Keepers

Madia was still having difficulty breathing slowly as Aevum tried to get some more detailed information about what she had seen. Time was still frozen, but at the moment Aevum didn't really care. In fact it was probably better his time wasn't limited if what Madia had said about the alicorn was true. They needed all the time they could get to figure this out.

"Madia, please try to relax. We can prevent all this. Just tell me everything you saw." Aevum tried to calm her. "But we can't! Prophecies always come true! They can't be changed or stopped!" She was panicking, almost desperate.

"Yes, but we might be able to warn others about it and learn more about ourselves if you explain." Aevum was getting desperate too. "Please, I need to know!" He said to her.

Madia started taking deep breaths as she tried to calm herself down. "Control your thoughts... try to think of one thing at a time." Aevum tried to help her. "Easier said then done. My mind is so spread out I can't simply stop thinking about something!" She responded.

Finally, after what seemed like an eternity, she began breathing normally again. "Madia, are you alright now?" Aevum asked. Madia just nodded. Her eyes were filled with tears, and he could tell she was trying to hold them back.

"It's just too much. So many terrible things are going to happen... so many lives are going to be lost." She managed. "If you can explain any important details to me we might be able so save some of those lives." Aevum pointed out.

Madia let out a quivering sigh. "The black alicorn... he's on his way here right now, but he's not from Equestria. He's from an entirely different world." She began, trying to contain her panic.

"Well, he can't be on his way now that time has been stopped." Aevum thought aloud. Madia just shook her head. "He's too powerful, he resisted your spell and is still coming. You're magic isn't strong enough." Madia pointed out.

Aevum swore under his breath. "His army... his army is huge. You could easily fill Canterlot with it, and that's only the group that's with him." Madia gave Aevum a scale of how large the army was.

"When he gets here..." Madia gulped and took a deep breath. "When he gets here, he's going to attack Canterlot, and with no mercy or care for life..." Aevum let every word of information sink in. It was difficult to believe, but all the proof for her visions being true was there.

"He's going to end up battling the King and Queen. The battle will only last a few minutes." Madia jumped ahead.

"And who will win? Surely the king and queen?" Aevum asked nervously. Madia shook her head. "I don't know, it blanked out around there. Like a black cloud came across my vision." She described what happened.

"The princesses, they will be in extreme danger. Somepony has to protect them!" She said, her panic beginning to rise again. "Hold on one step at a time." Aevum said. "No, one of the last visions I saw was the black alicorn entering their room, and seeing their horrified, crying faces!" She burst into tears again and buried her head into her hooves.

Aevum's eyes went wide at this. He stood up and looked out into the forest. There's no time to go looking for somepony we can't rely on. Aevum thought. "We need to get to Canterlot and warn them about this, before it's too late. Prophecy or no prophecy, I'm not about to let that keep me from trying." Aevum declared.

Madia looked up at him nervously. "How will we get there in time?" She asked. "Time? I don't think we need to worry about time." Aevum said grinning.

"But it's still so far away. Even if time is stopped it will take a while!" Madia put in. Aevum thought about this for a moment. It would take a while to get there by hoof, and if this alicorn completely bypassed Aevum's magic, then it didn't make much of a difference.

"Can your powers do anything else other than read minds and see visions?" Aevum asked Madia. "Well I can enter ponies dreams. In fact... I think I can travel through them. It could be really dangerous though if somepony is having a nightmare. Not to mention how many ponies sleep in the middle of the day?" Madia gave Aevum the whole story.

"Well, your powers seem focused on dreams. Maybe you can put ponies to sleep?" Aevum suggested. Madia's eyes widened at this. "Really? You think I can?" She said mystified. "Won't know until you try. I'll unfreeze time so you can try."

Aevum thought about how he had unfrozen time before. He willed the world to start moving again, and to resume where it left off. Sure enough the breeze returned and everypony started moving again like nothing had happened.

Next, Madia looked towards on of the ponies who was taking a break from building homes. She concentrated on him for a moment, with a determined look in her eyes.

The pony suddenly yawned, and lay down in the grass getting comfortable, and fell asleep. Madia smiled happily. "It worked! I put him to sleep!" She said energetically.

"Wow, I didn't think that would actually work!" Aevum said. The whole day may have been weird and filled with confusing stuff, but Aevum had to admit to himself, it was really awe striking.

"Now how do we enter his dreams?" Aevum asked Madia. "Oh that's easy!" She responded. She suddenly put her hoof on his shoulder. At first Aevum wasn't sure what to think, but then his stomach did a somersault as the whole world around him spun, and changed.

It only lasted a moment though. When it stopped, everything was distorted, and misty. It was difficult to see much of anything. All that he could make out was that it was dark, and they were at what looked like an ocean.

Madia's hoof was still on Aevum's shoulder, but she took it off a moment later. Aevum felt a little sick after all that. "Do you do that often? How can you stand it?" Aevum asked heaving. "Oh you get used to it pretty quickly." She responded.

"So, what next? How do we get to Canterlot like this?" Aevum questioned. "Well, now that we're in this dream we just need to find somepony from Canterlot who is asleep right now. Then we can travel from this dream, to theirs." Madia explained like it was an art.

"And how do we do that?" Aevum asked. "Easy." Madia suddenly jumped high into the sky, and disappeared in a flash of light. Aevum blinked for a moment, confused. Suddenly there was a flash and Madia came falling down. She slowed before she landed and touched down softly.

"Come on, follow me!" Madia said. Instead of having him follow her though, she grabbed his hoof and jumped again.

Aevum's stomach lurched again as he went rocketing into the sky. There was a bright light, and suddenly everything was completely silent. When his eyes adjusted, he looked around and saw almost everything was dark, except these strange flat surfaces, that looked like windows.

"This, is how we travel into different dreams." Madia pointed out. "You should see this place at night, it's quite the party!"

Aevum looked around at the different dreams. Some were happy, some were sad. All sorts of different kinds of dreams of ponies he never knew. It felt a little like an invasion of privacy.

"How do we tell which dreams belong to ponies from Canterlot?" Aevum asked. Madia giggled. "For somepony who controls time, you sure ask a lot of questions!" She said.

"I don't control time... what are you talking about?" Aevum said confused. "Come on, this one looks interesting!" She said ignoring his question. She grabbed his hoof again and pulls him through.

The place they were in now was right outside a house at a small village. Inside the house there were lights on. It was nigh time and there was nopony walking around. The streets were made from gravel, and there were flowers and plants in front of the house.

"This village is obviously much farther progressed than ours..." Aevum thought aloud. Suddenly there was a crash inside the house they had appeared in front of. There was screaming, and cries for help. Aevum could see fire in through the window.

A mare came running out with a young filly on her back. Aevum and Madia stepped out of the way as she ran past them and turned to look back.

Then there was another scream from inside the building. The mare gasped and got a terrified look on her face. Aevum's eyes went wide as he realized there was somepony still in there. He took off his red cloak to run in, but Madia stopped him. "No! This is a nightmare! It isn't real! They aren't in danger, but you are!" She told him.

Aevum looked desperately at the burning house. He wanted to run in and save whoever was still in there, but if he could still be hurt, and they others couldn't, it wasn't worth it. "Come on, let's get out of here." Madia said, grabbing his hoof again.

They jumped out of the dream and came back to the black center of the dreams. Madia looked around for a moment, as if she was trying to decide which one to try next.

One particular window caught Aevum's eye. "Hey, that one looks like an alley of a city! Maybe that's Canterlot!" He pointed the window out to Madia. She smiled energetically like she often did. "Come on then, let's go!"

Madia grabbed his hoof and they went launching through the window and out into the open air above Canterlot. However it was hazy, and a little distorted, meaning it was a dream.

Thanks to Madia, they landed softly on top of one of the buildings above the alley. They looked around, and could see the palace way off in the distance.

"How do we get out of the dream again?" Aevum asked Madia. "All I have to do is will us out of the dream. We don't want to do it here though. We wouldn't know where to go. We want to be closer to the castle. If we were to leave this dream right now, we would appear on top of this building in the real world." Madia, once again explained it like she had done it for years.

"Alright then let's head towards the castle!" Aevum came to the conclusion. "No, we can't just do that. Dreams have invisible boundaries on them. The boundaries follow the dreamer, they never expand or change. When we leave those boundaries we'll just end up back at the hub." She explained.

Aevum looked at her funny. "The 'hub?' Where did that name come from?" Aevum asked. Madia just shrugged. "I don't know, it's just what came to mind."

Aevum sighed. "Well how are we supposed to get there if the boundaries will hold us in?" Aevum asked. "Well, maybe we can effect the dream, and the dreamer. Maybe we can get him to move towards the castle and follow him." Madia suggested.

Aevum was about to say something in response, but then he heard a yell. "No, please leave me alone!" It was a male voice, that sounded like he was in his late twenties.

Aevum and Madia looked over the edge of the building down into the alley. There was a brown pony, backing away towards the end of the alley. There was a dark blue male pegasus who was slowly advancing on him with a knife in his mouth.

"Another nightmare? What's with all the bad dreams?" Aevum asked. Madia gasped when she saw what was happening. "That brown pony is the dreamer! If he dies in the dream he'll wake up and disappear from here!" Madia explained quickly, trying to contain her panic.

Aevum looked back towards the pony trying to escape. "Please, I didn't do anything!" He was saying. "You did everything! Everything was going perfectly fine until you decided to show up!" The blue pegasus responded.

Aevum looked around frantically for a way down. He saw a clothes line and got ready to leap to it.

Madia apparently thought of a better idea.

She grabbed his hoof again and leaped off the top of the building towards the two. The knife was at the brown ponies throat.

Aevum just saw the knife move swiftly across the brown ponies throat before everything around them went pitch black.

It was almost complete silence. Only the sound of their breathing could be heard. Any moment, Aevum expected to see the windows appear again, but they never did. He could still feel Madia holding his hoof, however he couldn't see her it was so dark.

Then he heard her voice. "Whatever you do, do not let go." There was a hint of desperation, and determination in her voice that he hadn't heard before. After that change in attitude, Aevum didn't dare let go.

There were voices, very faint voices, whispering to them. They were impossible to make out though. They were rolling and mixing together, jumbled up in a way that made words sound different than they were supposed to.

"What's going on?" Aevum whispered nervously. "Just wait, and don't let go." She said again.

Aevum thought he could see black figures spinning around them, but he couldn't tell if they were real, or just the darkness playing tricks on him.

The whispering slowly got louder. Random words became audible. "Guide. Send. Protect. Find. Save. Show."

A tiny, white light appeared way out in the distance, that slowly came closer, and grew bigger.

More words became audible. "Heir. Monarch. Fate. Keepers." The whisperings got steadily louder still. Aevum wanted to ask Madia what they were talking about, but he figured he better not.

The light came closer and closer, until it engulfed them, and suddenly the whispering stopped all together, with the final word he heard being "keepers."

Aevum's eyes hurt as they adjusted to the sudden light and colour. They were inside the castle courtyard, near the entrance. It was day time, and there were a few ponies walking around. Some were tending to the plants in the courtyard, while others were just passing through.

The courtyard was filled with various plants ranging from flowers to bushes and hedges. The grass was perfectly even, and a bright green colour. There were a few trees here and there, some of which bore fruit. There were several doors leading to other area's of the courtyard, but one door lead to the other side of the castle walls.

"What... we're inside the castle walls!" Madia half whispered, half exclaimed. As happy as Aevum was about that, he wanted to know what had just happened back there.

"Madia, what just happened back there?" He asked. Madia looked at him nervously. "When the dreamer woke up, the whole dream collapsed in on itself while we were still in it. We've been sent to somepony Else's dream now." She gave him the quick explanation.

"So we're still not in the real world?" Aevum asked dissapointed. Madia just shook her head. "No, but that can be fixed! Let's get out of here." She responded.

She closed her eyes and concentrated for a moment. But after a bit, she frowned and opened her eyes. "What's wrong?" Aevum asked. "I can't get us out here. The real castle has a magical barrier. No magic can be used to enter the castle, you have to get in through to gates." She confessed.

Aevum sighed. "Well, who's the dreamer? We need to get through those gates without leaving the dream." He was beginning to get the hang of this dream business. "I'm not sure, let's look around and find the-" She cut herself off.

Her eyes were locked on something, or somepony. Aevum followed her gaze and saw what she was looking at. It was the two filly princesses, Luna and Celestia. They were playing under one of the tree's together.

"Madia?" Aevum thought back to how she mentioned seeing the princesses in her vision facing the black alicorn. "Are you alright?" He asked.

"She's the dreamer. We're in princess Celestia's dream." Madia finally said, keeping her cool. Aevum's eyes widened as he stared at the two as they played under the tree.

"We need to somehow get Celestia to move towards the castle entrance. We need to get out of the magical barrier." Madia said. Aevum couldn't believe how serious she was acting in contrast to her upbeat and energetic normal personality.

Suddenly there was an explosion from the inner castle. Celestia and Luna stopped playing immediately and stared in shock as a cloud of smoke and fire rose into the sky.

"What in Equestria is that?" Aevum said. Before anypony could answer, there was another explosion, this time closer. Aevum could feel the shock wave and heat of it this time.

Pebbles and small rocks started raining down on them. Aevum looked into the sky. The sky was blood red, and a massive hole hung above the clouds, like a rip. Aevum realized just what he was seeing. This was exactly what he had seen on the walls of the cave.

He could faintly make out what looked to be hundreds of black ponies pouring out of the hole in the sky. Aevum looked at Madia and saw she was terrified. This must have been what she saw in her vision! He realized.

"Madia, snap out of it! We have to focus now!" Aevum said, shaking her. She shook her head and look at Aevum a moment, fear in her eyes. She nodded and let go of Aevum's hoof, which she still hadn't let go of since the last dream was interrupted.

Another explosion, this time just behind the courtyard, sent rock and flame into the sky. It started raining large chunks stone and concrete around them. One was launching towards the princesses at breakneck speed.

Before he knew what he was doing Aevum ran towards the boulder and came skidding to a halt directly in front of the princesses. He wasn't sure what he was doing, but he reared up on his back legs and held out his front hooves.

"Aevum, no!" Madia yelled. The second the boulder touched Aevum's hooves, it froze in the air, and a golden shock wave echoed from Aevum's hooves. He let out the breath he was holding in, and brought his hooves down. He felt depleted of energy, all he wanted to do was lay down and rest.

He turned and looked at the princesses behind him, their eyes filled with fear and shock. Madia quickly ran over to join Aevum. "Aevum what were you thinking, that rock would have crushed you!" She said. "I... I honestly don't know... Come on, we need to get out of here." He managed through heavy breaths.

"Princesses, we need to leave this place before the entire castle destroys us." Madia explained to them. Celestia's eyes went wider than Aevum thought was possible when Madia addressed them. "Yo-your cutie mark! I-I've seen it b-before!" Celestia stuttered.

Aevum looked at Madia's cutie mark. It was a pink, glowing five-pointed star, with a black shadow around it. "There's no time girls, we need to leave!" She said desperately. Luna and Celestia just nodded, too scared to say or do much else.

They turned around and ran towards the castle entrance. The gates were locked tight, and wouldn't open. "How do we get out?" Luna asked terrified. Madia looked around frantically. She looked towards the boulder Aevum had stopped, and grinned.

"Stand back everypony!" She said. The boulder suddenly moved up into the sky. Madia looked at Aevum, and he quickly guessed what she was going to do. He backed away and focused his will power on the boulder. Madia gasped as it unfroze, and it's weight took effect.

She clenched her teeth, as she threw the boulder with her magic towards the gates. The gates burst open and the boulder went rolling down the road.

She panted and heaved as she tried to regain her energy. "Come on... let's go..." She let out.

Aevum lead the way. They ran out through the gate and out of the castle. They passed burning plants and bushes, and dodged rocks raining down around them from the explosions that were still happening.

After a little while of running they finally were a safe distance from the explosions to avoid getting hurt. All four of them let out a sigh at the same time. Celestia and Luna watched on as their home was destroyed, tears in their eyes.

Aevum looked too. He recognized on area of the castle that stood out from the rest. It hung out over the left courtyard. There was bright light shining through the windows, the kind of light caused by magic.

"Girls, I need you to listen to me. None of this is real." Madia was saying when he turned back. "This is your dream Celestia. This isn't actually happening. Your home is fine, and so is everyone in it. However this dream will keep going on unless you wake up." She continued.

Aevum gave her a confused look as she told Celestia to wake up. "Now we have to go. We will see each other again. Just try to wake yourself up, think of what makes you wake up in other dreams." Madia finished. She turned to Aevum and opened her mouth to day something, when Celestia spoke up.

"Ma'am, who are you, and what does your cutie mark mean? Please tell me!" She asked desperately. Madia looked a little confused, but answer anyways. "It represents creativity. Creativity and thought." She thought for a moment. "I don't really know who I am myself. That's what I'm trying to find out myself." She finished.

Aevum and Madia quickly ran off towards the rest of the city. When they were at the point between the castle path and the city, the dream seemed to surge. It faded slightly, but became vivid again. "She's waking up, come on. Let's get into the real world." Madia said.

She grabbed Aevum's hoof, and closed her eyes. With that, Aevum felt his stomach do another somersault, and felt the world change around him. He closed his eyes so as not to get confused.

When he opened them, the sky was blue, and filled with almost no clouds. There were birds singing, and a small breeze and rustling of leaves as nearby trees swayed in the wind.

Aevum took a deep breath and relaxed a moment. He thought back to how much energy freezing that boulder took. He decided he would have to learn how to control his energy next time.

"Well, here we are. In front of Canterlot Castle." Madia finally said. "Let's hope we still have lots of time before that alicorn arrives. We'll need it." Aevum paused. "But what about all the dreams? How come Celestia dreamt about the prophecy, and why were all the dreams nightmares?" He wondered aloud.

Madia seemed to notice this. "You're right. How could Celestia know about the prophecies? It can’t just be coincidence that all the dreams were nightmares either." She said. Aevum shook his head. "Something is very wrong about all this. I think more wrong than we originally thought." He said.