above the wall just fine. Based on the available destinations, it’s as if there’s an elaborate series of walls heading all the way back to the castle.”

“So it’s some sort of maze?”

“I think so, and I definitely don’t want to run the risk of teleporting us into the middle of one of the walls by mistake.”

“Fair point. So where’s the entrance, then?”

Lucidity shrugged noncommittally by way of reply. “I dunno; I couldn’t get a clear reading on where the walls were exactly, just that there were a lot of them going all over the place. I guess we’ll just have to follow this wall to find the starting point.”

The two unicorns trotted alongside the invisible barrier, keeping one hoof on its surface as they went along. They walked and walked, the slowly shifting sight of Luna’s fortress serving as the only sign that they were making any progress whatsoever. Eventually, they came to a break in the seemingly impenetrable outer wall of the maze. Sighing in relief, Lucidity started to trot inside but was stopped by a grey hoof.

“Wait. Before we go in there, we should probably go over what our strategy is going to be.”

“What do you mean?”

“Remember when we were five and you got lost in that corn maze at the county fair?”

“Your point being?”

“That now we’re a bit older, smarter, and not so easily moved to tears. We need to make sure that we can make it through this thing without getting hopelessly lost because there’s not going to be a security pegasus just waiting around that will be able to swoop in and rescue us this time.”

“Fine. So what’s the plan, then?”

“We need some way to track where we’ve been so that we don’t end up going around in circles for hours on end like last time.”

“Well we don’t exactly have a bunch of breadcrumbs to scatter around,” Lucidity said pointedly.

“No, we don’t. So I guess we’ll just have to think of some other way to get through this thing.”

“What if this is some sort of labyrinth and the walls start moving around once we get inside?”

“Hmm.” Lucidity thought about that for a moment before dismissing the notion with a shake of her head. “Nah. If that were the case, then I think we’d be screwed no matter what we did.”

“Well, do you have any other concerns?”

Lucidity stared at the invisible maze wall in front of her, putting a hoof to her chin as she studied its makeup, lost in thought. “I wonder if they’re reflective,” she said at length.

“What do you mean? Wouldn’t we see ourselves in the walls if they were?”

“No, I mean, I wonder if they’ll reflect magic. We could try bouncing some small spheres of magical energy against them to find our way through. Or maybe the walls will reflect magical light, allowing us to see where they are.”

“I’m not sure I want to risk being found by Luna for a theory on what might help us.”

“We’re two grey blips on a white radar, Lucidity. She probably spotted us a while ago—especially since we’re this close to her headquarters.”

“Still,” Lucidity argued. “Better to be safe than sorry.”

“Yeah, I guess… Hey, wait a second! I just thought of something.”

“What?”

“Have you ever heard of something called the right-hoof rule?”

“Well I obviously must have at some point if you know what it is.”

That comment got a smile out of Lucidity. “Yeah, I guess so. Well anyway, basically, as long as you keep your hoof touching the right-most wall of the maze and follow it along, you’ll eventually either wind up back at the start or at the finish. If we take different starting paths each time, we’re guaranteed to come across the exit eventually.”

“So it’s kind of similar to what we did to find the entrance just now?”

“Yep, pretty much. It’s a foalproof plan.”

“Unless the maze isn’t solvable.”

“Okay, barring that completely irrational option, the plan is totally foalproof.”

“Or if there isn’t actually an exit.”

“Again that makes absolutely no sense. Why would we even bother trying to solve the maze in the first place if that were the case? And besides, we’d still be brought back to the entrance, so it’s not like we’d end up lost inside of the maze or anything.”

Not so easily deterred by the logic of her subconscious, Lucidity tried to find a different angle from which to poke a hole in their supposedly flawless plan. “Well, what if the walls do start moving around on us?”

Lucidity sighed in defeat. “Then we abandon all pretense of an organized strategy and just run like Tartaurus through the maze at random until we find our way to the exit. Well, actually, if we don’t move at all, the maze might just bring us to the exit on its own, so that can be our backup plan. There, ready to go in now, Smarty Pants?”

First taking a moment to muse over all of her other options, the blond-maned unicorn eventually responded, “Yes, but my name is Lucidity. I didn’t think that I’d have to tell you that, with you being my subconscious and everything.” She stuck her tongue out playfully at the other mare, whose only response was to roll her eyes and enter the invisible maze, her right hoof resting against the wall as she walked along.

Lucidity watched her double go in with some apprehension, her newfound joking attitude quickly lost to the nervousness and fear constantly gnawing at her with every step she took. Several scenarios of just how horribly wrong this whole ordeal could go went running through her mind, and before long she found her muscles locking up, some irrational, fear-saturated part of her brain refusing to let her move any farther.

When she still hadn’t followed her subconscious inside, Lucidity returned to where the petrified mare was still standing. “It’ll be okay, Lucy,” she crooned soothingly. “We can make it through this, you’ll see. Everything will be alright.” She held out her fetlock helpfully, encouraging the trepidatious unicorn to follow her deep into the heart of what was bound to be a dangerous and trying mission.

Lucidity took the outstretched hoof hesitantly, staring deep into her subconscious’ confident, soulful eyes. Heeding her uplifting words, the grey unicorn took a deep breath and strode forward hoof in hoof with her subconscious. And on that note, Lucidity took her first steps into Luna’s labyrinth, worried for what was to come, but comforted by the presence of the one mare that she knew she could always and completely trust walking right beside her.

“Thanks for helping me out back there,” Lucidity said gratefully, doing her best to adjust to the anxiety following her everywhere as they traversed Luna’s invisible maze. “I don’t know what came over me.”

“Oh, it’s no problem,” her subconscious replied nonchalantly, keeping her focus split between following the wall her outstretched hoof was constantly feeling for and paying attention to what her consciousness was saying. “I totally understand. You were feeling a bit nervous at the prospect of entering this place, which Luna intentionally designed to prevent us from pursuing her. So that’s perfectly understandable. You’ve also been extremely confused and terrified throughout this entire experience, feeling like you’re completely out of your element even though this sort of thing is exactly what your special talent represents. You know that Luna is probably one of the only ponies out there that is more gifted at this than you are, and you’re scared to find out how she’ll react if you can’t meet her expectations. In addition, everything about this whole situation has left you unsure of where it’s safe to turn next, and that feeling of not knowing is what you fear most of all. The end result being that you’re almost too afraid to do anything but stand still anymore, in case you accidentally do something that will somehow make everything else that much worse.”

Lucidity came to a stop, a dumbfounded expression on her face, as she realized just how eerily right her companion was. “How did you know all that?”

“Hellooo!” Lucidity said, knocking on the surprised unicorn’s head for emphasis. “I’m your subconscious, remember? I know the reasoning behind all of your actions, even if you’re not aware of them.”

They pair continued their trek through the series of transparent, winding corridors, one of them feeling much more relaxed and at ease now that her subconscious fears had been laid bare for her to view openly. “You know what’s strange,” Lucidity remarked a couple minutes later as her subconscious continued to lead her through the maze’s many invisible twists and turns.

“What?”

“Our shadows.”

“What shadows?” Lucidity asked confusedly, glancing down at the all-white Dreamscape floor beneath them.

“Exactly,” came the other mare’s quick rebuttal. “For some reason, nothing seems to have a shadow in here. There’s not even one directly underneath us. I mean, I guess a shadow would be weird in the sense that we’d have to wonder where the hay the light source was, but not having one is just as strange. Like, for example, if there’s no light in here, then how can we see anything?”

Lucidity pondered that for a moment before inquiring, “What made you think about shadows in the first place?”

“Well, I was thinking about how it might be easier to navigate this maze if we could see a little bit of the walls’ shadows. But then I noticed that, no matter which way we were facing, I couldn’t see any. So I was wondering if maybe they just didn’t cast a shadow for some reason, but then I noticed that I didn’t have one either, and then I mentioned it to you.”

“Yeah, that would make it easier, all right. Then maybe we wouldn’t have to ram our heads into a wall every couple minutes. Oh, hold on a second,” Lucidity said suddenly, stopping abruptly as her hoof searched the area in front of her. “There’s a wall here. Looks like another T-intersection.” She made a right turn and continued following the path, a guiding hoof glued to the invisible structure beside her while Lucidity followed from close behind.

Chapter 08 – Into the Valley of Death

After a few more minutes of what seemed like aimless wandering, the unicorn duo traversing the transparent maze had become so turned around that they would both be hopelessly lost if it weren’t for Lucidity’s hoof following the nearest wall and Luna’s castle continually towering over them in the distance showing them which way to go. There was an awkward silence permeating the atmosphere of Dream Limbo as the two mares walked that was punctuated by the regular rhythm of their nearly silent hoofsteps echoing against the invisible Dreamscape floor below them.

This was eventually broken by a curious voice keen on both interrupting her own boredom and learning some new information. “So, what exactly is the Subconscious Plane? How does it even work?”

Lucidity stopped her muffled gait to shrug in response. “I’m not all that sure, actually. All we’ve read about it is that the ancient Romanes used to access it with a torturing spell they would cast on their prisoners, forcing them to spill their secrets and confess to their crimes, but Princess Celestia banned the spell’s use as a truth detector centuries ago. More recently, it’s been breached by mediums attempting to divulge a pony’s deepest desires. But how it works and what exactly it is or does is beyond me.”

“But what was it like, being there?” Lucidity pressed, determined to learn more about this mysterious realm.

“I don’t really remember, in all honesty. At the time, I was basically a bodiless consciousness—less than that, actually, since I didn’t exactly have a mind of my own or do much actual thinking there,” she responded, raising her hoof in an air quotes gesture. “As a subconscious, I tended to pay more attention to your experiences and help you respond to them than I did my own surroundings. Anyway, I’m not even sure that the Subconscious Plane is a physical location you can actually be in so much as it is a mental construct where the concept of a pony’s subconscious resides. But enough about me, we still need to come up with a plan to defeat Luna so that you can duel her and escape Dream Limbo.”

“I know, I know. But what can we do? She’s too powerful! I mean, am I supposed to just throw up a bunch of shields and hope that I have enough aural stamina to wear her out to the point where I can easily beat her?”

“Well, we would’ve had more time to prepare if you hadn’t just randomly decided to teleport us both straight to her castle out of the blue like that,” Lucidity fired back.

“Hey, that wasn’t my fault!” the grey mare protested. “I was still all hopped up on energy from that large influx of magic the wall let off when it destabilized. I wasn’t myself, remember? I couldn’t even think straight. And besides, if that hadn’t happened, I’d still be running on practically no magic and we’d be in an even worse situation than we are right now.”

“Yeah, I guess so,” Lucidity said as she stopped to investigate another intersection. There was a moment of silence as the unicorn subconscious sized up the barrier before her with a free hoof before she called out over her shoulder, “C’mon, it’s this way.” Turning to her left so that she was now facing their fortress destination, Lucidity marched forward, keeping one of her hooves planted firmly against the invisible wall at her side as she went along their unmarked path.

“We’re getting close,” Lucidity remarked as she stared at the stone monolith looming over them and seeming to grow ever larger and nearer with every step she took.

“Looks like it,” her subconscious agreed, trying to eyeball the distance left between them and the castle’s entryway. “Let’s just hope that it’s a straight shot from here to the door, instead of there being some crazy, roundabout way of getting there.”

The two unicorns walked on in silence, the remainder of their journey going by in a slow blur—each passing second somehow seeming both rushed and dragged out at the same time. With her nerves beginning to act up again and her heart beating loudly in her chest, Lucidity tried her best to brace herself for what was soon to come. She beheld the spectacle before her wearily, cautiously awaiting a sign that their anticipated arrival might hold some still-unseen surprises. As she looked on, it seemed to her that the fortress’ entrance was even farther away than it had seemed to be previously, but, attributing this to nerves, Lucidity pressed on and attempted to dispel the queasy sensation now rolling around in her stomach.

Arriving at their destination’s front steps after what seemed like an eternity later, both subconscious and consciousness stopped and stared at the sight of Luna’s stronghold—a standing testament to her goddess-like power and skill and a symbol of the nigh-impossible task set before the unicorn pair. Lucidity eventually broke the nervous tension surrounding them, saying with an air of false cheer, “Well, there’s no time like the present.” Pushing past the already ajar door, she crossed into the dangerous and almost-certainly deadly unknown that lay in wait just beyond the arched entrance, leaving Lucidity to hesitate at the threshold for just a moment longer before she quickly, albeit reluctantly, bounded in after her subconscious lest their shared anxiety get the better of her.

Upon entering Luna’s fortress, Lucidity found herself in a large, dark atrium framed by a few dim torches set up along the sides of the otherwise-empty chamber. As she watched, the torches’ light seemed to flicker in a nonexistent breeze, the flames’ soft movements causing the various shadows contained within the desolate hall to slowly and eerily dance around the frightened mare until it seemed to her that they were tightly closing in from all sides.

Just when Lucidity thought that she couldn’t take any more of the room’s tricks, the fire’s hauntingly hypnotic spell was broken by an excited voice shouting from the opposite end of the atrium. “Lucy, over here! I think I see some bright lights just past this hallway.” Quickly rushing towards the friendly sound, the unicorn found her subconscious pointing down an abandoned corridor—the end of which, sure enough, was bathed in a bright, pearly white glow that attracted Lucidity as if she were a moth.

Desperate to be rid of their shadowed surroundings, both ponies briskly trotted through the passage, finding that they needed to shield their eyes once they had made it to the other side as their pupils readjusted to the new lighting. “Are you kidding me?!” Lucidity exclaimed soon after recovering her eyesight, her previous timidity with the new terrain quickly replaced by anger. She stared on in disbelief at the hundreds of ponies looking back at her, all of them with the same, familiar blue eyes, blond mane, grey coat, and triple-Z cutiemark. They were all exact lookalikes of herself created by Luna’s next obstacle: a second maze, this one composed entirely of mirrors. “You know what? No. I’m done. I am not about to go through another one of these things.” She walked up to the nearest mirror, building up a sizable magical charge as she did so.

“Um, Lucy?” Lucidity called out after her consciousness. “I don’t think—” She was interrupted by the sound of a spell rebounding against the large mirror and firing directly back into the caster’s horn. “Are you okay?” she asked frantically.

Lucidity took a moment to catch her breath before standing back up and glaring at the offending reflection. “Fine, we’ll do the stupid maze, but I’m not happy about it!”

“Didn’t you realize it wasn’t going to be that easy?”

“Well, it was worth a shot. But deep down, I think there was some part of me that knew it wouldn’t work.”

“Like your subconscious, maybe?” Lucidity said wryly, smirking at the other unicorn.

“Yeah,” Lucidity said with a laugh. “I guess so. Alright, let’s do this. We can just use the right-hoof rule again, right?”

“I don’t see why not,” came her subconscious’ reply. “Although we probably don’t need to actually place our hooves on the walls this time, since we can see where they are now.”

“Yeah, but all these similar-looking reflections are bound to disorient us at some point if we’re not careful. We might want to keep pretty close to the walls at the very least.”

“Fair point.” Suddenly, Lucidity brightened up considerably, a large smile appearing on her face as a new idea occurred to her.

“What?” the other mare asked, wondering just what her subconscious could be up to this time.

“I think I just thought of an idea that will help us defeat Luna. C’mon, I’ll tell you about it on the way.”

Chapter 09 – Traps, Trials, and Tribulations

Lucidity cautiously stuck a hoof out of Luna’s mirror maze, careful to check whether the exit was actually safe before trotting triumphantly out of the obstacle and heading towards the adjoining antechamber. Lucidity followed from close behind, coming to a stop beside her conscious self and turning to see what had captivated her attention.

A large, ornate staircase spiraled up before them, tall enough that neither equine could see the top. “Oh, come on!” Lucidity finally exclaimed. “Geez. All we’ve ever done since getting to this place is walk. This is starting to get a bit ridiculous.”

“At least it’s not another maze.”

“Yeah, well…” the grey mare brooded. “Whatever. Let’s just get this over with.”

The two ponies set hoof on the first stair, mentally psyching themselves up for the long, tiring journey still ahead of them. They stepped forward together, their paces keeping in sync as they started to climb the grand staircase that Luna had so kindly left for them.

After a while, the silence between them had become unbearable and, wanting to distract herself from her sore legs, Lucidity asked, “So how far up do you think this thing goes anyway?”

Craning her neck upwards to see if they were anywhere near the top yet, her subconscious responded, “No idea, but I bet that Luna planned this whole setup.”

“Well of course she did. She made this whole castle, after all.”

“No, I mean that I think she’s trying to wear us out. What if her plan is to keep us wandering around in circles, waiting until we’re too exhausted to fight back before she decides to attack us?”

“Do you really think that’s what she’s doing?”

“I wouldn’t put it past her to try. Maybe we better save ourselves the time and energy and just teleport past this staircase. If her previous obstacles are anything to judge by, then I doubt there’s a booby trap waiting for us up there that we might accidentally set off.”

“But what if that’s what she wants us to do?” Lucidity argued. “I bet trying to teleport away from here will trigger a magic sinkhole or something. We’ll probably be better off just hoofing it the old-fashioned way. We can’t afford to take any chances now that we’re so close.”

“I guess so…” Lucidity acquiesced, unable to come up with any objections to her consciousness’ reasoning. An uneasy silence broke over the two of them once more, but it was quickly broken by the sound of scraping stone suddenly filling the room.

“What was that?” Lucidity asked worriedly, looking back over her shoulder.

“I’m not sure, but whatever it was, it can’t be good. C’mon, let’s keep going.”

Both unicorns quickened their paces, eager to escape whatever ill omen was causing the grinding noise. It was a couple minutes later—these ones seeming to pass by much more quickly with the ominous sound at their heels—before Lucidity interjected, “Hey, wait a second.” Both unicorns came to a halt, the room following suit as everything suddenly became still and quiet.

“What is it?” Lucidity asked hurriedly, sensing the urgency in her subconscious’ tone.

“Have you noticed anything strange going on here?”

“That whatever’s making that noise stopped at the exact same time we did?” Lucidity tried, hazarding her best guess.

“Not only that, but look at this window,” the other mare said, pointing towards a small opening in the castle wall through which one could view the constantly blank whiteness of Dream Limbo.

“What about it?”

“It’s still in the exact same spot it’s been in for the last few minutes, even though we should have passed it a while ago."

“But that would mean—” Lucidity started as it dawned on her what her partner was getting at.

“—that even though we’ve been walking, we haven’t actually gone anywhere,” her subconscious finished for her. “That noise we’ve been hearing is the stairs moving backwards as we walk, keeping us in the same spot.”

“Okay, it’s official: I really hate Luna,” Lucidity said bitterly.

“Well you have to admit, it was a clever trap,” the second unicorn pointed out.

“You’re not helping.”

“Okay, okay. I think our best bet would be to head back down and try to find a different way up. Maybe we missed a door or something when we were down there the first time.”

“Sounds good. Let’s go.” The two ponies turned around and started walking back the way they had come but found, to their collective horror, that the now-familiar sound of stone scraping on stone had started up again as soon as their hooves had left the ground. Glancing to her side, Lucidity could also see that the window was stubbornly remaining level with them, the enchanted staircase refusing to let her walk past it. “Well, now what?”

“We could always try teleporting to the bottom,” Lucidity suggested.

“I already told you, we are not trying that.”

“Well, do you have any better ideas for getting off of this thing?”

“Not yet. Argh. There’s got to be another way off of here, I just know it.”

She started to gallop up the stairs as fast as she could, determined to outrun the mechanism moving the steps beneath her hooves. Looking over to the wall, however, Lucidity was dismayed to find that the window was still directly beside her and that the stairs were easily able to match her pace.

“Lucy?”

She heard her subconscious calling out to her but ignored it, instead increasing her clip in a renewed effort to defeat Luna’s staircase.

“Lucy!”

Heart pounding and legs throbbing, the determined unicorn carried on, now also ignoring the cries of protest from her aching muscles.

“Lucidity!”

She finally came to a halt, reluctantly admitting to herself that she’d been beat as she fought to catch her breath. “What?” Lucidity asked hoarsely.

“Look!”

Hearing unexpected excitement in the other pony’s voice, the exhausted mare turned around and noted, to her great surprise, that her subconscious had somehow managed to lower herself partway down the stairs, now sitting far below the level of the window where Lucidity still stood. “How did you get all the way down there?” she shouted once she had regained her breath.

“Stay there, I’ll show you.” Lucidity started walking forward, her consciousness watching on in astonishment as she easily closed the gap between them, the only sign that the staircase was still moving the grating sound it continued to produce as the mare moved towards her.

“How did you do that?” Lucidity asked, amazed. “I still can’t walk past this stupid window in either direction.”

The grey mare smiled mysteriously and answered, “Look at where you are right now.”

Lucidity regarded her surroundings, her eyes eventually attracted to the windowless wall at her side. Looking further up the stairs, she noticed a bright patch of light coming out of the wall about where she guessed the window must now be. “I don’t—”

“When I walked up to meet you, the steps moved down to stop me from going forward. Since you weren’t moving, you were able to move down with them,” she offered as explanation. “If only one of us walks at a time, we should be able to get past this staircase without any trouble at all.”

“That’s brilliant, Lucy!” her consciousness exclaimed.

“Well, it was really your idea,” Lucidity returned. “Okay, I’ll start. Just stay there and tell me when you’ve reached the top so I know when to stop, then walk down the steps to raise me up to you.”

It seemed to take ages, but eventually Lucidity found herself at the top of the staircase. Greatly relieved, she called out, “Okay, you can stop now.” Her voice echoed over to where her subconscious had been trying to walk down the steps, causing her to quit moving and wait for her partner to bring her back up.

Lucidity paused for a moment, taking in how creepy the silence was now that she had gotten so used to hearing the sound of the stairs scraping against the stone floor below, before starting her own attempted trek down the enchanted steps.

After an equally long wait made longer by the fact that she had been walking downwards endlessly without having made any visible progress, Lucidity finally saw her subconscious come into view. “This is a ridiculously long staircase,” she panted out once they were both on the last step.

“No kidding. Well, here goes nothing.” Both ponies jumped off of the staircase, landing in a spacious hallway lined with passages leading off to various other areas of the castle. “Alright, we did it!” Lucidity cheered, enthusiastically high-hoofing her conscious counterpart, both of them relieved to be done with that particularly annoying obstacle.

“Yeah, I guess Luna didn’t count on there being two of us here to stop her.”

“You know, there’s probably a lesson about teamwork and friendship in there somewhere,” Lucidity pointed out.

The two unicorns were silent for a moment, mulling over that thought before Lucidity responded, “Oh well. Let’s keep going. So which path do you think we should take?”

“I’m guessing that it’s the one with the giant twin oak doors in front of it,” her subconscious deadpanned.

“But none of these passages have—” Lucidity started, the end of her sentence left hanging on her tongue as she was turned around to face the direction the other mare had been looking in. “Oh.”

Now standing before her was a pair of large, impressive doors inlaid with a crescent moon seal that closely resembled the bigger one hanging outside of the castle. The obviously important doors clearly led to some sort of main chamber where, with any luck, Luna was likely to be waiting. The only other route branching off of this side of the hallway was a small, ordinary-looking staircase that appeared to be heading to a room just above whatever was beyond these doors. “Well, this is it,” her subconscious piped up once Lucidity had gotten an eyeful. “You remember the plan, right? Are you ready?”

“Are you sure it has to be this way?” Lucidity asked worriedly. “I mean, maybe if we both—”

“No, that wouldn’t work. Trust me, Lucy, this is the only way to beat Luna. You’re going to have to fight her on your own.” Lucidity still wasn’t entirely convinced, but one look into her subconscious’ stern, blue eyes, compounded with her knowledge of her own resolve, told the nervous mare that there was no other way out of here and that Lucidity wouldn’t let her back down from this. And so, with a nod, the two ponies went their separate ways: one up the stairs to find a decent vantage point and keep a lookout, and the other through the double doors to confront Luna head-on.

She stepped into the throne room with both trepidation and determination, the clacking of her hooves on the freshly polished and gleaming marble attracting the attention of her adversary. “Well, well, well. It would appear that our summons did reach thine ears after all,” Luna remarked upon noticing the other equine’s presence in her fortress.

“That’s right, and we’re here to fight back!” the unicorn retorted bravely, meeting the princess’ eyes with a resolute stare.

“We?” Luna echoed with a snort of contempt. “Dost thou dare to poke fun at our expense? Thy insolence shall be thy undoing.” With that, the lunar princess aimed a bolt of dark magic towards the grey mare, hitting her horn directly.

Surprised by the sudden change in momentum, the hapless victim attempted to wriggle her way out of Luna’s magical grip, but instead found herself being lifted up into the air. She could feel the princess’ presence inside her mind coaxing her to surrender and give in to sleep. She valiantly battled against the influence, but it proved to be a hopeless effort. Unable to weather out the storm any longer, her mind and body inevitably yielded to Luna’s control and her blue eyes soon began to roll back in her head and turn white. The white ocular glow grew brighter and brighter, until it eventually gave way to translucency. Her coat’s and mane’s hues and saturations soon followed suit.

A satisfied smirk on her lips, Luna let the pony’s remains hit the ground with a muted thud. The body flickered between opaqueness and transparency, but in its bouts of color one could see the damage’s toll. What was left of the body was bent, bloody, bruised, and broken. Her form lay on the cold castle floor, crooked as the marks on her flank, for a few more moments before finally melting away into nothing, becoming just another piece of the Dreamscape’s white blankness surrounding Luna’s dark fortress.

Chapter 10 – A Hop, Skip, and a Jump

Having finished the depraved deed, Luna called out into the surrounding air. “It would seem that thou art more cunning than we originally gave thee credit for, Lucidity. We had all but forgotten that subconsciouses tend to physically manifest themselves within the boundaries of the Dreamscape. Indeed, they are extraordinary allies to have in battle—notoriously difficult to incapacitate and impossible to kill, directly at least. Which just leaves the question of where thou hast stowed thyself over the course of our little encounter.”

Lucidity wiped away the tears streaming down her cheeks, knowing that she couldn’t afford to waste any time mourning over the death of her subconscious or the repercussions that it might have on her own psyche. She desperately hoped that she wouldn’t be spotted as she strained to put the last few details of her plan together. Thank Celestia I decided to pursue a minor in Advanced Magic Theory, she mused to herself. Making sure that she still hadn’t been discovered during Luna’s inspection of the throne room, Lucidity triple-checked the structure and stability of her magic cannon. Main barrel still looks good, no signs of cracks or other flaws. All of the fuel cells are still full and online. I’ll have to wing the aim, though, since there’s no time for a test run. Oh well, there’s no use crying over spilled milk. I’m just going to have to make this one count. Lucidity was pretty sure that she had constructed the cannon correctly, but that didn’t stop her from feeling another checkup was in order. It’s not just about having one shot and potentially blowing my position and only chance to beat her if I screw this up, Lucidity reasoned to herself. If I don’t get this exactly right, there’s a pretty solid chance misfiring this much raw energy would kill me. Then again, the consequences will be even worse if I don’t hurry up and Luna finds me before I get a chance to use this thing.

Satisfied as she could be with her cannon given the current situation, Lucidity quickly moved on to the second component of her magical apparatus—a magic amplifier in the form of a giant magnifying glass.

Cursing under her breath, Lucidity mentally chastised herself for not thinking to build the amplifier first. With most of her magic tied up either as ammunition or in maintaining the cannon, the strain of building the second step in her plan was proving to be too much for her.

Her magic reservoir nearly depleted, Lucidity barely managed to assemble both pieces and place them into their proper positions. Sparing a look over the balcony railing, Lucidity saw Luna storming back into the throne room. That’s strange, she thought to herself. When did Luna leave? Oh well, at least she’s here now. I just need her to keep still for a couple sec—

The remainder of her thoughts were interrupted by an exasperated scream. “Where art thee, inept swine!” Dropping out of her royal tone, Luna continued in a slightly more inside-friendly voice. “No matter, for there is nowhere thou canst hide from us eternally. We will find thee, Lucidity, even if we must tear this entire blasted realm asunder.” The newly motivated princess began walking towards the throne room’s doors, but then stopped abruptly as a new thought occurred to her. “Then again, what is the rush? She came to us once before and she shall do so again.” Luna turned around and sat back in her throne, content for the time being to wait for her prey to come to her.

Lucidity, having regained some of her strength during Luna’s ranting, saw her opening and swiveled her magic cannon to face the lunar dais. She fired.

There was a loud boom as Lucidity’s cannon unleashed its payload upon the princess of the night. The magic punched through the air with a sizzle and pop, crackling all along its trajectory as it made its way towards Luna.

Lucidity, however, didn’t see whether her shot had made its mark or how much damage it had caused. Upon firing, the recoil had sent her flying head-first out of a window facing her overhang. She found herself tumbling wildly through the air, all sense of orientation lost to the wind blowing through her wavy, golden locks. She was too terrified to think straight—dimly aware that she needed to find a way to avoid crashing into the ground below, but having no idea what she should do to try and stop it from happening.

A few moments of uninterrupted freefall later, Lucidity had managed to get herself facing what she thought was upright but still had no idea how to get herself out of the mess that she now found herself to be in. Looking up and down as far as her vision would allow, she could still only see the wall of Luna’s castle on one side of her and the ever-blank whiteness of Dream Limbo on the other. “Well this sucks,” she shouted angrily into the infinite expanse of the Dreamscape, her words immediately drowned out by the harsh winds howling past her. So how do I get out of here? Lucidity thought to herself. She attempted a wide array of acrobatics, including jumping, somersaulting, and even the breast stroke, but nothing that she tried seemed to be able to end her downward plummet or force her hooves back onto solid ground.

Lucidity racked her brains in an effort to come up with a different solution to escape her current predicament, but no such thought occurred to her. Wishing now more than ever that her subconscious was still around to help her think of something that she may have missed, the unicorn kept at it, hoping that, by some miraculous token, something—or someone—would come to save her soon. Her fervent brainstorming eventually yielded a few options, each one less promising than the last. Settling on one such plan, Lucidity tried to calm herself down and empty her mind as much as possible so that she could concentrate on funneling her magic where she wanted it to go.

Opening her eyes a moment later, Lucidity found herself no longer falling and with Luna’s castle nowhere in sight, much to her general elation. This jubilance was short-lived, however, as her horn groaned in protest of its overuse in the form of a rather large shock of pain being shot through the unicorn’s entire body, causing Lucidity to feel lightheaded and dizzy. There was a moment of silence as she contemplated what her next course of action should be and how best to survive before another interruption arrived.

“Thou shalt pay most dearly for that, decrepit wench!” came a furious voice from far above the grey mare.

Looking up in shock, Lucidity could barely make out the form of what she could only assume to be Luna diving down ferociously to meet her. How the hay did she find me?! she thought panickedly. I better get out of here quick. I should be good for one more spell, right? Her horn immediately gave off another deep stab of pain, as if in response to her question. “Ow! Alright, no magic, then.”

Now hearing hurried hoofsteps close behind her, Lucidity desperately searched her surroundings, hoping to spot something that could aid in her escape from Luna. Immediately spying an elevator against the whiteness of the Dreamscape, she galloped inside and closed its doors. Wasting no time, Lucidity quickly sent her makeshift escape downwards and, unbeknownst to her, out of Dream Limbo entirely.

Moments later, Luna came across the elevator duct and peered over the edge to observe how far down it went. Seeing its destination, she silently cursed her luck and flew down the abandoned shaft, now more intent than ever on catching up to her quarry.

Chapter 11 – The Nightmare Realm

Lucidity exited the elevator, taking notice of her surprisingly empty and dark surroundings. Undeterred, she magically wrapped her horn in a soft, blue light, causing a dull, throbbing sensation to run through it periodically. Ignoring the pain and discomfort, she ventured further into the darkness, away from Luna.

Lucidity walked on aimlessly, desperate for some sort of change in the omnipresent blackness saturating this section of the Dreamscape. She eventually came to a small, dark pedestal, the only object besides her for what may as well have been forever in Lucidity’s mind. Coming closer, she could scarcely make out writing in what appeared to be ancient script engraved onto the obsidian stand, but had no idea what the indecipherable scrawl could mean. I guess it’s the name of the statue, the grey mare thought to herself. But that begs the question, where is the statue? Responding to her unspoken wish, a black cloud of smoke-like substance formed above the onyx plinth, the plume’s sudden appearance causing another small twinge of pain to erupt throughout Lucidity’s horn.

“Wherefore hast thou called for our presence, mare?” the formless void demanded in an accusatory tone.

“Please, I need your help. Somepony is after me and I need a way out of the Dreamscape. Can you help me?”

The dark spirit grinned, taking on a slightly more defined, pony-like form. “Certainly. It would be our pleasure, provided that we may accompany thee, of course.”

Suddenly, with a loud thump, Luna crashed to the ground and ran towards the black, stone slab, hoping that the foalish unicorn had not already freed the evil abomination from her enchanted prison. “Lucidity, wait!” She stopped, seeing the shadow holding the grey mare’s attention. “Umbra, we beseech thee, do not take this young child as a host. She is dealing with powers that she can neither comprehend nor control.”

The apparition paused for a moment, as if lost in thought. “Very well, Luna. Just this once, we shall take heed of thy words, but be warned, this obedience comes with a price.” And with that, the nightmare let loose a wild grin and cackle, diving straight into Luna’s unsuspecting body.

The shade’s laughter mingled with the blood-curdling screams of its host as Luna fell to the ground, rolling and writhing about in agony. Finally, she went completely still. Standing up, an eerie silence filled the air, broken by Nightmare Moon’s chilling whisper, “Run.”

And just like that, Lucidity was once again running for her life from the princess of the night. This is ridiculous, she thought to herself. How did things get so out of hoof? All I did was send her a letter. But I guess it’s like Lucidity said: there’s only one way that Luna will ever let me leave this place. It may be crazy, but I’m never going to get out of this nightmare if I don’t face her. I don’t want to have to keep running away. Her mind made up, the grey unicorn skidded to a stop and turned to meet her pursuer head-on.

She was instantly met with a pair of fiery, glowing, red eyes connected to a tall, black form barely bearing any resemblance to Luna. Or maybe I should just keep on running, Lucidity thought, all of her newfound confidence lost to the smoking embers before her. Without another moment’s hesitation, the alicorn of darkness lowered her head and shot off a beam of dark magic at her prey.

With all of her other options used up, Lucidity was forced to meet the blast with one of her own, the bright blue of her aura shining light across the dark plane. The two beams collided, sending up a shower of sparks into the inky blackness of the Nightmare Realm surrounding them.

One long and tension-filled minute later, the two equines were still at a standstill. Now sweating profusely, Lucidity was desperate to finish off her opponent before her horn gave out. Its constant throbs of pain continually disrupted her concentration, rendering her incapable of maintaining this single spell for much longer. They both started to vary their strategies, her opponent trying to outmaneuver her by making her aura split and barrel roll every which way in an attempt to attack the grey unicorn directly, while Lucidity—who could feel herself growing weaker and weaker with each passing second—went on the defensive, placing up a series of psychic walls in quick succession in order to protect herself from the quick darting and jabbing of the Nightmare now attacking her with an endless, never-tiring tirade of telekinetic tendrils.

“Luna, this isn’t like you!” Lucidity tried to yell over the crashing waves of light. Her voice was weakened by exhaustion and fatigue and she wasn’t entirely sure that her opponent could actually hear what she was saying. “Please, we can work this out!”

“Silly foal, thou canst not possibly know of the pains and sufferings we have endured. It is beyond the limits of thy inferior mind and meager imagination.”

“But all I wanted was to understand you better, to learn from you. Luna, I wanted to be your friend.”

The uttering of those words seemed to break Nightmare Moon’s concentration. It was as if a mask had fallen from her face, exposing the eyes of Luna—wide-open in surprise and sudden understanding. Wasting no time, Lucidity pressed her advantage with the last of her magic, pushing her beam through all of her adversary’s defenses and striking her directly in the horn, effectively cutting off her attack. Both duelists collapsed onto the ground as their magic failed them, whatever was left of their respective auras shooting straight out towards where their intended targets had once stood. The two ponies—both too weak at the moment to do anything else—laid on the dark floor for a while, the only movement coming from Luna a few minutes later, an involuntary shudder passing through her as she reverted back to her normal form.

“Thank you,” Luna croaked, her voice hoarse from the strain her body had sustained during the battle. Getting up slowly, she stood and walked towards Lucidity.

The unicorn looked up at the sound, tears streaming down her face, then let her head fall back into her hooves, sobbing quietly as she said, “I give up; I can’t do this anymore. I don’t want to fight you, Luna—I just want this nightmare to end. I want to go home.”

A gentle touch on her shoulder briefly interrupted the anguished sobs wracking her body and Luna spoke just loudly enough to still be heard while keeping a gentle, almost maternal, tone to her voice. “Thou hast done us a great service today, Lucidity. As it is thy wish, consider this battle over. We would be honored to declare this magic duel a draw.”

Giving her a gratified smile, Lucidity gladly accepted Luna’s outstretched hoof and stood up, immediately having to lean over on her shoulder for support. They walked back towards Lucidity’s elevator in tandem, both happy to soon be rid of their depressive surroundings. Barely still in existence, the edges of their transport were pulsating in and out of the Dreamscape as they began to fade into translucency. Luna quickly added her magic to the structure, supporting its framework and anchoring it to the Nightmare Realm. Not wanting to risk anything, they entered the elevator as quickly as they could manage and rushed it to their destination. Upon re-entering Dream Limbo, Luna began the cumbersome task of integrating them both back into the waking world.

Eventually, the portal was ready and Luna stepped through it, the walls of the Dreamscape hugging each contour of her body as she walked through the now-permeable barrier. Lucidity followed close behind, but found the surface to hold fast like a wall to her touch. “Luna, I can’t pass through. What’s going on?”

“We are not certain,” the lunar ruler admitted, going over the various parameters of the portal that she’d set up and searching for some sort of flaw in her calculations. “Nothing of this description has ever occurred before. Unless...” she paused, momentarily lost in thought.

“Unless what?!” Lucidity asked panickedly, desperate to leave this white nightmare for good.

“Unless the Dreamscape itself is preventing thy escape.”

“What do you mean?”

“It is possible that, because of thine actions and admissions in the Nightmare Realm, the Dreamscape hath decided that we won the duel and is enforcing thy punishment accordingly.”

“But that would mean—”

“Yes,” Luna answered gravely. “It would appear that thou art being forced to remain here, in the Dreamscape, indefinitely.” As Luna’s grasp over the intricate spells holding the portal in place began to waver, she quickly added, “We are sorry, but there is nothing we can do.”

Lucidity began to freak out and hyperventilate while her mind immediately went into overdrive, refusing to believe that she was trapped here and trying to discern the way out before it was too late. As the portal began to close, however, the prisoner finally resigned herself to her fate and bowed her head in acceptance, a single teardrop falling from her face as she watched the portal wink out of existence and whisk away her one chance at returning home.

§§§

A bright flash of light bathed Lucidity’s living room in a harsh white and the accompanying gust of air snuffed out the smoldering remains of embers left in her fireplace, accentuating the darkness of the room following the teleport.

Celestia strode into the room determinedly, her posture slackening slightly when she saw that her sister was indeed present in the small cottage. It had taken her hours to track Luna’s teleport, and she had feared that the worst would happen during her absence. The scene confronting her now, however, was puzzling—the two bodies of ponies she had thought to be in conflict huddling close for warmth near a now-dead fire—but she was relieved to find that they were both still breathing. Although, the longer Celestia stood before the dozing pair, the more worried she became. Knowing the contents of Lucidity’s letter and Luna’s easily enraged temperament, combined with each of their special talents, sleep was probably the most dangerous state for them to be in at the moment.

A sudden movement caught Celestia’s attention, interrupting her train of thought. She turned towards the dozing pair, hoping to see some sign of their current conditions. Luna stirred again, prompting a sigh of relief from the elder alicorn. “Luna,” she breathed contentedly. “Thank goodness you’re alright.”

“Yes, yes, we are awake, sister. Do not fret,” the younger alicorn said slowly, shrugging off her sister’s advance so that she could attempt to stand up on her own. Succeeding, she walked over to Celestia, grateful for a familiar face after her harrowing experience in the Nightmare Realm. “She saved our life,” Luna whispered weakly once she was close enough for her sister to hear.

Celestia guided the woozy princess of the night into a chair, casting a quick spell to check all of her sister’s vitals before asking, “And Lucidity, is she alright?”

“She is fine,” Luna grumbled in her weakened state. “Though we fear she may never wake again.”

~End Act One~

Author's Note

And there you have it! Dreamscape is complete. Don't worry though, just because this tale is over doesn't mean the story has ended. A sequel is currently being worked on, but it may be a while before I start uploading chapters for that. When I do, I'll be sure to update this message with the link. In the meantime, be sure to leave some comments below telling me what you thought about this story. Constructive criticism is always appreciated!

Chapter 02 – Nocturnal Predation

There was a moment of silence as Luna appraised her opposition—judging the unicorn to be an extremely minor threat with little to no chance of actually defending herself and retaliating—before she commenced her offensive, firing off a fast, midnight-blue beam of magic directly at her opponent’s horn.

Lucidity leapt to the side instantly, her instincts beginning to take over as she quickly galloped off in the opposite direction, glancing over her shoulder regularly for signs of the alicorn now chasing after her, but not bothering to take the time to send off any attacks of her own as she fled.

Running for her life from the princess of the night, Lucidity soon grew exhausted at having to dodge blast after blast of magical energy. She wished there was something, anything, that could help shield her from Luna’s wrath in the vast, white emptiness which seemed to compose the entirety of Dream Limbo. Just as she was thinking this, Lucidity suddenly found herself plastered against the front of a reinforced steel wall that seemed to have materialized out of thin air. The large structure possessed a metallic sheen and brilliance so bright, it made Lucidity wonder why she hadn’t seen it coming in the first place. It also made her extremely aware of the fact that Luna would probably be able to spot her form from miles away, so she quickly rushed behind the protective—and hopefully magic-proof—barrier.

Panting heavily, Lucidity tried to catch her breath and rest her weary hooves. She closed her eyes, attempting to blot out the image and sound of the madmare chasing her. Celestia, she seems pissed off! I mean, is this still part of the test or what? It doesn't matter. Right now, all I need to do is get the Tartaurus away from here, and her. As long as I survive, I'll be fine. A sudden thump from overhead caused Lucidity to bolt upright as she remembered that her makeshift fort would only be able to shield her from one side.

Looking around confusedly, Lucidity wondered just how exhausted she really was. She had expected to find herself exposed and vulnerable to attack, but instead found that what she had sworn was only a wall mere moments ago was now a solid dome. Her puzzlement over the seemingly impossible didn’t last long, however, as Luna quickly made it apparent that the shield wouldn’t hold her back forever. Dents and scorch marks soon began to adorn the outside of the once-pristine covering, and Lucidity suddenly found herself in a protection turned prison.

Luna slowly began to heat the steel barrier with her magic, causing her captive to frantically search for an exit from the pressure cooker. Finding none, Lucidity slowed down her movements in an effort to conserve what precious little energy and air she had remaining. Droplets of moisture worked their way down her tangled, blond mane and tail, further slickening her already-damp coat before eventually reaching the pool of sweat collecting on the floor below.

It wasn’t much longer before Lucidity had to sit down from exhaustion, accidentally planting herself down onto a rough, metal handle. Jumping back up in shock, she quickly realized that she had found the answer to her prayers. Lucidity gave the handle a swift yank, revealing a staircase that led away from the deadly oven. She allowed the cool air to blow past her for a moment, enjoying the feel of the refreshing breeze against her sweaty fur, before an especially loud crash courtesy of Luna snapped her back to her senses. She sped down the stairs at once, almost forgetting to close the door behind her as she beat a hasty retreat.

Lucidity ran and ran, galloping away as quickly as she possibly could. She never spared a glance back, refusing to stop or even slow down until the blood pounding in her ears was louder than Luna’s magic hammering away on the metal dome above in a frenzied attempt to capture her. Tired, lost, hungry, and confused, Lucidity eventually came to a stop in the middle of an open field of unrelenting white identical to the rest of Dream Limbo in every way, save for her presence. She couldn’t help but feel a strange mixture of relief and anxiety as a quick scan of her surroundings confirmed that she was indeed all alone, away from Luna, and everything else for that matter.

Taking a moment to catch her breath, Lucidity dimly wondered just what in the name of Celestia was going on. She tried to recollect everything that she’d ever learned about the dream realm, but came up mostly empty-hooved.

“Lucidity,” a soft voice crooned, gaining volume as it echoed melodiously throughout the Dreamscape.

“What the hay was that?!”

“Lucidity,” the voice repeated in the same tone. “Thy nights here are numbered. We know that thou art hiding somewhere. Do not think that we will not be able to uncover thine location.”

“Luna?” Lucidity wondered audibly, sensing familiarity in the mysterious voice’s archaic grammar.

“That’s Princess Luna to you!” the ruler of the night snapped, announcing her arrival to Lucidity seconds before her shadow would have.

The startled grey mare turned around to find Luna’s glaring form dive bombing towards her. Panicked and left with no time to think, Lucidity retaliated with a random spell from her horn, hoping that it would be of some use in incapacitating her pursuer. The result was a dazzling yet ultimately ineffective fireworks display that didn't do anything to slow down the lunar alicorn.

Cursing her luck, Lucidity ran as fast as her still-aching limbs could carry her. As it turned out, that wasn’t very far. As her legs finally gave out from underneath her, the grey unicorn covered her eyes with her hooves, thinking that she was finally done for.

Seconds, then minutes passed by without a sound. Puzzled, Lucidity looked up and scanned the region of the Dreamscape directly above her, finding absolutely no trace of Luna. She then checked behind, beside, and even beneath herself, but found no sign that the elusive alicorn had ever been near her. Well, at least the worst of it seems to be over. She checked her surroundings one more time just to be safe. For now. She then lowered her head and shut her eyes, hoping to rest for a little while before having to do anything else. That soon proved to be impossible, however, as the adrenaline still coursing through her veins continued to promote restlessness throughout her attempt at slumber.

Wishing that the furious beating of her heart would slow, Lucidity continued to lie down—totally still and eyes closed. She tried to clear her frantic, racing mind and still her trembling hooves, but to no avail. Still as wound up as ever, she tried in vain for a few more moments to get even the tiniest bit of rest.

“Ugh! Why can’t I fall asleep?!” Frustrated, Lucidity stood up and immediately wished she hadn’t. Despite the protests from her throbbing hooves, she continued to hobble forwards, determined to work off all of this nervous energy one way or another. “You'd think that having these Z’s plastered all over my butt would mean that I'd be good at this sort of thing,” she grumbled to herself grouchily. It wasn’t long, however, until her painful stroll was once again interrupted by the now-familiar voice of Luna, currently engaged in issuing and lobbying additional threats at her.

“Give thyself up, Lucidity.”

Undaunted, the blond-maned pony quickened her pace up to a brisk trot in response, refusing to be deterred by anything Luna had to say. To her hooves it was agony, but in her mind the goal was clear: escape, and fast.

“This is a most fruitless endeavor.”

The whispers echoed off of nonexistent walls surrounding Lucidity, who finally had to stop to rest her tired, fatigued body and cover her ears with her hooves. It helped to dampen the sound but couldn’t muffle it entirely. Soon, the words had proceeded to repeat themselves tirelessly in Lucidity’s mind as well as in the air in an endless loop. She knew that she couldn’t keep up this brave façade forever, but hoped that, wherever she was headed, it was close by, safe, and would be able to lead her out of this place.

“Concede to us now so that this silly little competition may come to an end.”

That’s right, there’s still that stupid contest I agreed to. How am I supposed to win a magic duel in the Dreamscape, especially if I can’t even find my opponent? Not that I want to run into Luna again. That’s the last thing I would need at this point. She didn’t dare speak aloud, the fear of revealing her position to Luna was too great.

“Thou wast a fool to make an enemy of us, Lucidity.”

Lucidity galloped onward, no longer caring where she was headed. She just wanted to leave the voice tormenting her behind, to be rid of this nightmare, to end this ordeal.

“Surrender immediately or suffer our wrath when we find thee ourselves,” Luna's voice resounded in increasingly distant tones, growing quieter and quieter until it eventually gave way to silence.

Just when Lucidity thought that she couldn't take much more of Luna's mind games, an entirely new voice entered the fray—different from Luna's and yet somehow still sounding familiar. “Luna’s right, you know. She’ll find you sooner or later, and when she does, you’ll need to be ready. You’re going to need a plan.”