Lucid Dreams sauntered calmly through the grounds of Fillydelfia college, her ceremonial armour sparkling in the sunlight. Lucid was a ranking officer in Princess Luna’s dreamguard and she had been invited to come down to Filly college to teach a short crash-course in dream magic to the magical sciences class. She had made up her deep red mane in some semblance of tidiness before making the train journey from Canterlot to Fillydelfia. She opened the door to the magical sciences building with a sharp telekinetic push and stepped through, the shiny floor reflecting her dark green coat. She made sure she was wearing her ceremonial armour correctly in her reflection in the large mirror that adorned the wall, the helmet was perched on top of her head at the right angle, the plate resting gently on her muzzle. There were a couple of students milling in the hall that stared at her for a few moments, the deep navy of the Dreamguard’s ceremonial armour wasn’t often seen outside of Canterlot castle.

“Alright then, let’s go and greet the scamps.” She muttered quietly, nudging the hilt of her sword with a hoof and pushing the door to the lecture theatre open. It was mostly full, Lucid spotted maybe thirty unoccupied seats in the room full of unicorns. She got a couple curious stares as she made her way down to the lectern.

The room was relatively noisy, the conversations between the students meshing together into a tapestry of noise that Lucid couldn’t be heard at all through. She cleared her throat and raised her head and channeled her inner drill sergeant. “Everypony, shut your muzzles!” She yelled at the congregated crowd, some jumping out of their seats, some whirling round to stare at the armoured pony with wide, surprised expressions. She got what she wanted, not a muzzle was opened.

“Alright then, thank you. I am Lucid Dreams and I will be your teacher for a couple of lectures. Dream magic and all of that.” She began, noting that some of the students began to go back to mobile phones and scratching away at pieces of paper. “Now I know that not all of you are interested in this subject, but I will expect at least a little bit of participation from all of you.” She glowered at the students, receiving a couple of confused looks from the assembled ponies.

What she didn’t notice was the grey pegasus in the corner only just being held in her seat by a straining blue unicorn.

“Dawn… Dawn we all know you want to be in the Dreamguard. But Celestia you don’t have to be this excited over having one of them come and be our teacher.” Cobalt said to her, having to duck under a wing that Dawn was flapping excitedly.

Dawn hadn’t asked him out yet, she still had yet to work up the courage to ask him if he still liked her so far.

“There’s not much theory in dream magic, just some of the words that mean stuff, so I don’t know why I was asked to come and teach you how to do dream magic. You should already know how to share consciousnesses with one another?” Lucid asked the students, receiving a cacophony of nods in response. “Cool, there’s a couple symbols you need to know too, but those can come another time. Anyway, I prefer teaching stuff by getting down and dirty.” She chuckled to herself.

“This is probably going to be the one time that your professor tells you that it is alright to fall asleep in her lecture. So besides when I am speaking with you, just don’t.” She looked at the crowd, some of them already dropping their heads into their hooves. “Just before you doze off, you need to make a couple preparations, specifically you need to visualise yourself waking up in a completely white space with a little doorway off in the distance.”

Once she had explained some of the complexities of dreamwalking to the students, she rested her perpetually sleepy eyes and thought of her little door off in the distance.

--==========================--

It wasn’t long before Lucid was sitting in the dreamscape, waiting for the students to start to appear in the starry land. There were a couple trickling in, a tall mare, a squinty blue stallion and a grey pegasus.

“Alrighty then, I see we have the first few ponies in.” Lucid said, walking towards them. “And apparently we also have our first case of zoomorphism, are you alright?”

Dawn, the grey pegasus, was completely fine, she was completely used to having wings, being that she was, indeed a pegasus. “Um… yes?” She replied to the inquisitive Lucid in front of her.

“Well that’s great!” Lucid said happily, “Personally, I freaked out the first time I found out I didn’t have wings.”

Dawn furrowed her brow, “Um… I’m not a unicorn in real life, I’m a pegasus.”

Lucid, who had started to turn away to talk one of the other students who had popped into the landscape, hesitated and turned around. She looked at Dawn like she was an alien, “What?” She asked in a dangerous tone, her hoof instinctively going to the hilt of her sword.

“Um… im a pegasus, not an unicorn.” Dawn repeated, a little uneasy to Lucid’s sudden threatening tone of voice.

“How? Only unicorns can get into the dreamscape!” Lucid advanced on the scared mare in front of her. “How the hell are you here?” She demanded, making Dawn stumble back and nearly fall over her own hooves.

“I-I…” Dawn stammered, trying not to cave under the sudden hostility. “I-I’ve always b-been able to g-get into the dreamscape.”

Lucid was having none of it, she drew her sword with her teeth and grabbed the hilt in her magic. One fluid motion swung it down towards Dawn who screamed and flapped her wings, propelling herself away from the sharp blade. “You’re dangerous and I can’t allow you to leave this place!” Lucid growled, holding the blade at eye level.

Dawn was backing away from her along the ground, her panic making it impossible to tell which bubble floating around them was hers. The students were congregating around the pair, unsure whether to stop Lucid from impaling their classmate.

“I-I don’t want to hurt you!” Dawn cried, scrambling to her hooves and keeping her distance from the sword wielding mare in front of her.

“I can’t take any risks around these students.” Legacy said firmly, taking another swing at Dawn which was just dodged by a hair’s breadth. Dawn could hear the sword humming through the air.

“She won’t hurt anyone!” A familiar voice sounded out from the crowd and Cobalt pushed to the front, fiercely glaring at Lucid and her sword. “If she had wanted to hurt any of us, she will have already done it, Moonlight Dawn has been in this class for six months now and she hasn’t shown any hostility towards anyone!”

Cobalt stepped out of the crowd and stood between Lucid and her vibrating blade and Dawn protectively. Dawn was shaking with fear and adrenaline, tears brimming in her eyes as who she would argue was her role model pointed a deadly weapon at her.

“How can I believe that she isn’t dangerous, for all we know she has manipulated you all into thinking she isn’t a danger to you all!” Lucid growled, lowering her sword a moment, “Now get out of my way.”

Cobalt grit his teeth, he couldn’t deny that he was a little bit terrified of the armoured mare pointing a sword at him, but even through his fear, he stood his ground. Dawn mattered to him, probably more than she knew. “No, I won’t move. I won’t move because Dawn is my friend.” Cobalt snarled back at Lucid, trying his best to look intimidating to the dreamguard.

Lucid raised the sword again, trying to find the will inside her to strike the stallion in front of her aside and drive the point of her sword into the pegasus cowering behind him, even though she had a million reasons to strike them both down this moment, she just couldn’t do it. “For Celestia’s sake kid! Move!” She shouted, her frustration growing as he maintained a silent glare at her, not at all willing to move. The class bearing witness to this unfolding weren’t at all helping either.

After a few minutes of Lucid and Cobalt staring daggers into each other, Lucid had run through every situation in her head, what if she was really just killing an innocent mare that could dreamwalk, in which case she’d probably be locked up for murder and the family of the little mare would be distraught. On the other hoof she might be saving the lives of all of these ponies. After she had thought about it for way too long, she shook her head and looked away from the blue stallion glaring at her before sliding her sword back into its sheath. “Class dismissed, everyone go back to your own dreams and wake up.” Lucid mumbled, taking off her helmet and letting her mane cascade around her shoulders, she dropped the helm next to her and rubbed her temples as if sifting through too many thoughts.

None of the students moved, their eyes were all fixed on Dawn and Cobalt. The stallion was doing his best to comfort the terrified filly, crouched down next to her with one hoof around her shoulders like a safety blanket. Dawn was shuddering, crying quietly into her hooves while Cobalt calmly told her she was safe.

Lucid spoke up again, “I said. Leave!”

The rest of the students jumped into action, finding their different dreams and touching the bubbles like Lucid had explained earlier and popping back into their own dreams, the bubbles popping with soapy sounds moments later.

Cobalt and Dawn walked to her dream bubble in silence, she was endlessly thankful to him for protecting her but right now, her emotions were all confused again, his hooves around her had made the terror and adrenaline mix with sudden butterflies and produce some unintelligible emotion that she had no way of expressing. Instead of trying, she mumbled her thanks to Cobalt before touching her bubble and letting the world go white.

--==========================--

Dawn’s eyes flew open, her cheeks felt wet as she crammed papers into her bag, she didn’t want to be here she wanted to run home and bury her head in her pillow, she wanted to climb into bed and stay there forever and never have to worry about anything again.

She was about to begin her mad dash out of the hall before she felt a comforting hoof on her shoulder. She glanced to the side to see Cobalt’s worrying eyes watching over her protectively. The emotions in his eyes flickered furiously through fury, regret, fear and sorrow for Dawn.

Dawn shuddered at his gentle touch, torn between crumpling against him and shrugging his hoof off her shoulder. Instead, she paused for a moment before packing her saddlebags full of her papers and pens and shakily standing up. Cobalt slung his saddlebags over his back and stood too, floating Dawn’s bags onto her back for her.

They were about to step out of the doors before a tidal wave of ponies stampeded into the isle before them. Dawn was trapped with Cobalt, unable to get out of their seats. The pair just stood there, waiting for the flood of ponies to lessen.

Cobalt and Dawn jumped into the air as Lucid slammed her hooves into the desk in front of them aggressively like a pair of cloven hammers striking an anvil. “Answers. Now.” She demanded, practically growling at the pair of quaking teenagers. “How the hell are you able to get into the dreamscape as a pegasus?!” Dawn didn’t answer, her eyes were locked on Lucid and her rage.

Cobalt spoke up after a few moments of terrified silence, “I don’t think Dawn’ll give you any answers till you stop frothing at the mouth and shouting at us.” He put a hoof on Dawn’s shoulder. “You don’t have to tell her anything you don’t want to.”

After taking a few deep breaths, Dawn managed to begin to explain how she could dreamwalk, “M-mum isn’t a pony… she’s um… this thing called an abstract… I-I don’t really know much about it besides that she c-c-can read minds and do this weird… flickery thing that lets her walk through walls and stuff…” She hesitated, Lucid’s eyes were still burning into Dawn’s like lasers. “M-mum can’t dreamwalk, but my grandm-m-mother could… I never met her.” She managed to stammer.

“And you aren’t making this up?” Lucid asked, still keeping her dangerous tone as if she was going to grab Dawn and yank a confession out of her throat.

Dawn nodded silently, doing her best not to run for the hills. Cobalt tightened his comforting embrace around her as she hid beneath her mane from the interrogating eyes of Lucid Dreams.

The younger blue unicorn spoke up now, “She isn’t causing any harm, alright?” He glowered at Lucid, “Just leave her alone now, you’re scaring her.”

Lucid looked at the terrified pair, sighed and muttered a half assed apology, but making sure that they knew that this wasn’t anywhere near the end of her investigation and that she would be bringing this up with the princess. At hearing this, Dawn wasn’t sure whether to be scared or overjoyed, at the present time on the other hoof, she just wanted to be held by Cobalt.

Lucid glared at the colt protecting Dawn and began to walk off, muttering things to herself.

“Are you alright Dawn?” Cobalt asked once Lucid was out of earshot. “You’re shaking.”

Dawn wasn’t alright, she was scared of Lucid. So she answered him silently by slowly putting her forelegs around the colt and hugging him tight, burying her face in his shoulder for all the comfort she could gain from his fuzz. He was taken aback for a moment, she’d only hugged him once before and that was as unexpected as now. To this, Cobalt gently laid his head on hers and hugged her back, relishing in their embrace, trying to give the little mare all the comfort he could.

“Dawn…” He began after a long moment, “Do you want to go and get drink to calm your nerves? I’m sure it’ll help.”

Dawn hesitated, was that a date proposal? No, even Cobalt wasn’t dumb enough to ask her out in this situation. She nodded slowly, still embracing the colt tightly, still trying to take all the comfort from him that she could.

The pair stayed like that for a while longer, Dawn was afraid to pull out of the embrace and show her furiously blushing cheeks to the world.

Author's Note

This was a hard chapter to write, I must confess that I didn't really want an action sequence in this chapter, but after reading it through and receiving editing advice from Ratchet, we both felt it necessary to have the segment in this chapter, I also sorta needed to get the story between Cobalt and Dawn properly started, I don't want to rush it but after 5 chapters of them being generally awkward around each other, I felt that I needed one of them to make a move towards the other. I knew Dawn wouldn't be brave enough to ask Cobalt out, so I just had the stallion do the work for her.

Happy reading!