Compatī

The Dreamscape was far more enormous than I first thought.

It was like taking flight into the night sky, on and on, forever into the unknown. I could control my volition, as if I had wings and knew how to use them since birth. After the initial panic of being flung to the farthest reaches of space whittled away, I was left with a sense of awe and, naturally, curiosity.

I drifted past neutron stars, soared through nebulae, danced among the luminous galaxies that made up this strange and beautiful infinity.

What seemed almost like a river of starlight wound through a nearby stretch of space. As I passed over it, I let my hoof skim its surface, and as the twinkling starlight curled away in a glittering spiral, the strangest sensation shot through my mind.

It was the color red mixed with the feeling of happiness and a radiant warmth, all in one. A vision—or maybe a memory?—passed through my head, one of the careless whimsy of a lazy afternoon spent sunbathing on the beaches of Fillydelphia.

I pulled away from the starlit river, and my mind was my own again. The significance of the phenomenon teased me from the edges of understanding until it finally hit me.

This was someone’s dream.

These constellations and galaxies and other space things were the dreams of everypony in Equestria. I just touched someone’s dream. I felt someone’s dream.

I laughed in the silence of the starlit vacuum, and although I had learned earlier that my voice wouldn’t project, the reminder brought my excitement to a screeching halt.

I had always been a relatively solitary person, even in my CSGU days. As nigh inseparable as Copper and I were, I craved the moments between hanging out with her just as much as those spent feeling her beside me. Even when she was around, I still felt a level of disconnect from anything not related to schoolwork. Ironically, it’s what let me accomplish what I did with the mirror and get myself neck deep into this mess.

But solitude wasn’t isolation. And isolation was the first step to madness.

The high of exploration that initially filled me with wanderlust now gripped me with an unshakable bout of agoraphobia that had me hyperventilating. Tinnitus set in, and I spent what felt like the next hour just freaking out.

Everywhere around me, the distant stars stared back, indifferent and unmoving. My breathing grew louder in my head like I had cupped my hooves over my ears, and no matter how I clawed at them it wouldn’t go away.

I had to get out.

I took off in a random direction as fast as I could. There didn’t seem to be any limit to how fast this place would let me go. Stars turned from pinpricks to lines that stretched behind me. Galaxies and nebulae became smears of color forgotten just as quickly as they passed.

I had to get to the end. There had to be an end—a ledge, a threshold, a something that I could cross where gravity would take me back like a prodigal daughter, back to where everything made sense and I wasn’t locked away with my own dark thoughts.

But it was like some goddamn nightmare. This place just went on and on and on and on and on. I was lost.

I let myself slow into an aimless tumble. The stars twinkled back in their still-silent indifference, and I was, like so many times before, alone.

I cried. I didn’t care. My tears drifted weightlessly away like miniature stars, until I couldn’t tell them apart from the real ones.

How did Luna do it? How did she stand this place? What in her lack of sanity made her capable of, of… presiding over a place like this?

Worse yet, did she even want to? Was this something she chose, or was she forced to as some kind of punishment?

I pulled my hooves in on myself, and an even darker thought slithered out from the back alleys of my mind:

Was she always this alone?

I continued tumbling through the Dreamscape, my vision cycling upward like a photo reel of the spray-paint nebulae behind me, then back to the spiral galaxy ahead—nebulae, galaxy, nebulae, galaxy.

The more I lingered on that question, the more my heart got that squirmy feeling that made me want to get to my hooves and run, run away as fast as I could to anywhere but here—to hide from the hurts and the terrible truths and the everything that made my life the way it was.

But I had done my running. I flew countless light-years through this hell to find myself lost in the nothingness around me and in my own fucked-up head.

I knew the answer to my question. I knew it before I even asked myself.

And I liked to think I now understood, even just a little. A sliver of empathy for a mare who arguably deserved none, but it gave me something to focus on, gave me something more substantial than the ceaseless mania in my head. Better yet, it gave me a new question to ask myself:

What would Luna do if she were stuck here?

I didn’t picture her so much as I let myself picture her—that sort of non-committal hoof on the metaphorical thin ice one can’t help after so many years of pain. But I caught an inkling of her—if only just a distant memory from the cobwebs of my mind—and as if she were whispering in my ear, I heard her voice.

Follow your heart, Sunset. It will never steer you wrong.

I didn’t know if that was my imagination turned up to eleven, or if she really was communicating with me, but either way I let myself be wrapped in her words.

She really did care, and I had to trust.

I closed my eyes, focused, and thought of Twilight. I thought of her smile and the way she never seemed to be fully used to those wings of hers. Her awkward, silly ramblings and how she often trailed off into an embarrassed smile once she realized.

I felt a tug at my heart, like someone pulling at the loose string of a sweater. But instead of unraveling, it pulled taut, and my heart whispered a single word:

Forward.

I followed. As I had with the Nightmare in Luna’s dream, I let the faint, indistinct sensation lead me onward into the unknown.

Time flowed. Minutes to hours, hours to days. I lost count after what felt like a week. The unending ringing in my ears was maddening, but I focused on Twilight.

I thought of all her quirks that made me smile—her positive, nerdy attitude, the way she flitted her wings whenever she got excited, or how she tapped the tips of her hooves together when nervous. I let them surround me like new threads winding out from whatever this magic was that pulled me onward. It led me past supernovae and gas giants. The ice glittering amidst the rings of a frozen planet scattered as I passed through them, crystallizing on my coat and the rest catching the solar winds to begin their own journey into a greater beyond. I existed like that for god only knew how long, until I came to a little cluster of stars among a gathering of other celestial bodies.

The philosophical part of me wondered if they were Twilight’s other friends, the Elements inseparable even in this weird, metaphysical place. I touched the cluster and felt myself drawn through what felt like a sheer curtain of silk. A presence surrounded me—atmosphere, I suddenly realized—and the perfume of old books welcomed me into a darkly lit alcove of brick and mortar.

If the library smell wasn’t enough to know with certainty that this was Twilight’s dream, she herself sat at a desk stacked high with books that needed reshelving. Her face was scrunched in concentration as she scribbled something on a piece of paper.

“Twilight, is that really you?” I ran forward and hugged—

Actually, I passed right through her like a ghost. Goddamn it. I cast that stupid Veil Spell, and the rush of atmosphere hit me all at once.

Twilight either had masterfully keen awareness in her dreams, or my spell made quite the entrance. She spun around with a preternatural sense, and if the way her face went from confusion to excitement couldn’t spell relief, I didn’t know what could.

“Sunset?” she said.

Before she could say anything else, I threw my hooves around her—actually threw my hooves around her this time—and yes it really was her, from the gentle bob of her mane to the nappy bit of fur on her chest she could never quite flatten out. I held her tight and never wanted to let go.

“It’s you…” I said.

“Uh, yeah, it is.” She returned my hug instinctively, but then held me at arm’s length to study me carefully. “W-what are you doing in my dream?”

“I was… Wait, how do you know this is a dream?” I said.

“Oh! Starlight mentioned offhand that I’d start dreaming about our work if I didn’t stop working so hard. So, uh, naturally, I figured that was actually a great idea, so I’m trying out a spell to help me lucid dream. Which, I mean, maybe I’m taking her too literally, but I figured it couldn’t hurt to try?” She tapped the tips of her hooves together nervously in that very same manner that helped me find my way here.

Oh, I’d done that before! Suddenly a million questions came to mind, but one in particular crowded the forefront of my brain.

“What are you dreaming about this for?” I gestured at the books and immense library shelves towering over us.

“I… think I botched the spell a little bit. Or I let my mind wander before it was complete, which is the more likely answer. So yes, botched it.” She shook her head. “But that’s not important. Is this you? As in, the real you? Are you dream diving right now? Is this Dream Dive Sunset, or are you a product of my imagination?”

She proceeded to grab me by the cheeks and turned my face every which way. It wasn’t until I yanked her hooves off me that she smiled sheepishly and backed off.

“First off,” I said. “I’m glad to see you too. Second, yes, Twilight, it’s the real me. It’s a long story.”

That didn’t seem to satisfy her. “How do I know you’re not just a product of my imagination telling me you’re not a product of my imagination?”

I rolled my eyes. “Copper and I didn’t fuck like you think we did. Does that work for you?”

That got her face redder than a tomato—way more than it had any right to. Which meant… Had she met Copper? And she maybe had a thing for her? I stared at her for a moment before shaking my head. Focus, you idiot.

“I, uh, I don’t think that’s how it works,” she said. “That would still count as—”

I grabbed her by the face and scrunched her cheeks. Dreams weren’t my forte, but I assumed I only had so long to say what I needed before it fell apart like Luna’s way back when.

“Twilight. It’s me. Really. If you really want external proof, ask Copper about the ball gag.”

“The… what?”

“Twilight, focus. It’s me. It’s really me, shit’s gotten complicated, and I have no idea how much time I have to explain it.”

“I…” She closed her eyes and took in a deep breath before regarding me with all the seriousness she could muster. “What do you mean ‘complicated’?”

I sighed. I wanted to avoid the whole “explain the long story I was trying to not explain,” but I guess I shot myself in the foot with my own lead-in.

“So,” I said. “Luna and I were hunting down the Nightmare in Luna’s dream. We eventually found it sucking the life out of the Tantabus, but then the two of them merged into one being or something, and Luna was fighting it while the whole dream was collapsing around us.

“We… fell into what she called the Eversleep, this place she basically said was like a dream graveyard. Lots of things happened there, but ultimately she got me out of it by throwing me into the Dreamscape while she stayed behind. I’ve been wandering through metaphorical deep space for what’s felt like at least a week.”

“A week?” Twilight said. “But it’s only been two days since… since I…”

I knew what she was talking about: that moment I tried escaping the broken dream and reached out for her like a lifeline, only to watch her cut the rope at the last second. The sensation of falling, the waking up to blindness and abandonment in an alien world with nothing but the mare I hated most. It got my brain panicking and my legs sweating and my heart racing. But I had to put on a brave face for Twilight’s sake.

I put a hoof on her shoulder and smiled. “Look, I get it. Something happened, and you had to put me back under. I don’t know what’s going on out there in the real world, but we lost track of the Nightmare. Is it out? Did it escape?”

Twilight was silent for an uncomfortable length of time. Her eyes wandered the floorboards, and I noticed the dream morph around us as if alive and breathing.

The wall to my left slid open like a secret door, and fragments of light filtered into existence as if watching it through a camera lens coming into focus. It was a stained glass of Nightmare Moon, wings spread wide. The phases of the moon surrounded her head like a halo, with the full moon looming above her like the keystone to the entire piece.

I recognized it as the one in Canterlot Castle’s Aspirant’s Quarter, an enormous hallway of stained glass windows that timelined all of Celestia’s personal students through the centuries. I had no idea why Twilight would dream of here of all places, but standing directly beneath the image of Nightmare Moon gave me a few inklings to start with. More importantly, I was having an impression on her subconscious. At the very least, I’d bet money this meant she’d remember our conversation when she woke up.

“Hey,” I said. I put on my best disarming smile to catch her eye. When she looked, I jerked my head toward the stained glass. “This isn’t going to happen again. I won’t let it.”

That little show of confidence won me a smile, however brief. I couldn’t honestly believe my own words, but right now, that bit of hope on her end was all that mattered.

“But we need to save Luna if we’re going to stop this,” I continued. “She’s stuck in the Eversleep, and I have no idea how to get her out.” And just as quickly as I had coaxed out that smile, I chased it back into its hole.

“I… we’re stuck, too,” she said. “When you were, I assume it was when you were fighting the Nightmare, there was an eruption of magic from the two of you. Our spell backfired, and… something happened to the spell itself. We’re not entirely sure what, but removing your cutie mark didn’t cut off the spell like we thought it would. That’s why I had to put you under, because it seemed like it was tied to you waking up.

“We reworked the glyph as a”—her face contorted as if the words tasted vile coming out—“containment protocol, so that it wouldn’t happen again. But we’re not sure how to move forward without chancing another magical storm surge that could take out half of Ponyville.”

That… yeah, that sounded like a problem. Damned if we do, damned if we don’t. If only…

A thought occurred to me.

“Twilight, you know Copper, right?”

“I… yes?”

“Her dad works in research down beneath the castle.”

“Wait, what?” Twilight threw her serious face back on. “Her dad works for the Canterlot Research Department?”

“Well, I mean, he used to. Dunno if he still does. But he was a lead something-or-other. Research and safety containment was, like, his thing. He’s the one who helped me work on the mirror. I’d bet my left cutie mark he could help. You should talk to him.”

It was getting dark. My vision started going grainy, like I was watching one of those old movie reels. The atmosphere loosened its grasp on me, and I got that weird tugging sensation at my shoulders telling me time’s up.

“Twilight. I think I can feel the dream falling apart. I gotta go. I’ll try and find you tomorrow, or however the hell this works.”

Twilight’s mouth moved, but her words never reached me. A strange force wrapped itself around my shoulders, and gravity signed my contract off to some higher power. My sense of “up” became as useless as a compass on the north pole, and I felt my brain doing just as many somersaults as my body. Next thing I knew, I was back in the Dreamscape.

I shook my head, and the stars and galaxies welcomed me back with their unique indifference. Okay, that was trippy as fuck. Note to self: leave dreams before they make me leave. Good god, my brain felt the same as when Starlight yoinked my cutie mark. For good measure, I checked to see if my nose was bleeding.

I blinked back to reality to find myself tumbling listlessly through dream space. A part of me just wanted to float like that forever. To drift aimlessly in this time-dilated place. It was like the world didn’t exist while I was here.

Was that why Luna presided over the Dreamscape the way she did? To get away from everything and everyone and just think herself into infinity?

Maybe she liked being alone—alone but not lonely. Some people were like that. Those people had a certain confidence of self I could never hope to emulate.

I could see the appeal in it, though, if solitude were their driving force. God knew I liked it here until I realized I couldn’t just bamf myself out whenever I wanted.

It gave me a sense of perspective, though. I just lived well over a week in the span of two days, and I remembered Luna saying something about how even that wasn’t necessarily a constant. It made her detachment that much more understandable.

She’d been doing this every day for as long as anyone could remember, and she was thousands of years old. I could only imagine how ancient her mind was. What would this place do to the mind of a mortal pony? What if I really did get lost in here, forced to live forever in this nowhere-place?

Would I… would I become like Nocturne?

I shook my head. Enough of that line of thinking. I was getting philosophical, as Copper would have put it, and I could daydream my life away later. Equestria needed me. Luna needed me.

I headed back the way I came, and I prayed from the depths of my soul that my heart wouldn’t lead me astray.