Dreams' Horizon

“So, it’s up to the six of us to figure out how to save the multiverse from an ancient evil of incomprehensible power, by somehow figuring out how to harness the potential practical applications of Twilight’s inexplicable mental bond with a unicorn in a parallel dimension.” Twinkleshine held up her hooves. “I got all that straight?”

Sitting around Twilight’s dorm room, with Twilight on one bed, Lemon and Minuette on the other, and the other half of the group at the table, the six looked at each other as they took in the words.

“More or less.” Moondancer adjusted her glasses. “Although I think using the term ‘multiverse’ to describe the circumstances of our planet is a bit of a stretch.”

Luster cleared her throat. “And, strictly speaking, Celestia didn’t say she was expecting us to figure out how to do all of that, either. Just that she had suspicions about us being bonded to others like Twilight. But since that’s not the case, we don’t have a role to play in this, right?” She looked at Twilight and gave a small rock of her head. “I just mean, she isn’t expecting us, or you, to have the answers. At least that’s the impression I got when we left the castle.”

Lemon Hearts let out a long breath. “Although, if she isn’t asking us to save the world, I have what may seem like a silly question: what do we do now? Carry on with our normal lives, pretending that a week from now, we may be facing an apocalypse?”

Twilight’s face darkened. Six days. Six days until the dual eclipse. The irony of the significance of the number was not lost on Twilight, even if it was almost certainly coincidence. The Pony of Shadows. A force more ancient and evil than we could understand, much less defeat. But somehow, the six of us may be the key to doing just that. How? And why?

Minuette raised a hoof. “Counterpoint – what can we do now? Celestia said she’s having mages prepared to combat this ‘Pony of Shadows’, and none of us are going to bring much to any sort of magic duel that they couldn’t. And yeah, we could investigate Twilight’s dreams and connection to Sunset more, but she’s been working at doing that for months. No offence.”

Twilight waved off the remark, and Minuette continued. “So, we can either sit around and stew in the thought of our impending doom until it actually occurs, or we can try and maintain a semblance of normalcy and hope for the best.”

Twinkleshine gave a slight shrug and a light nod. “When you put it that way, you’re not wrong.” She looked over at Twilight. “Unless your dream girl comes up with any ideas.”

“Unlikely.” Twilight shook her head. “I’m still taking that dream-suppressing potion. I haven’t seen Sunset in more than a week.” She scrunched her nose. “Though I’m still having dreams about those other two ponies, Corona and Nova.”

Moondancer put a hoof to her lip and hummed gently. “Dream-suppression potions are not terribly difficult to brew, and natural resistance to their effects is very rare. But I’ve not heard of only certain dreams being blocked but not others.”

Twilight spread her hooves. “Don’t ask me to explain it, I just know I’m having them. They’re weird and unique in their own way, and I have even less idea what’s causing them than I did Sunset’s when they began. Unless Celestia is hiding the existence of a third fragment of our world that’s ruled over by another sister of hers.” Her ear flicked and she felt her cheeks grow warm. “To be clear, I was being sarcastic.” I hope.

“All things considered, I’d say that is highly improbable,” Moondancer said. “Besides, you said you’ve asked Celestia about them before and she had no idea what they meant. Given that she’s seemingly put all her cards on the table now, I doubt she would withhold that one.”

Minuette nodded. “And she said she was going to ask Luna about them, right? Maybe the answer lies in the other dimension.”

“Maybe.” Twilight glanced over at her journal on her nightstand. “I could also ask Sunset Shimmer myself if the names mean anything to her. But I wouldn’t hold my breath.”

“Is there anything you could tell us about them?” Lemon asked. “We might be able to try to figure something out.”

Twilight rubbed her head. “I wish I could, but it’s all a blur. The dreams always fade so fast when I wake up, I can barely remember details. And…it’s like…” she struggled to think of the words. “It’s almost like I’m not really ‘in’ those dreams. I can perceive things, I know things, but it’s all distant somehow. It’s almost like I’m viewing a degraded recording and having to fill in the blanks.”

“Recording…”

The group turned their heads. Twinkleshine was staring off into space. Suddenly she snapped her eyes up to Twilight and gave a wide smile.

“What if you could view a recording of it?”

“Huh?”

Twinkleshine moved to the cabinets under the sink, opened the doors, and began to rummage around. “I had finished a workable prototype a few days ago, but with everything happening I forgot to show you girls…” she stood up and turned, her horn glowing with magic, as she lifted up an unusual magic device and set it down on the table.

A large wooden panel lay on the bed with a large pink crystal held in place in the centre with metal supports. Wiring ran down the supports to two blocks of dark stone that had runes carved into them, glowing silver. The crystal itself had several runes on its surface, but they weren’t glowing. Between the two blocks of stone and to the side of the crystal was a series of lenses that grew larger as they pointed away from the crystal. On the other side of the crystal was a panel with a few large switches and a small speaker.

“What is it?” Luster asked.

“My crystal projector. For my thesis.” Twinkleshine beamed proudly. “Here, it’s not the best, but it’s functional; watch.” She flipped two of the switches and the silver runes on the dark stones glowed brighter.

“I had to make a compromise and use obsidian to store the recording data instead of a gemstone. It isn’t as good at holding a magic charge as a gem, but it’s easier to carve the runes on and is still light enough to move easily.”

“Clever,” Moondancer said.

“Thank you.” Twinkleshine smiled as she flipped a third switch, then adjusted the positioning of the lenses. She turned the entire device to aim the lenses at the wall. “And now, a little direct magic to make it project.” She lowered her head and fired a beam of magic at the crystal.

The crystal lit up in vibrant pink light, and the runes covering its surface pulsed. Currents of energy ran up the wires from the blocks of obsidian to the crystal, and with a flash, a beam of light shot forward to the array of lenses. Each one magnified the light larger and larger, and the final one shone onto the wall.

A blurry image of Twinkleshine’s head appeared on the wall, her mane and coat colour recognizable but both were tinted pink. A scratchy voice came from the speaker on the projector.

“T-Twi-Twinkleshine-ine, test seven, pro-prototype three-three. Test-testing one, t-two-o, three, f-f-four…” the audio became choppy and the image began to flicker. Twinkleshine flipped the switches off and the projector shut down.

“Like I said – here and there – it’s just a prototype. Still lots of refinement to do, but it’s functional.” She smiled again.

Minuette lowered her head and looked the projector over. “Pretty cool, Twinkles. But uh, how is a movie projector going to help us see Twilight’s memories?”

“Easy.” Twinkleshine tapped the crystal with her hoof. “The reason that recording was so bad and short is because transcribing audio-visual data using the crystal is difficult. Only so much surface area for runes, limits of data transference from the obsidian, etcetera. But, thought patterns should be relatively simpler to encode.” She looked at Twilight. “I’m pretty sure that with a few slight modifications, instead of audio-visual data, the crystal should be able to encode Twilight’s thoughts – or rather, her dream. And then we could try playing it back as a recording.”

Twilight scratched her head. “Is that even possible?” She looked at Moondancer and the rest of the group followed suit.

Moondancer gave a small huff and rolled her eyes. “You always act as though I know everything.”

“More like you have the best chance of knowing anything,” Minuette teased.

Moondancer looked at the projector and thought. “It’s hard to say. We could record Twilight’s thoughts, that isn’t out of the question. But if and how it could be converted into a recording we could view and play back, that’s trickier. We’d need some fairly complex and advanced spellcrafting and runes concerning mental magic, and that is just to encode it. Remember that instead of storing audio-visual data, this device would be storing, in essence, Twilight’s memories. And being able to preserve memories on an external artefact like this is quite beyond my own knowledge of that field.”

Twinkleshine slumped slightly. “I don’t know that much about memory spells either.”

“I do.” Luster stepped up to the bed. “Let me have a look at the spells you used for your projector, and I’ll figure it out.”

“Are you sure?” Twilight asked. She leaned forward. “You don’t have to. I mean, if you’d rather you not do this, for…whatever reason…”

Luster gave her a pointed look. “I’ve studied memory and telepathy magic a lot this year. A lot. I can do it.” Her expression softened. “Trust me, Twilight. I can make it work.”

Twilight caught her double-meaning and responded with a firm nod. “Alright.”

Minuette raised a hoof. “Um, not to doubt you, Dawny, but should we be trying at all? Like, it does sound really complex, and after what happened with Twilight the last time we did something like this…”

“This isn’t the same, not by a long shot. Monitoring dreams is very different from broadcasting telepathy.” Twilight smiled softly. “Besides, Luster probably knows more about memory spells than the rest of us combined. If she says she can figure it out, then I say we let her work.”

Luster’s face turned red and she shrank back slightly. Twinkleshine reached over and patted her on the back. “No pressure, right?”

“Is there anything we could do to help?” Moondancer asked.

“I’ll need a good gemstone for magic infusing,” Twinkleshine replied.

Luster piped up, “Emeralds would be preferable, they’re the safest material for using runes that involve mental magic. Well, safest for the subject, anyway.”

Twinkleshine nodded and trotted to her nightstand, pulling open a drawer and withdrawing a notebook. “Speaking of, we’re gonna need enchanted ink, the best quality any of us can spare.”

“Citizens of Equestria, please!” Celestia raised a hoof and spread her wings wide.

The crowd of ponies gathered in front of the stairs to the castle fell silent at the princess’ command.

The mare next to Twilight shuffled her hooves. “Here we go.”

Again…

Celestia swept her eyes back and forth across the crowd. “I know you are all deeply concerned about the unusual magical phenomena that have been occurring across Equestria. I assure you all that my sister and I share this with you, and your calls for explanation and protection have not fallen on deaf ears.”

A pony stepped up next to Celestia, another alicorn, but this one had a dark blue coat, starry mane, black regalia, and was slightly shorter.

Luna?

“Indeed, we are already discussing this matter with our closest and most trusted advisors.” The other alicorn swept a hoof back to point up the steps. “Star Swirl himself has been investigating the cause of these disruptions, and has returned less than an hour ago claiming he has important information for us. Though it would be premature at this time to make promises before hearing him out, I feel confident in saying that we will soon be on our way to devising a solution.”

Celestia nodded. “For now, please return to your homes and remain calm, and avoid using your magic if possible. We will issue a royal decree with more information for you as we are able to provide it. Thank you.”

The crowd began talking among themselves again, but several ponies had been satisfied and turned to walk away.

Twilight’s companion took a deep breath. “Well, that’s that. If Star Swirl is on this, we’ve got nothing to worry about.”

Star Swirl…

“Are you sure?” Twilight frowned. “I mean, no offence to Star Swirl, but we’ve never heard of anything like this before. How could he already have a solution?”

“Because he’s Star Swirl. He can solve any problem if you give him time. And if you don’t, he’ll use one of his time travel spells or whatever and make time.”

Time travel. Is that what this is?

“Maybe…I don’t know…” Twilight sighed.

A hoof put itself on the back of her neck and pulled her in for a light nuzzle against the forehead.

“Come on, stop being a downer. Let’s go home and relax a little, okay?”

“Yeah…okay.” Twilight pulled back and smiled. “Thanks.”

Her companion walked down the street from the shrinking crowd. Twilight turned to follow her, but paused and glanced back at the castle. Celestia and Luna had ascended the stairs to the entranceway and were speaking to a unicorn with a long beard and a blue cloak and hat.

That’s him…but…

Behind Star Swirl, barely visible past the columns, were more ponies. Twilight twisted her head and squinted. Star Swirl had stopped talking and had turned his head to one of the ponies she couldn’t see.

“Who are they?”

“Hm?” She heard her companion’s hoofsteps stop. “Oh, probably some other advisors, like they said.”

“Yeah.” Twilight took a step to the side, intrigued, and brought a hoof over her eyes. She gasped and inhaled sharply.

The unicorn she was looking at turned back to Celestia, still clad in a cloak and hat with bells, but it was no longer Star Swirl.

Sunset? How?

A pony stepped up beside Star Swirl – now Sunset – and began to talk to the princesses. A muscular earth pony with a teal coat and orange mane. But when Twilight blinked, he too was gone, replaced by a unicorn with a light pink coat and a teal and purple mane.

“Twilight!”

She cried and fell to her knees. Around her the world began to flicker and flash, the ground under her feet spun.

“Nova?”

She felt a hoof catch her before she hit the ground.

Impossible. Sunset…what? What’s going on?

As before, Twilight had felt like a prisoner in her own body, forced into a stage play where her lines were pre-written for her and all she could do was recite them. Until now. The facade had cracked and the show had grinded to a halt.

An actress had broken character.

“Are you okay?”

Twilight weakly shook her head. Her heart pounded in her ears, her eyes were burning, and her body felt light.

I don’t understand. How, why…what…

“Help me…Sunset…”

An orange hoof reached past her field of vision and around her chest.

“I’m here, Twilight.”

You can’t be…

I am…

Twilight quickly galloped down the street up the steps to the royal castle, causing two nobleponies to scoff at her as she brushed past them. She ignored them.

I have to show her. I know she’ll see me if I tell her guards why.

She looked at the saddle bag hanging on her side, the crystal projector peeking out from under the flap.

Inside the castle she took the path she had taken several times by now, to where the areas open to the public ended and guard posts sectioned off the rest of the castle. There was a check-in desk for visitors with an appointment deeper in, and that was where she headed now. She rounded a corner and skidded to a halt.

“Whoa!” A pegasus guard walking by the intersection in front of her jumped back to avoid a collision.

“Sorry, I–”

“Twilight Sparkle?”

Twilight paused in her apology. The guard looked at her curiously and she gave him a better look. Blue mane. Wasn’t he the one that escorted me before?

“Er, yes?”

The guard twitched his mouth up into a slight smile. “Well, that’s a coincidence. The princess had just dispatched me to summon you.”

She did a double take.

“What?”

The pegasus turned and pointed. “Follow me, hurry along then.” He began galloping away and Twilight pursued, easily keeping pace. In fact, she noted that she was having to slow down slightly to stop from getting ahead of him.

He’s not used to moving so fast on-hoof…

The pegasus led her down a series of passages that seemed familiar, until they were going down a hallway that Twilight definitely recognized. At the end, by a pair of double doors, Celestia stood, staring intently at a small book floating in front of her. She glanced up and raised her head. “Twilight? That was much faster than I expected.”

The pegasus guard stopped and knelt his head. “She was already on her way to see you, Princess. I bumped into her in the castle.”

Twilight stepped up behind him. “Princess, I know this is abrupt, but I have something very important to show you.”

“A fine coincidence, Twilight. I was about to say the same thing to you.” Celestia nodded at the guard. “Please inform my aides that I will be indisposed until further notice.”

“Right away.” The guard saluted and trotted down the hall.

Celestia watched him go and gave a small hum in her throat. “I normally employ pegasi guards as messengers for their speed, but lately some of the guard have had problems maintaining flight.” She turned an eye to Twilight. “You could guess why, I presume.”

“Yes. Has it been happening to earth ponies as well?”

“It is difficult to say. Earth pony magic has always been the most subtle of the three races, as it manifests in their physical prowess and natural affinity for agriculture and mining. It may be that they are having their magic syphoned, but are writing it off as illness or the like.” Celestia shook her head. “But in the end, when the eclipse begins, their magic will be absorbed the same as anypony else’s.”

“Maybe not.” Twilight set her face in a determined expression and gave a firm nod. “I think I have something that may give us a new lead on stopping this crisis.”

“That is good to hear.” Celestia looked around. “But, we should discuss these matters in private. And as I said, I have something to show you, as well. Come.” She turned and pushed the doors open. Twilight followed her, and once they had both crossed the threshold, the princess lit her horn and closed the doors.

The Hall of the Two Sisters sprawled before them again. Twilight looked around in new understanding at all the works of art and artefacts from ancient history around her. This is Equestria’s true history. The two sisters that brought unity and peace to a chaotic world. And she had to bury it to preserve that peace. She followed Celestia as she walked down the carpet towards the dias at the rear of the room. Twilight squinted and walked fast to get ahead of the princess.

Before, the dias had held a beautiful statue of Princess Luna. But it had been moved and set aside to the left on the floor, a tall mirror, deep lavender with pink gemstones, and shaped like a horseshoe replacing it. Swirling stylistic trim wove up the sides and met at the top. There rested a small disc shaped like a flaming sun in gold, with a silver crescent moon curving around the left half of it.

“What is this?” Twilight asked. She looked back at Celestia and waited. The princess wrote something down in the journal with her – Twilight noticed it had the same emblem as the mirror did – and then closed it and floated the journal to rest on the dias.

“Watch.” Celestia gestured a wing to the mirror and climbed up the steps to the dais. Twilight followed her, eyes not leaving the mirror.

After a few moments, the moon on the disk emblem glowed bright blue. Celestia’s horn lit and she fired a continuous beam of magic at the emblem. As Twilight watched, the gold sun lit up in the same light as Celestia’s magic, and the sun and moon began to rotate around a shared axis. The rotation sped up until it was a blur, blue and yellow magic swirling around each other.

Twilight’s eyes fell from the emblem to the surface of the mirror. It was now rippleding and shimmereding, her reflection in it distorting. She took a cautious step forward and reached a hoof out. A wave of light washed over the mirror’s surface and she paused. The light receded, revealing the mirror had returned to its previous state. But instead of her reflection, Twilight found herself staring into the eyes of a very familiar unicorn mare with an orange coat and red and yellow mane.

“S-Sunset?” she whispered.

To her escalating surprise, Sunset recoiled and her eyes widened. “Twilight?”

The voice was distorted and muffled, but there was no mistaking it.

“Sunset!” Twilight pressed a hoof onto the mirror and felt cold glass. Sunset pressed her own hoof against it on her side.

“You must be Twilight Sparkle.”

Twilight raised her head. Another alicorn stood beside Sunset, looking down at her with a soft smile. She had a dark blue mane and black regalia with a crescent moon over her neck, and a flowing nebula of a mane, shimmering blue with spots of light twinkling along its length like stars in the sky.

“Princess Luna?”

“Hail filly, well met.” The other princess smiled wider and bowed her head.

Celestia stepped up beside Twilight. “While Luna and I have our own journal that works much like yours, this mirror allows us to speak to each other directly, provided we both channel our magic into it at once.”

Through the mirror, Luna rocked her head and gave a small hum. “I would not say we use it according to ‘necessity’. I prefer we use it as frequently as possible regardless of circumstance. It is simply easier and more personal this way.”

“Yes, though our schedules do not always allow it.”

“Quite so. But, we digress.” Luna turned her attention back to Twilight. “It was I who requested this meeting. I was quite surprised to find a guard knocking at my door this morning, claiming that a particular young mare we both know was insisting she had to speak to me urgently.”

Twilight saw Sunset’s face tint a deeper shade of orange. “Well, it was important…”

“Indeed.” Luna ruffled her wings and shifted her eyes back and forth between Celestia and Twilight. “Sister, shall we have Sunset tell us her tale first, or Twilight?”

“I will.” Twilight spoke up before Celestia could answer. She felt sheepish when the other three ponies looked at her, but she brushed it aside. The adrenaline of what had brought her here to begin with surged anew. “I can take a guess what Sunset wanted to see you about, because it’s the same thing I wanted to see Celestia about. But I brought a visual aid.” Twilight looked at her side. Her bags flipped open in an aura of magic and Twinkleshine’s crystal projector floated up and gently came down on the floor.

Celestia knelt down and peered at the device closely. “What is this contraption?”

“A friend’s thesis project. They wanted to experiment with encoding audio-video information on crystals and magic-infused items instead of reels or cassettes.”

“Intriguing, and clever.” Celestia gave an approving nod.

“I’ll be sure to tell her you said that. But, there’s more.” Twilight lit her horn and flipped the proper switches to prepare the projector. “We modified the runes and spells it used with Luster Dawn’s understanding of telepathy and memory spells. This recording was made mentally. From my dream last night.”

She heard a sputter and a snort, and Sunset spoke. “Wow. The most advanced thing me and my friends ever built was when Trixie wanted an auto-teleportation box. We ended up losing Sunburst and found him an hour later locked in a broom closet in the library.”

“Is that what you lot were doing that night?” Luna gave her a disapproving frown. “You told Inkwell you were doing late-night studying.”

“We were! ...Technically, before that happened.”

Twilight and Celestia both laughed, breaking up the argument occurring through the mirror.

Luna raised a hoof to her mouth and gently coughed. “My apologies. Please continue, Twilight.”

“Right. So, yes, we recorded my dream.” Twilight looked around, and after a moment she levitated a small bronze platter over to her from a pedestal. She set it in front of her propped up against her hooves, and turned the projector to angle it the proper way. “We weren’t entirely sure it would work, but it did, we watched it this morning to make sure. That’s why I was so excited to come see you, so you could see for yourself.” She fired a bolt of magic at the crystal projector.

The crystal glowed and the runes carved into it began to hum with magic. Sparks of magic flew along the wires on the device, and the crystal glowed brighter and then projected a beam of light at the platter. The beam flickered, shifted colors from pink to red to violet to blue, and then grew wider.

Slowly, an image came into focus on the platter’s surface.

“That’s them…” Twilight saw Sunset out of the corner of her eye; her eyes were wide and her mouth hung open.

“Yes, it is.” Twilight looked down at the platter and the projected image.

Two unicorn mares stood there, one of them moving their lips but with no sound. The one who was speaking had a pale blue coat and a short, purple mane streaked with shades of blue. Her cutie mark was barely visible, a swirling nexus of magic with five arms spreading through the air. The other mare had a dark red coat and a long, wavy mane in multiple hues of orange. Her cutie mark was more visible, a golden circle that looked like a ring of fire with gouts of red shooting from it.

“This is who you’ve been dreaming about?” Celestia asked.

Twilight nodded. “The blue one is named Nova Radiance. The red one is named Corona Flare. I have no idea how I know their names, but I do.”

“Me too…” Sunset shook her head. “How is this possible?”

“It isn’t.” Luna said firmly. “The dream potion I gave to my sister is the most potent of its kind known to either world. It should repress dreams entirely. I have never known it to fail.” She took a deep breath. “But, the evidence to the contrary is plain to see. What do you make of it, sister?”

“I’m not sure, Luna.” Celestia walked closer to the projection and studied it from a new angle. “I have never heard of these ponies before.”

“Nor have I.”

“Well, we’ve dreamed about them multiple times now.” Sunset gently tapped on the mirror to get Twilight’s attention. “I’m assuming that we’ve been sharing them right along, we just haven’t noticed it.”

“Most likely. The picnic, and then the dinner?”

“Picnic, no, dinner, yes.”

“A picnic and a dinner?” Celestia thought for a moment. “But Sunset did not dream of the former. Curious…”

“A moment.” Luna looked at Sunset. “Would the two of you say that these dreams you have had of these two ponies have a decidedly affectionate undertone to them?”

Sunset coughed and looked away, but Twilight saw her cheeks darken again. “Well, I dunno about that…okay, maybe, yes…”

“Definitely yes.” Twilight set the platter down and turned her full attention to Celestia. “I remember in the dreams they were often close to each other physically. And the first one especially, they were celebrating some sort of anniversary.”

Celestia nodded. “I see…but I’m not sure how that–”

“Of course!”

Celestia stopped, and she and Twilight both looked through the mirror.

Luna had taken a step back and was pressing a hoof to her head. Sunset watched her in the same mix of confusion and interest that Twilight felt.

“How could we have missed it? How could I have missed it? The moment Sunset told me my dream potion wasn’t working, I should have suspected.” The princess let out an annoyed huff. “Sister, it all makes sense.”

“What does?” Celestia pressed.

Luna regained her composure, now with a bemused smile on her face. “My dream potion worked exactly as it was meant to. These mares, Nova and Corona, Sunset and Twilight have not been experiencing them through dreams at all. They’re memories. But not memories of this lifetime.”

Celestia’s face brightened. “Reincarnation!”

“Precisely!” Luna’s smile widened, now filled with pride. “This explains so much!”

“Whoa, whoa, whoa!” Sunset held up both hooves. “Those ponies are, were, us?”

“It’s the only explanation that fits with everything that has happened to you two.” Celestia looked between them. “If Nova and Corona were your past lives, then no dream magic would affect these dreams. Because they are not truly dreams, they are visions of the past experienced like dreams.”

“But that doesn’t fit.” Twilight scratched her head. “I began dreaming about Sunset at the start of the school year, and only dreamed about Nova and Corona for the first time no more than a month ago.”

“And Twilight has had more dreams than me. I never dreamt of any picnic,” Sunset added.

Luna let out a small sigh. “Recalling one’s experiences from a past life is not an exact science. It is one of the few areas of magic that we have yet to understand. But it is fairly consistent that the recollections often begin with a single burst of insight. I would presume that something happened to you, Twilight, that caused you to have your first memory of Nova and Corona. It could be an experience that resonated deeply with your past self, or perhaps a result of being exposed to hypnosis or mental magics meant to dredge up buried memories.”

“Magic for…buried memories…” Twilight took a step back and tried to stay steady as she slowly lowered to her knees.

Luster’s spell…

Celestia continued. “Once the door was opened for you, so to speak, it stands to reason that you may have triggered Sunset’s own awakening through your bond. And thus you began sharing these past life visions together as you did the dreams.”

“But that still doesn’t explain why we have this connection!” Sunset protested.

“Doesn’t it? If these visions have had a shared theme of affection, I’d say that explanation is clear.”

Twilight’s ear flicked and she glanced up. Celestia was stifling a giggle, but she could still see the smile.

“Princess?”

“Luna, shall you tell them, or shall I?”

“Oh, don’t tease them, sister.” Luna scolded her but she also looked like she was struggling not to grin.

“Tease us about what?” Twilight asked, her voice rising.

Celestia slowly shook her head. “Twilight, you and Sunset – or rather, Nova and Corona – are soul mates.”

She blinked several times. “Wha?”

Sunset echoed her own thoughts in slightly more words. “That’s a thing?”

“It is rare, but it is not unheard of.” Luna spread her wings and gestured between the two with a hoof. “When two ponies share a deep, powerful bond, their souls harmonise with each other and intertwine. Though it is not a guarantee, it is likely that upon being reborn, they will be drawn to each other again. Not necessarily in a romantic context, but their souls will call out to each other to be reunited.”

“The soul mate bond is one of the most powerful forces of magic known,” Celestia said softly. “It is something so primaeval and elemental that I would say it is not even right to call it ‘magic’ as we use the term today. It’s something that binds soul, heart, and memory, connecting ponies across time in defiance of all that would seek to keep them apart. And, it seems, across dimensions as well.”

“In order for this bond to have been forged, it must have been in the original world, before Star Swirl and his comrades split it.”

“That’s the only way we could arrive at this state. Two ponies, linked by their souls, in different halves of the world. This may have happened to you both in other past lives, but perhaps not so intently as today. Likely the approaching eclipse and alignment of our dimensions is the cause. Even before your past memories were awakened, your souls reached beyond the dreams’ horizon to speak to each other.”

Twilight took in everything the two princesses said, but her mind struggled to actually process it. Instead of the minutiae of the how, it had become a cascade of deduction. Pieces fell into place in her mind and neatly snapped together to fill out a picture of the truth.

The first dream. The parallel dimensions. Luster’s spell. Our past lives. Soul mates…me and Sunset. Sunset and me…

“Twilight?”

She slowly raised her head. Sunset was against her side of the mirror now, looking down at her in concern. She raised a hoof to the mirror’s surface and seemed to try and press closer.

“Are you okay?”

“I…” Twilight slowly pushed herself up. “It’s a lot to take in.”

“You’re telling me. I just mean, um…”

“It’s okay. You don’t have to say anything.” Twilight smiled and pressed a hoof to the mirror where Sunset’s was, but she still only felt cold glass.

How can I expect her to say anything when even I don’t know what to say? What can be said?

“We have given them a lot to think about, sister. Perhaps we should allow them privacy for a few minutes?”

“Yes, of course.” Celestia draped a wing over Twilight, but she didn’t look away from Sunset. She heard the princess’ voice come softly in her ear. “I will be in the hall if you need anything from me.”

“As will I, Sunset.”

Twilight gave a distant nod, and the princess’ wing withdrew. Luna stepped away from Sunset and Twilight heard hoofsteps from both sides of the mirror. Eventually there came the sound of the doors opening and closing.

Alone in the hall save for her soul mate from a parallel world, Twilight slowly leaned her head forward to rest against the mirror. She closed her eyes, not caring about the tears that began to slide down her cheeks. Happiness, fear, sorrow? She wasn’t sure. Maybe all three.

“What happens now?” she whispered.

Though she had meant the question rhetorically, she still got an answer.

“The end of the world, if what’s happening on your side is anything like what’s on mine. And now we both know it is.”

Twilight lifted her head and locked eyes with Sunset.

“The princesses wanted us to help stop the Pony of Shadows.”

“I got that impression, too.”

“But I have no idea how.”

“Me neither.” Sunset gave a forced laugh. “Unless they really expect us to figure out how to weaponize the power of love somehow.”

Twilight didn’t respond. Sunset’s suggestion was both absurd and plausible. And…

That word…

“We have to find a way. Somehow. Even if all we can do is fight with the princesses to the bitter end, then that’s what we’ll do.”

“Yeah.” Sunset smiled. “And when it’s over, we’ll go to sleep and find each other again. Right?”

…I don’t want to be asleep to find you anymore…