Romp

Twilight stood from the wet grass and turned to look behind her. “Princess Luna?”

“Indeed.” Luna greeted her with a warm smile, her mane and tail finishing off the remains of Ahuizotl. Streams of dark blue magic glistened beneath the amber horizon, slowly shrinking back to their owner to billow in the breeze. “How are you this evening?”

Twilight returned a frail smile. “Could be better.”

“So it would seem. I did not expect your dreams to be affected by the storm like the others.”

“My dreams?” Twilight blinked. Looking around, she noticed the warbled effect of her surroundings – signature of a pony’s dream – as well as the hat on her head and bandages wrapped around her wing. “Oh yeah. Heh.”

Luna raised an eyebrow. “Normally, I would have some insight as to the nature of somepony’s nightmare, but in this case…” She looked back at an impression of a pawprint left in the soil. “I feel a bit lost.”

Twilight sighed. Walking up beside the taller alicorn, she said, “I think I can help with that.”

“Oh?”

Twilight nodded. “To be honest, it’s more than likely due to something…” She gulped. “Or, some things that I’ve been involved with recently.”

Luna stood silent for a moment, watching as the sun of Twilight’s dream nestled on the horizon. “Would you care to explain?”

“R-right. Um…” Although Twilight expected the question, it didn’t prepare her to answer. It was already clear to her what had taken place: Rainbow Dash was reading Daring Do and the Sapphire Stone, which meant the story was the last conscious thought she had before drifting to sleep. And given the nature of what they had been doing for the past couple of days, not to mention all the thoughts and emotions surrounding those events, it made sense that her subconscious would formulate a mixture between her recent actions and that of the story Rainbow was reading. Not to mention yada yada blah blah and—

Just explain it out loud. You’re already explaining it to yourself.

Twilight took a moment to just breathe, exhaling slowly and hanging her head. “I’m sorry, Princess. It’s just… a bit embarrassing to admit.”

Luna tilted her head down to meet her gaze. “If you’re not comfortable with speaking on the matter, it is fine.” She placed a hoof on Twilight’s withers and smiled. “Just know that I am no stranger to the feeling myself.”

Twilight looked up at her. “How so?”

“Consider the recent event with the Tantibus.” Luna’s smile faded a little as she dropped her hoof to the ground. “I created the monster to punish myself for hurting others as Nightmare Moon. But when it escaped my own dream to haunt you and your friends, it was difficult enough to admit I created such a thing, let alone to watch each of you suffer because of it.” Her ears folded slightly, and she turned her head to the horizon. “Guilt may have been its strength, but I was equally embarrassed for ever having let such a thing come to pass.”

Twilight’s gaze shifted to the horizon as well, her brow furrowed in thought. Admittedly, there were few ‘embarrassing’ experiences so broad in scale as Princess Luna’s that Twilight could use as a basis of comparison. Casting a ‘want it, need it’ spell on a pony plush and having a town go crazy over it was one thing – embarrassing, no doubt. But the Tantibus was something completely different. Not to mention…

“…I can’t imagine how hard it must have been to face Celestia after we transformed you back from Nightmare Moon.”

Luna’s ears flicked to the side. “More than you may ever know.”

Twilight grimaced at that. To her relief, Luna returned another honest smile. “But knowing my sister still accepted me after all I had done… knowing that you, your friends – my friends – would accept me after all the Tantibus had done?” She gave a gentle nod. “That was more than enough to care for any lingering embarrassment.”

Twilight pursed her lips for a moment, then smirked up at the alicorn. “I’m assuming this is all to say, ‘Don’t feel bad, I’ve had it worse than you?’”

Luna reared her head away from the mare with a look of utter confusion. “Th-that’s not at all what I meant! Did I say the wrong…?” She blinked at the growing curl of Twilight’s lips. “Oh… Oh! That was a joke, yes?”

Twilight giggled. “Yes… er, I think so, anyway. Perhaps made in bad taste. I’m sorry.” She waved a hoof lazily and said, “Dreaming or not, I’m still very exhausted, so forgive me if I say anything out of the blue. Like how I enjoy eating ponies and being a giant.”

“It is no problem. Now, as for—“ Princess Luna blinked. “Um… c-could you repeat that last part again?”

Twilight sighed once more, though with it came a sad smile. “How about I just explain from the beginning?”

__________

Twilight and Luna trotted together along the edge of the jungle, kicking up the dew from the blades of grass beneath them. To their left, thick drops of water pattered to the ground from lush foliage overhead, while to their right, rolling hills made up the landscape for several miles before ending at the base of a distant mountain. Beside the mountain sat the last remaining bit of sun, its tip barely protruding over the jungle that formed along its base.

Princess Luna gazed across the landscape with a soft expression. “I must say, yours is one of the more scenic dreams I have recently encountered.”

Twilight smiled, ambling closer to walk around a fallen tree. “I’ve always had a big imagination.” She winced. “In more ways than one, I guess.”

Luna’s closest ear flicked toward the mare, though her gaze remained on the setting sun. Once the tip disappeared beyond the horizon, she turned her attention forward. “Whenever you’re ready to share, Twilight.”

Twilight nodded gently, biting her lip as she turned her head away. The two strode forward for a short while in silence, only broken by the brush of grass and occasional crunch of bark beneath their hooves. When the edge of the jungle began to thin, Twilight cleared her throat. “So… I wasn’t kidding when I said what I did earlier. About being a giant.”

Luna nodded. “How do you know it is something you like?”

“From dreams I’ve had over the years. When I was a filly, I started having these nightmares about… well, giant ponies. They always used scared me – still do a little whenever I happen to have one these days. But more recently, I’ve had other dreams. Ones where… I’m the giant.”

Luna hummed. “Would you be comfortable explaining what the nightmares are like?”

“They usually consist of giant ponies either destroying Canterlot or coming after me.” Lowering her voice, she said, “There are some exceptions to that, but… nothing worth mentioning.”

“Mmm. Well, simple or not, I can see how such a thing might be frightening.”

“Exactly. And I’ve had those nightmares for a long time. They don’t happen too often anymore, but when they do, I always feel a bit shaken afterward.”

As the sky slowly shifted from amber to shades of purple, the trees beside them began to thin further. The thick dew-laden fauna of the jungle’s edge transitioned to dry woodlands, covered in autumnal colors. Luna glanced over at the forest, then at the straw-littered path they were steadily approaching. “Is there any reason you could think why you have had these dreams?”

“None. And you know me well enough to know I’ve tried very hard to find a reason.”

“Hence why I asked you directly, rather than taking a longer route.” Luna looked over at Twilight with a playful smile.

Twilight returned a smirk, being careful to bend her head down to avoid a low-hanging branch. “After the first few nightmares, I gave up trying to figure them out for a while. I just ignored them the best that I could and focused on my studies.” She frowned as she said, “But as far as the dreams are concerned… to be honest, I think I’m more afraid of them than I am of the nightmares.”

“How so?”

“Well… it’s the nature of the dreams.” A familiar tightness began to form in Twilight’s throat, which she was quick to gulp through. “I, um… s-started having dreams of being a giant just within the last few years.”

Princess Luna hummed again and nodded to herself. “May I ask what it is you do when you are the giant?”

Twilight visibly wilted at the question. She closed her eyes and bit her lip, taking a moment to steel herself before continuing. “I… well… I destroy things… and, uh… e-eat ponies.”

“Hmm… I see,” Luna murmured.

“B-but don’t get me wrong,” Twilight quickly stammered, “it’s not that I like doing any of that! Or at least not in real life! I just…” A shiver traveled down her spine. “For whatever reason, I enjoy those things when I’m a giant in my dreams. I promise though, I would never—“

“Peace, Twilight.” Princess Luna stopped mid-trot, lifting a hoof for Twilight to do the same. “I now understand why you were hesitant to bring this up. But please do not think this changes my perception of who you are.”

“I… huh. Well, that’s familiar.” Twilight slumped her shoulders and looked up at Luna with tired eyes. “Alright then. Why shouldn’t it?”

“Well… perhaps I should rephrase.” Luna cast her gaze down the remaining path, now growing dim as night began to settle in. “In the years I’ve served as Princess of the Night, both before and after my time as Nightmare Moon, I have seen countless dreams whose origins stemmed from desires often unknown to the ponies having them.” She looked over at Twilight and said, “While some desires are indeed unhealthy, they don’t always define the nature of somepony’s heart.”

“That still doesn’t make sense!” Twilight protested with a flustered tone. “Aren’t ponies’ desires the very things that do make them who they are?”

Princess Luna blinked. “Twilight Sparkle. Surely you know there’s more to it than that.”

“Well… I mean…” Twilight huffed, stepping away from Luna and down the path. “Okay, I understand it’s not that cut and dry. There’s countless things that make each pony who they are, things like dreams only play a part in it, etcetera. I get that.” She approached a solid plank of wood that reached out of the ground to her left, angled toward a larger wooden enclosure that stood adjacent to the path. She placed a hoof on the plank and looked over her shoulder. “But wanting to destroy things and eat ponies is the sort of thing monsters do. Not ponies.”

Luna furrowed her brow. She opened her mouth to speak, but hesitated when she noticed the wooden object by which Twilight stood: a solid wall of unfinished oak two ponies tall, lined with shelves mounted at haphazard angles. The oaken shelves stretched a short distance down the path before branching into more rugged variants that wound deep into the forest.

Setting the sight aside for a moment, she turned her attention back to Twilight. “Have you determined why you like being a giant in your dreams?”

“I’m not sure. I know what I like to do as a giant, but not why. Although…” Stepping forward along the shelves, Twilight said, “I may have discovered a certain overarching element to the desires. It’s… still very confusing, all of it. But the one thing I’ve known all along that I like about the dreams is the feeling of power I get from them.” She chuckled bitterly under her breath. “Eating ponies? Destroying stuff? As much as I… nngh… love to do those things, there’s something else to it. Something more… thematic, I guess.”

Her eyes drifted to the shelves next to her. Several earthen-tone books lay askew across the staggered shelves to her left, with one exception. A single cerulean book, far thinner than the rest and bound with a faded multicolored spine, leaned upright against a set of older books that were in far worse shape. Eyeing the book, she said, “I’m not sure if it matters anymore, though. I’m afraid I’ve just made things worse thanks to the last couple of days.”

Princess Luna sidled closer to Twilight, taking notice of the book her gaze fell upon. When she recognized the color combination, she looked at Twilight with an arched eyebrow. “Might you be referring to a certain spell you’ve used recently?”

Twilight tensed at the words. She blinked at the book a couple of times before turning to look at Luna. “You know?”

“Indeed, I do.” Luna walked a short pace down the path, carefully examining the books that lined the other shelves – many which were weathered and aged beyond recognition. Some sat with split cloth-bound spines that seemed ready to lose their contents with nary a breeze, while others were so caked with moss that it was hard to believe any words could still be legible within. But when her eyes caught a slightly larger, cleaner tome, she stopped. “It would appear you’re well studied on the nature of the spell.”

Twilight stood still for a few moments, staring at the Princess with a lost look. Eventually, she pushed off the shelf and trotted over, spotting the book that sat closest to Luna. “You know what these books are?”

“I have a hunch. Consider it the wisdom of millennia.” She turned to face Twilight. “You have yet to answer my question, though.”

“Oh. R-right.” A nervous chuckle escaped Twilight’s lungs, and she ran a hoof through her mane. “I found this spell while skimming through a tome I’ve had since I was a foal. It was stuck between two pages, and I had never seen it before. When I read through it, I found I could use it to create a synthetic world much like a dream, where I could—“

“I understand how the spell works, Twilight,” Princess Luna interrupted with an unusually firm tone. “What I’m afraid you may not know is the potential danger of using that spell.”

Twilight raised an eyebrow. “You mean how events in the imagination can affect the body? Yeah, I um…” She gulped. “I found that out after doing some further research.”

Luna studied the mare for a moment, as if waiting for another response. When Twilight merely blinked at her, she said, “That is not the only threat the spell possesses.”

Twilight’s ears flicked back. “Wh-what do you mean?”

Shifting her gaze back to the tome, Luna said, “May I?”

Twilight looked at the book. She replied with a single nod and watched as Luna floated it closer. She flipped to the first page, then skimmed through several others. A full minute passed in silence before she reached the end of the book and flipped it shut. “Twilight, there is a certain element of this spell that is missing from your research.” She placed the book back on the shelf and turned to face the mare. “I need you to fill me in on all the details, and who you used this spell with.”

Twilight furrowed her brow, her expression mirroring the concern now clear in Luna’s. “Wait. What exactly is missing?”

“I will explain,” Luna said, lifting a hoof with a hint of a smile. “You need not worry – no harm has been done yet. But first, I need to understand how the spell was used, and make sure I know with whom it was used.”

Twilight grimaced at that. Casting a forlorn glance back at the cerulean book behind her, she mumbled, “I, uh… I guess I can do that.”