Luna knew something was wrong with Celestia before she ever laid eyes on her that evening. The entire castle moved slowly and deliberately, which meant either Celestia or herself were in a foul mood of some sort. Luna, having just woken up, was peckish, but otherwise no more moody than usual, which left Celestia as the source of the malaise.
It all clicked when she finally found her way to Celestia in the dining hall. There are some things family can tell at a glance, and Luna's normal waking moodiness faded in a blink. She took a seat next to her sister, who only stared at the empty table in front of her.
"Who?" Luna asked, calm and measured.
The sun finished its slow dip below the horizon before Celestia spoke. "Pinkie Pie," she said, tired beyond the day's work.
"Then I have much to do." Luna kissed her sister's forehead, planting the seed of a soft dreamless night. "Goodnight, Sister."
Celestia said nothing else as Luna left the hall to begin her work.
Rainbow Dash dreamt of flying, as she often did. Tonight, she chased the sun as it fell beneath the horizon, trying desperately to keep the fading pink hue in the sky. It was all for nothing, however. The black of night eventually pulled its hood over the land, and the last traces of color fell away. Exhausted, she lowered herself onto a cloud and stared at the darkness ahead of her.
"Hello, Rainbow Dash," Luna said as she worked her way into Rainbow's dreamscape. "It's rare to see you so... still."
Rainbow said nothing as she continued gazing into the distance. Luna conjured up a cloud and took a seat next to her. In a place of dreams time did not always pass as like it felt, and Luna had learned much, much patience over the ages.
"I'm too slow," Rainbow finally said, not taking her eyes off where the sun once sat. "I can't keep it in the sky; can't catch it. Now it's dark, everypony is sad, and it's all my fault."
"You're not to blame for the sun setting. That's just how the world works. Everything has its time, and when that time is over, it moves on. You could be a thousand, thousand times faster and never be able to change that."
Rainbow swished her tail lazily behind her as she considered Luna's words. "Well, that's dumb."
"I know. And I'm very sorry."
They sat in silence a while longer. Luna being patient, and Rainbow letting the wheels in her head turn at their own pace. This time, Luna broke the silence.
"I'm making a gift for a mutual friend, but I need your help. Of all the ponies in the world, only your feathers have the exact shade of blue I require. Would you be so generous as to lend me a few?"
That wasn't quite true, of course. Many ponies had nearly the exact same shade of blue coat and feathers as Rainbow Dash. But none of those other shades, despite being so close, went so well with pink. Her hue had the most practice, after all; countless hours hunkered down next to it waiting for somepony to stumble into a practical joke, and more yet brushed together side-by-side in a booth eating sweets.
In all the world, only Dash's would do.
"Eh, fine. Not like they're good for much right now anyway." Rainbow Dash tucked her head under her wing a pulled out a mouthful of loose primaries.
"Thank you," Luna said as she grabbed the feathers with her magic and tucked them away in her chest plate. "I know she'd appreciate your willingness to help. Now..." she tilted her head down to the morose mare beside her and tapped her head with her horn. "Know a peaceful rest, at least tonight. There's a lifetime yet ahead for mourning."
And the black faded away to nothing as Luna winked out of Rainbow's fading dream.
Fluttershy dreamt of wide fields filled to the brim with happy and healthy animals, as she often did. Tonight, a young litter of bunnies danced around her legs as she watched the birds fly above her and the bears forage at the edge of the clearing. The sun shone above, and only a few wisps of clouds flittered across the sky.
"Good evening, Princess Luna," Fluttershy said as her guest arrived in the dreamspace. "How are you?"
"I came to ask you that very thing. I expected you to be troubled, and yet... this is all quite lovely. I'm surprised."
"I've been lucid dreaming since I was a filly, so I'm usually very good at chasing away my own nightmares, Princess." Fluttershy bent down and nuzzled one of the smaller bunnies. "I didn't want the bullies to get me while I slept, too. No offense, of course. I appreciate the visit, but if there's somepony else who needs help, please don't wait on my account."
Several birds broke from their flock and landed on Luna. She spread her wings out wide so more could have a place to perch. "I'm preparing a farewell gift for Pinkie."
The birds and bunnies and bears all froze. "Oh."
"I apologize for bringing sorrow into your dream, but there's no abstraction to bend my need toward in a lucid dream."
"It's alright." Slowly and quietly, the animals continued their routine. "I'm very sad, of course, but I have more practice than most ponies managing my grief. I've lost many, many little friends through the years. How can I help?"
"A few strands of hair and some feathers will do. Mane or tail, it matters not."
"That's easy." One of the bears from the edge of the meadow walked over to Fluttershy, gently pulled aside a small chunk of her tail, and cut it off with a single stroke of his paw. He looked at her expectantly, and she nodded to let him know he did a fine job. Quick and painless. She dipped a wing down to the ground, and one of dancing bunnies plucked out a pawful of small, downy feathers.
Luna tied the lock of hair into a knot around the feathers and tucked the bunch in her regalia. "Thank you, Fluttershy. I'll leave you to your dream."
"Wait," Fluttershy called out before Luna could disappear. "What sort of gift are you making?"
Luna paused before she answered. "One fit for the finest of friends."
And then she walked silently into the forest and out of Fluttershy's peaceful dream.
Rarity dreamt of purchase orders, invoices, last minute alterations, and dwindling supplies, as she often did. Tonight, she scoured the inventory sheets for each of her boutiques, desperately trying to locate a missing cache of accent diamonds. She jetted from closet to closet, turning over every basket and fabric roll in search of her missing materials.
"Good, another pair of eyes!" she shouted at Princess Luna as she emerged from a utility closet. "My orders are stacking up, but I can't finish my work without my diamonds! I'll keep looking down here. You go check upstairs. Perhaps Sweetie moved them under the bed in a fit of unwelcome housekeeping."
Before Luna could respond, Rarity dove into a pile of fabric rolls. Having little other recourse to calm the frantic mare, she flew up to the second floor of the boutique and began her search. She checked under and above the beds in each room, emptied the closets from top to bottom, and even gazed within the non-euclidean geometry of dream Opalescence's cat house.
It was all for naught, however. As Luna suspected would be the case, the missing diamonds were nowhere to be found. But, she was a clever mare, and in the world of dreams things can often become more than what they seem.
"Rarity," she called out as she headed back to the workroom on the first floor. "I fear your prize will not be found up there, either. But fret no longer. There is one place yet we may search and I believe it will be the last we need."
"Where, darling, I must know!" Rarity grabbed Luna by the muzzle and pulled her close. "If I botch this order my reputation will be ruined!"
Luna pointed behind Rarity. The panicked mare turned around, but saw nothing. She looked at Luna, who only spun her hoof around in the air. So she turned around, again and again, searching for Luna's target. She finally stopped when her eyes caught the blue glint of her own cutie mark.
"Ah ha!" Rarity brushed a hoof against her flank. Each pass across sent a few glittering diamonds skittering to the floor. "This is certainly unorthodox, but when a deadline looms one does what one must. How can I ever thank you?"
Luna picked up three of the now numerous diamonds on the floor. "These will be thanks enough, if you'd be so kind. They're for a friend."
"Of course, Princess. Not a problem at all."
"Thank you," Luna replied as she tucked the gems away with her other collected items.
"Now, if you'll excuse me, I really must be get back to work."
With that, Rarity turned her attention to her sewing machine, and Luna walked out the door of the boutique.
Maud, Limestone, and Marble Pie did not dream as they usually do. Tonight, they sat around together, at a table in the house on the family farm, for the first time in a long time. Candles lit the kitchen and dining space while flickering shadows danced around the room. The three sisters Pie drank from steaming mugs of something—Luna couldn't tell quite what, watching from outside as she was—and snacked on plain looking pastries that gave up their hidden colors once you made it through the crust.
There are some things in the world of dreams that can be given upon request, and some which can be taken, but like the waking world, true tears only come from authentic emotion. And so Luna had set the stage of this shared dream, but it was the occupants' space to use as they would. She waited and watched, hidden away in the dark that was everything except the inside of the Pie home.
She watched as they said nothing to each other while gnawing on their cakes and draining their mugs. Because dreams are wonderful sometimes, they would, upon finding their drinks refreshed and food supply restored, each forget that they hadn't gotten up to refill or restock.
Limestone was the first to speak, but only rough tone and inflection carried across the glass to the outside. She sounded angry, but a quick look from Maud simmered her down. Marble spoke up with a sly smile and made Limestone flush for a moment before they both began laughing. Even from a distance, Luna could see just a hint of upward curl at Maud's lips. Limestone and Marble began to talk and gesture around the room. Maud threw out the occasional line that either sent the other two into a laughing fit or got them started pantomiming another story.
Luna watched as they remembered their dear sister and celebrated the laughter she brought to the world and the joy she brought to their lives. Gently—so very gently, because scenes like this are too precious to break for any reason, no matter how noble—she magicked away a single tear from each of their cheeks. She froze the tears, each a drop of salty sorrow borne from laughter, before leaving the mares to their dream.
Cheese Sandwich dreamt of a party, as he often did. Tonight, it was one from long, long ago. A particular pink pony was throwing an outdoor bash, and a young Cheese stumbled into it quite on accident. The rubber chicken that smacked him in the face, and the happy filly he saw after, changed his life forever.
Princess Luna entered the dream, somehow already situated in a comfortable outdoor recliner next to the dreaming Cheese Sandwich.
"You just missed my favorite part. Want me to rewind?" the elder Cheese asked, munching on a tub of popcorn.
Luna politely waved the popcorn away. "Is this the first time you met Pinkie?"
"It's the first time I saw her. I didn't really meet her until years later." Cheese grabbed the corner of the memory and flipped it in front of himself and Luna like a page from an enormous pop-up picture book. In the new memory, Pinkie and Cheese were dancing and singing and doing all manner of impossible party tricks to impress Rainbow Dash. Cheese nudged Luna in the side. "Don't tell anypony, but I totally stole her song."
"I doubt very much she was upset for long," Luna said. The party scene across from Cheese and herself blurred forward to the early evening. It looked as if the entire town was at the gathering. "This is quite the festive event. Did the two of you plan this one together?"
"Oh yeah!" Cheese hoofed another pile of popcorn into his mouth. "We ended up working on a ton of parties together." Cheese Sandwich looked into his bag, and for a moment his eyes turned moist and his ears pinned back against his head. "Do you want to see my favorite one?" he asked, perking up.
Luna smiled. "I'd love to."
Once again the page of memory turned around them. Now, they sat on a long bench in wide hall filled to the brim with ponies from all over Equestria. At the front of the assembly stood a tuxedo clad Cheese Sandwich, looking back at the only thing in the world that really mattered at that moment. From the rear double doors walked in Pinkie, wearing a just off-white—in the pink direction, of course—dress with more frills and ribbons and decorative stitches than anypony who didn't put them there could ever hope to count.
She walked up the center aisle more calmly than she'd done anything in her entire life, but Luna could hear her giggling, even over the murmur of the crowd. As she approached the altar, all sound faded away from the dream. Tuxedo Cheese leaned in and whispered something into her ear that replaced her giggles with blush.
"Sorry, Princess. That part's for our ears only. But hang on," the Cheese in the crowd with Luna emptied the last of the popcorn into his mouth. "This is my favorite favorite part."
The sound came back in time to catch the last words of the ceremony. "I do." Pinkie nearly vibrated out of her hair pins as she said them.
"I now pronounce you husband and wife. You may kiss the—" the official was cut off by the raucous cheers from the assembly as Cheese swept Pinkie up and kissed her.
Dreaming Cheese Sandwich joined the crowd in cheering. "Woo hoo! They did it! They finally got married!" he beamed with all his might.
Luna took the empty popcorn bag and scooped up as much of Cheese's beaming as she could. Pinkie wouldn't, she imagined, mind things a little buttery. With the bag full and the once-groom distracted, Luna quietly slipped out the back of the wedding hall and into the space between dreams.
Princess Luna worked through the night, as she always did. Tonight, she would do something she hasn't done since the first constellations were new.
Bubbled glimpses into the inner worlds of thousands of ponies floated around the space between dreams, vibrant and varied as the dreamers themselves, but none of them made any noise at all. Sound existed in dreams, and sound could exist in the space between, but nothing without Luna's guidance could pass between. Luna slowly fell beneath the sea of dreams, to where the bright bubbles and faux night canvas were little more than mirage.
The space between dreams can't be shaped at whim like true dreamscapes. It must be molded with intent, guided to form by a strong will. Once, when she was young, Luna shaped a corner of this dark and unformed land into a place she could express her creativity in peace. Here, in her workshop, this crucible of stars, she had repainted the night sky from a lifeless pitch into the beautiful sparkled violet firmament ponies loved to sleep beneath.
It has been a very, very long time since she's come here. Somehow, it still felt longer than it was. And yet, everything was just as she left it, because that which is gifted with true purpose does not so easily forget.
First, she removed the frozen tears from their holding place. They wouldn't do, shaped as they were, so she melted them together before pulling them back apart into three perfect little spheres. Each piece held a little of the others now, and the joy and sorrow was shared between them fully. Now, instead of freezing, she crushed them into tiny solid crystals. Ice would melt, eventually, but crystal endures all manner of time. She laid the crystal tears down upon her workbench, the second a little off center and above the ends.
With shape in place next comes light. She slowly poured out the light of a true love from its popcorn bag, and struck it as it flowed over the three crystals. First second third, first second third, she hammered down every drop into form, so the crystal tears beamed out at all who would ever gaze upon them.
After light, color. Three blue and three yellow feathers she plucked from her chest plate. The outer gems she encircled with blue, and the inner yellow. She spun the feathers round and round their glowing tears, gently guiding the colors inward to a smaller shape. After much cautious coaxing, the feathers laid smooth and seamless against the glowing crystal tears, giving the pure light they shed the proper hues.
Next, context. Luna laid out the diamonds in front of her, carefully considering the next step. She cracked one in half, and that half into quarters, and set them apart from the rest. The whole and half gems she wrapped in the pink strands of hair she carried with her, and she tied the last blue feather around one quarter, and the last yellow around another. They all sat a while, and slowly the colors bled and the diamond softened, until all that remained was spectrum rich glass. Luna separated the colored glass into their own bowls and ground them into powder; some of it fine, some of it coarse, because conformity would be an insult to her subject.
Last, the canvas. Luna pulled the shade back on a window and looked out to the waking world. "Yes, yes, in the East," she mumbled to herself as she spun the window off the wall and moved it back and forth until it captured the exact view she desired. Now propped up like a painter's easel, it showed its mistress a view of the Celestial Sea from the peak of Canterlot Mountain, high enough that even the clouds didn't dare block the view.
And now, the creation. Luna first blew the pink glass dust onto the canvas, covering her view of the sky in a haze of cotton candy. She dusted most of it off the canvas, and pressed what remained into the dark background so deeply that barely any of the color peaked through. Next, she placed the glowing crystal tears in the sky above the horizon, the center yellow just a bit higher than the blue ends. Not too perfectly, she made little trails behind the placed tears. A yellow tail for the blues, and a blue tail for the yellow, each beautifully curved in its own way.
Luna looked upon her work and, after a moment of artistic contemplation, decided it was good. She placed the canvas back where it came from, and it once again became a window. But now it showed a slightly different view, for three brilliant new stars had found their place in the sky above the eastern horizon. The Princess of Night watched and waited until just before dawn. As the sun began to creep its way toward the horizon, a sea of stardust caught the first rays of light and bent them into a brilliant field of pink, making the new stars and their nearly invisible tails burst into sharp relief.
For a few minutes, in the earliest twilight, there was a party in the sky for all the world to enjoy.
Author's Note
Inspired by a conversation with Light Striker about neutron stars and The Lion King.
