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“We are here,” Luna said.

We’re… here? They were the first words she had spoken since we took flight from her dream. I almost thought I imagined them.

How long had it been?

“Sunset!” A hoof caught me by the shoulder, and the sense of touch startled me out of my head.

I blinked away the cotton stuffed between my ears and actually saw what I was staring at, what I had almost blindly auto-piloted into—the Eversleep, that black hole I could only see by the absence of stars beyond it. It tugged at the individual hairs of my coat, begged that I come closer.

“We’re here,” I echoed. “We’re… we’re actually here.”

Back to where I made my triumphant stand in the face of my own insecurities, where I buried the hatchet and my hubris along with it. And as the reality of what was to come beyond that event horizon grappled me in its stranglehold, I threw another shovelful on that shallow grave:

“I’m scared,” I said.

“As you should be,” she said after a moment. “Fear is natural. ’Twould be concerning were you not afraid. However, it is not the absence of fear but rather what we do in the face of it that matters, and you have proven yourself admirably thus far.”

I’d heard a quote along those lines before. Courage isn’t the absence of fear, but the mastery of it. As poetic as it was, it didn’t make me feel very courageous. Still, we needed to do this. I needed to do this. And that had to be good enough.

“You are not alone in your fears,” Luna said, and that snapped me out of my head.

“You’re afraid, too?”

She blinked, and the silence cast her gaze down into the distant cosmos. “Indeed. I fear many things. I fear that my efforts are in vain. I fear what will come should we fail, the ponies who will suffer for my weakness.”

“Sounds about right. I don’t want to lose, but not because it means I’ll die.”

In crept the silence. I almost didn’t notice, for how I had grown used to it.

“Many ponies rely on us,” she said. “I refuse to be unworthy of that trust. We will succeed.”

If only I had that kind of confidence.

“So then… do we go in?”

“That is for you to decide, Sunset,” she said. “But know well whatever it is you say next, for what you say will no longer be mere words. Words can be spoken, but actions must be done, and I am no stranger to witnessing others kneel before the storm.

“Here, the Nightmare has chosen to make its stand. It will not run, save however it must in order to claim my dream for whatever purposes it may require it. I will say again that I will not fault you should you decide now to turn tail, but I must be sure that when you cross that threshold you are acutely aware: we will not return unless victorious.”

With your shield or on it, rang an old saying from the dusty upper shelves of my mind. And this time she really meant it. We didn’t have a reset button I could press at the flick of my horn, or anyone waiting in the wings to bandage us back together again. In there, whatever happened would be final.

But she was right in confronting me here. I was a lot of talk. I wasn’t stupid enough to act like the last fight we had with the Nightmare never happened. I could still feel the pain in my leg. It got me sick to my stomach just thinking about it. But I remembered the words I convinced myself of at the start of all this, the words I only shared with Twilight.

If I ran from this now, what would that make me? Even if it turned out the Nightmare couldn’t escape the Eversleep or wasn’t able to take whatever it needed from Luna’s dream and our choice here meant jack shit.

If I decided to bow out and leave this to Luna? Without a shadow of a doubt, she’d figure it out. She’d bash her head against that wall until it came crashing down, brick by brick. The Luna beside me was that kind of psychotic masochist, if even a shred of all we went through was any indication.

But what would that make me?

Maybe I was being selfish—as selfless as it was, but for my own selfish reasons—but I knew deep down this question had only one answer.

Selfish or not, I had to be like Twilight. I had to be strong, I had to believe, and so I said:

“We go in.”

She let the silence fester, her eyes never wavering from mine. She was testing me, here and now, in my thoughts and my conviction, scrying into the very depths of my soul.

“Then we are settled,” she said, and nodded. “When you are ready.”

I held her gaze a moment longer, stared into the emptiness of the Eversleep, and in we went.

• • •

The Eversleep tried ripping us from the skies the moment we entered.

Just like the last time I crossed that threshold, the winds battered me every which way like feral windigos. But I had Luna beside me, and she shielded me with her wings as we touched down on that mountain top.

“I feel it this time,” Luna said. “It is out there.”

Thankfully, I could feel it, too, that same magnetic tugging at the blood in my veins. The Nightmare was in here. Our gamble paid off. Now to make good on it. We set out.

If there was one thing about this place that Luna got right, it was how strange the landscape was. This place was a surrealist artist’s wet dream.

At the bottom of the mountain, we came across a little copse of a garden, with a marble water fountain whose basin overflowed into the open expanse of some purplish-blue prairie. Overhead, the sky swam freely between reds, greens, and blues, as if I were staring into a choppy lake. The far horizon caged us in with an imposing mountain range that gave the phrase “purple mountain majesty” a new gold standard in my mind.

The borders between dream real estates shifted constantly, some creeping outward with amoebic-like militaristic expansion while others were swallowed up, never to exist again.

I heard the fizzle of a dream coming down to join the rest. What looked like an aurora trailing down from the heavens seeped into the cracks between the prairie and the fountain copse, trying to wedge itself in. The ground buckled and shifted to make room, resulting in a sort-of tectonic upheaval where either dream refused to budge.

I had to hand it to this place. It certainly hit that uncanny valley between beautiful and terrifying.

We followed the tug of the Nightmare past the marble water fountain, into the flower fields. They felt cold as I brushed past them, until I realized the petals were made of snow. I cupped one in my hoof, pulling it from the stem, and watched it melt into a mixture of green and periwinkle that ran down my hoof like food coloring.

“Who the hell dreams of stuff like this?” I asked. No answer. “Luna?”

I caught her staring to our right, up the slope of the valley toward the tree line hugging the mountainside. The hairs on the back of my neck stood on end at the sight of those hyena things, maybe a hundred yards out. I knew it before even the first howl sounded across the valley.

Not that shit again.

I launched a fireball their way and watched it sear across the distance between us. It let out a deafening explosion that had them scattering to the four winds, yipping and hollering.

“You guys can fuck right on out of here!” I shouted. “I don’t have time for you.” As their cries died away, I let myself bask in the momentary pride.

Luna wore a pensive smile. “I am glad to see your magic is not dampened in this place. ’Twill be indispensable once we find our quarry.”

That got a nervous smile threading across my lips. Yeah. I didn’t want to think about that just yet. Our last fight with the Nightmare came to mind, and I shuddered at the thought of all the blood.

“Just a little warm-up, right?” I said, shooting her a smile, but it didn’t take a social genius like Rarity to know that little display of bravado glanced right off her.

We continued on.

“Up there,” Luna said after an hour’s trot. She pointed her nose toward one of the distant mountains, and I felt it too as I focused on the peak.

Cloven in half, just like we left it, the mountaintop from Luna’s dream awaited us.

“Crazy how it’s just… there,” I said.

“True, but I am glad for it. It means we know our quarry has not already absconded.”

I would have argued the opposite in that were her dream to have already been devoured the way we’d seen a dozen others, the Nightmare’s gambit would have already been foiled. But I wasn’t really in a position to argue. I kept my little wishes to myself, and we pressed on.

A short climb up the sloping valley led us to that same eerie tunnel from last time. That dark portal welcomed us into the heart of the mountain like the gateway to hell. We were in a dream world, but goddamn if it didn’t get the goosebumps going up and down my legs all the same.

I gave Luna a nervous glance, but the stoic mask she wore radiated the conviction she demanded of me at the threshold of this unholy place, and so I fell in line, one echoing step at a time into the dark.

When we broke free of the other side, the Nightmare was waiting for us.

It lay upon a raised section of rock as if upon a throne. It regarded us with a bassy snarl, but for the first of many times we had come upon it, it didn’t attack the instant it laid eyes on us.

“It’s waiting us out,” I said.

“Then we shan’t let it.” And in a blast of her wings, she launched herself forward, the force almost blowing me back on my ass.

It met her with a flash of fangs, and their magics lit up the arena like fireworks. Like last time, Luna skirted around it, using her wings to flit away whenever it struck, keeping it at arm’s length.

It didn’t seem as ferocious as before. Whether by consequence of our previous fight or the trail of miniature nightmares it had left to slow us down I could only guess, but Luna took full advantage of it. For once, it seemed like she actually had the upper hand.

I honestly found it difficult to find my own opening. Anywhere I tried, she was already there, lashing out with fire and ice and lightning like the revenant I had chalked her up to be. It was… humbling, and friendly fire wasn’t something we needed right now, so I waited in the wings, ready to throw a helpful spell into the melee.

As their battle wore on, the mountaintop itself seemed to shrivel around us ever so slightly. The stone beneath my hooves took on the slightest spongy texture. The hell? I knelt down and pawed at it. The stone seemed to come up with my hoof as an almost powder-like substance—no, ash.

Luna and the Nightmare began kicking up a violent storm in their own right. With every leap, pivot, and wing beat, up billowed a choking cloud that blocked out the sight of them.

Something wasn’t right. The dreams we saw earlier didn’t fall apart like this. The Nightmare had to be doing something to the mountain somehow.

Luna had the Nightmare occupied, so I sat down in the ash and closed my eyes.

Magic existed everywhere. From the highest mountain to the lowest ocean trench, there was magic to be found in nature and in every atom of every molecule that made up the universe. It was the foundation behind A-chem and divination magic—a coming together of sorts. All it took was a little patience and know-how.

Like I had with Star Swirl in our first meeting, like I had with Nocturne when she first slithered into my dreams, I let my magic reach out and feel the invisible, snaking auras around me. Breathe. Block out the noise. Reach, and let it find you—and there it was, an almost necromantic energy leaching from the mountain beneath us. I took a breath and visualized it, reached further in to grasp, feel, examine its subtle yet overpowering makeup. But as I reached further in, I felt it reach into me.

A cold, clammy sensation tingled up my spine like the fingers of a corpse. I sucked in a breath as cold as an arctic wind, and it took every effort to hold onto that sensation and keep myself grounded in that zen state. The fuck kind of magic was this?

It was almost as if…

The essence of the dream, the lifeblood of a dying thought made manifest. I pulled on that thread, and it went taut. Harder, but it resisted. I couldn’t wrench it free, but I had what I needed. Like a divining rod, I knew what I was looking for, and with myself attuned to the magic, I opened my eyes.

Like morning mist on a pond, a faint crimson haze emanated from the mountain all around me. It rose up in wispy tendrils, up and around my body, danced with the air currents when I staggered to my hooves. From every corner of our little arena, it trailed into the ash cloud, and a pit opened up in my heart.

The hesitation when we entered, Luna matching it one-for-one. The Nightmare wasn’t weakened. It was busy casting a spe—

A deafening boom blasted me off my hooves. My head hit the packed ash, and I stared upward into what looked like the eye of a hurricane. Far above, I made out the shape of the Nightmare against a strange auric backdrop of reds and purples making up the sky.

A flash of blue signaled Luna dive-bombing toward me, landing with a heavy kick-up of ash. The look of fear in her eyes said it all.

It had what it wanted. This was our last chance. If it got away, Equestria and the world beyond was lost.

I swallowed my pride and a healthy dose of fear, leapt onto her back, and we were off in a torrent of ash and wind.

I focused on the Nightmare rising higher above us, drawn upward almost angelically as if being assumed by some higher power. Its eyes were glued to the aurascape above. In any other situation, I would have been, too, witnessing an event that went against the very nature of this place.

Higher and higher we climbed. I could feel the strain in Luna’s muscles, the spirit that had already given its all but still needed more.

“Luna, hurry! We’re not going to make it.”

She shot me the briefest glare before something drew her eyes downward. Her eyes widened, and I dared to follow her gaze.

Below, the ash storm rose after us, winding upward like a giant worm with its mouth open wide. Before we knew it, we were engulfed in shadow.

Around us, the eye of the storm closed in like a hangman’s noose cinching up about our necks. Violent winds battered us from every direction. I blasted apart what I could and threw up Shield Spells for the rest, but I could only do so much.

I shut my eyes to keep the ash from blinding me, but that proved fatal when a gust blasted me in the ribs and tried tearing me from her back.

Luna twisted in midair to compensate, but I heard the pop of a wing joint, and was immediately hit with a face full of feathers bending in ways they shouldn’t. She screamed, and I felt my bowels rise up in my stomach.

We were in freefall.

We spiraled I couldn’t count how many times. The winds kept battering us, and I couldn’t tell which way was up. I imagined the ground rising up to meet us and the unfortunate smear I’d make on the Eversleep below—until a gentle hum of magic bid I stop thrashing. A pair of hooves took me by the shoulders, and I felt strangely calm.

I peeked open my eyes to see Luna gazing back at me. We shared a moment where words had no meaning, but I read plain as day the silent determination etched across her face.

“Go,” she said, and lit her horn. A filament of silver magic traced its spiral, reached out to touch me, and I became weightless. “I believe.”

The noise of the storm ebbed away, and I watched her fall into the yawning oblivion.

“Luna!” I yelled, but my voice didn’t carry. I reached out to her as she disappeared into the maw of that ashen void. Some higher power shunted me sideways, and before I could process the concept of “up,” the diamond starscape of infinity greeted me in silent indifference.

My legs still shook from the adrenaline pumping through my veins, and there wasn’t enough air in the world to get my lungs in working order. I felt the tears drift away from my face to join the stars.

I squeezed my eyes shut and gritted my teeth to bury the panic deep down. As I wiped away the tears, I sucked in a deep breath to center myself before taking off as fast as the Dreamscape would allow, praying that I wasn’t too late.