The Immortal Dream

Corsica flung herself awake, her spirit dropping back into her battered body with an unpleasant thump as her bed caught up to her.

That dream... What had she just been doing? Her horn sparked to life, and pushed back her blankets. Only when she saw her flank, and stared for a solid minute to ensure it was still empty, did her heartbeat begin to slow.

Unlike normal dreams, her vision didn't drift away. The Immortal Dream was moving, or at least airborne; she could no longer feel the gentle bobbing of the waves against the hull, and it was replaced by a soft, harmonic hum that had become background noise during her long month of voyaging to and from Our Town. The sounds and smells of reality should have replaced it, pushed her nightmare far out of reach - if she could even call that a nightmare. But they didn't. It was like she had walked through a door and stepped back into the real world, with no transition whatsoever.

She relaxed and let her horn go out. What had come over her? Seeing her future self, who was also her past... Saying the things she had said, reaching for her special talent so soon after she told Luna she didn't want it...

That last part was what bothered her most. Did she have no sense of self-control? Being unable to control her impulses was supposed to be Future Corsica's problem. Senselessly using her special talent, even looking for an excuse to use it there at the end, just so she'd have a better excuse in turn to stay in bed and do nothing. She could swear off special talents if she very well wanted to, so why did she jump at the very first opportunity to use it?

Luna had her dream powers, right? Was the latter half of that dream constructed purely to prove a point? Corsica tensed in frustration, gritting her teeth. It didn't prove anything if the dream made her do something she wouldn't actually do in real life! She was perfectly capable of... capable of...

She almost choked on her frustration. If she really was capable of restraining herself, she wouldn't have needed to ask Luna not to give back her special talent. She should have been capable of it, especially after how much she went through over the last three years to learn that skill. But watching her dead self act so indifferent to Twilight about the possibility of using her talent, then calling on it so indifferently herself, right in the same dream... This was beyond humiliation. It was straight-up mockery.

Placed in a dream where she mocked herself. Perhaps to prove Luna's point, or perhaps by her own subconscious. But what was she supposed to do?

Corsica wanted to roll over, to adjust herself and get more comfortable, but Fluttershy had arranged her in bed with a brace to stop her from doing precisely that, on the doctor's orders. Humiliating.

Part of the point of rewinding herself and wishing her talent away was to be freed from the consequences of being impulsive, of course. This was how she had wished to become. She should have been able to simply do what she wanted and not care, so why was this so embarrassing in the first place?

Breaking the illusory terrain around the train was exactly the same. Now that she had two reference points, she could look at it more objectively: both times, she had come face to face with something dangerous, and completely lost her ability to think critically, barging in and recklessly challenging it for no gain or benefit. Why? Of all the possible places to go insane and have no self-control, why do it when it was dangerous?

"I suspect this was motivated by simple curiosity mixed with a disdain for things that are hidden from you," a memory of Princess Luna said, her voice echoing through Corsica's ears.

No. It was more than that. Curiosity might have motivated Corsica to go investigate the trains, but it wasn't why she lost her head and attacked the ground despite the threat of premonition flux building up in her mind... Premonition flux that disappeared instead of collecting its due, at that. And she might not have liked her future self, but disdain wasn't why she had summoned her special talent - or, at least, her dream's idea of her special talent - to help her.

Was it... because she was scared? Scared of what the premonition flux could do to her, scared of that dark void in her mind that she cleaved from her other self in her dream? Was fear her motivator for freaking out and backtracking on her principles like that?

Corsica felt herself slowly sinking, her cabin's ceiling growing farther away. If she had truly been rewound, she shouldn't have been scared of things that had never happened to her. But she knew she was right, and that meant her break from the last three years wasn't as clean as she wanted it to be. Some of her baggage was somehow still hanging on.

Maybe she shouldn't have been surprised. It was honestly a miracle her mental state had reset to the point where she could enjoy things and harbor ambitions at all-

"What are you thinking about?"

Corsica blinked, then sighed. It seemed the paranormal wasn't done with her yet.

There was a light in her room. A ghostly, translucent, vaguely-pony-shaped blob of light, gently undulating with shifting colors. It hovered just off the floor, and at first she worried her special talent was somehow back, but it was too big and indistinct for that. Nope, just a plain old unidentified magical phenomenon... and she was pretty sure it had just asked her a question.

"Hi," said the light blob, drifting closer. "You noticed!"

"What are you?" Corsica asked, pondering ways to check if she was still dreaming. "Some sort of ghost?"

"I'm the Immortal Dream!" the light said proudly. "I love you. What are you thinking about? Your thoughts feel weird."

A gear popped loose in Corsica's brain.

"I've been talking to you for a while now," the light rambled. "But I was sleeping, so I don't know if you heard. Most people don't hear even when I'm awake. You're different!"

"Hold on..." Corsica slowly blinked. "Are you the weird voice I've randomly been hearing since I got rewound? And when you say the Immortal Dream, do you mean the Starlight one, or...?"

"I am this ship," the light stated, its voice sounding like a jumble of creatures overlapping, mostly female yet changing often enough that Corsica really couldn't tell if it was the one she had been hearing. "Do you like me?"

"You're this ship." Corsica glanced around at her surroundings, the floor and walls and ceiling of the cabin. "Alright... Why is this ship possessed by a magic talking ghost?"

The light bobbed excitedly. "Because I like you! So, what are you thinking about?"

"Wondering whether I'm hallucinating, mostly." Corsica squeezed her eyes shut, but when she opened them, the light blob was still there. "Do you have a name that's a bit less of a mouthful than Immortal Dream?"

The light jiggled from side to side. "I am this ship."

"Great. I'm calling you Morty." Corsica sighed, hoping she wasn't committing a grave aeronautical faux pas by renaming an already-named vessel... or by giving a colt's name to what was probably a filly. "Is thaaat okay with you?"

Morty bobbed in midair. "Your thoughts are strange."

"Morty-" Corsica started, then cut herself off. "Never mind. That feels too weird to even think. Immie? Dream? Flying tub?"

"I am this ship," the light reminded her. "And you're nice, but you're also weird. I was named a long time ago! I think I still remember it. Do you want me to make a new name for you, too?"

Corsica blinked. "Should I?"

"Alright!" The light blob swam in a circle. "You can be Gerardo!"

Gerardo... The griffon who gave her a ride from Icereach to Ironridge in the distant corners of her future? One of Starlight and Valey's old traveling companions? "Doesn't that name already belong to someone else?" Corsica probed. "Someone you used to carry around a lot?"

The light tinkled with shame. "I don't know very many names."

"Well, uhh..." Corsica fumbled for something to say. "You're a pretty good ship. Been all across the world, and stuff?" If only she was better with kids... This ghost was very definitely not an adult.

"Yes!" The light blob got all of its cheer back, bobbing up and down wildly. "And no. I've been to Ironridge, and I've been to the Griffon Empire, and I've been to Griffonstone, and I've been to Kinmari, and I've been to a place called Sires Hollow, and I've been to Ponyville, and-"

"Sounds like a lot," Corsica encouraged, fatigue already weighing on her again. This conversation probably wasn't going to end on its own, but what did you do with a ghost ship that seemed to have no goals beyond talking?

"And I don't know where I haven't been because I haven't been there yet," the light puffed, rattling off too many names in one breath... How did it even have lungs? "Like right now! I don't know where we're going, because I haven't been there before. Have you?"

"No," Corsica managed. "It's... hard for me to talk right now, kid. Sorry. I'm kind of beat up. You know how that works, right?"

The light stopped bobbing. "I protect people who are hurt."

"Awesome." Corsica sank back into her bedding. "Think you could protect me tonight while I get a good night's sleep? If you do, I'll talk to you all you want once I'm feeling better."

She got the vague impression that the light was saluting. "This is my duty," it proclaimed, solemn. "Feel better, okay? I'll keep you safe."

Corsica waited... and the light didn't leave.

"You gonna go somewhere?" Corsica eventually asked.

"I am going somewhere." The light swooped over by the window, a slip of cloud drifting idly by. "I'm taking you, and everyone else! See?"

"No, like..." Corsica tried and failed again to find a comfortable angle to keep an eye on the light. "Are you going to stop staring at me? And leave me alone so I can sleep?"

The light tinkled again. "But you're inside me."

Corsica blinked. "Not the ship itself. You. The glowy... thing."

"But I am this ship," the light insisted, befuddled. "I can't get you off me. If you don't want to be here, that's for you to do."

Did this ghost not understand the concept of personal space? How would Corsica even explain something like-

"Excuse us," said a new voice.

Corsica blinked harder. There was another ghost in her room.

This one was just as indefinite as the first, though easy to tell apart: it was black and silver instead of a shifting rainbow, was slightly larger, and spoke with a much cleaner, more practiced voice. There was still something discordant about it, though: its voice was young and full of spunk, also female, and yet gave the impression of great age and dignity, like a talented filly reading a script during a school play.

But the contradiction sounded nice on Corsica's ears. Better than nice, somehow. For the briefest moment, she imagined that if it had an equine form, it would probably be quite the looker.

"Little one," the new light said to the old one. "She now perceives our spirits as creatures separate from our bodies. The presence of your mind's gaze is not the same to her as your presence as a ship."

"Huh?" the old, rainbow light asked, its focus turning to the new one.

"I will explain it to you," the new, silver light encouraged, shimmering as it moved in a way that reminded Corsica of a ruler's stride. "But let us look at someone who cannot perceive us, first."

"Okay!" The old light darted towards Corsica's door, phasing straight through.

Corsica cleared her throat before the new light could follow. "So have I died and turned into a ghost myself, or is this ship just haunted all of a sudden?"

"We were always here," the new light said, hovering near the door. "Your ability to see us is the new part. And it's getting stronger with each passing day."

"What are you?" Corsica demanded, straining to look at it upright. "Does this have to do with my special talent?"

The light flickered between silver and black, a faint trace of red rising up through it like an errant tongue of flame. "Spirits of things that are not alive, and never were. But is this really a road you want to tread?"

"Seems like I don't have much of a choice," Corsica pointed out. "You're the ones showing up uninvited in my room."

"You have a choice," the silver light replied. "The alternative is merely unacceptable to you."

"Oh yeah?" Corsica raised an eyebrow. "And what's that?"

The light seemed to shrug. "Accept yourself. Your whole self, including the part you are going to such lengths to cast off."

Corsica's eyes widened in surprise. "Did you just platitude me? That's almost offensive." She let out a sigh. "I don't know who you are, or what you know about me, but three years of my life are dead. They never happened. Beats me how I got rid of them, but if I somehow got them back, they'd just kill the rest of me, too. Does that factor into your wisdom, oh ghost of spooky warnings?"

Another flicker of red.

"Well?" Corsica pressed.

"It's not too late to turn back," the light said. "If you don't think you can do it on your own, speak with Seigetsu. So far, you have only made barest contact with the power that was lost. The memory erasure kept by her people could still be potent enough to delay your march, at least long enough for the eyes of history to fall on someone else, instead."

"But what's that supposed to mean?" Corsica demanded. "If you're trying to warn me of something, it won't work without specifics! And if the other one was this ship's spirit, then who are you supposed to be, anyway?"

The silver light sighed. "I told you. A spirit of something that was never alive. And I am warning you that the power you chase is a power that cannot help but be used. The more you embrace-"

"Hey!" The other light floated back through the door. "Hey Aegis, weren't you going to talk with me?"

Corsica blinked.

The silver light stiffened, cutting off mid-sentence, then swiftly departed, taking the other light with it.

"We're almost there," Rainbow said, sitting on the Immortal Dream's control console as Starlight guided the ship forward, Twilight and Seigetsu standing nearby.

"This is well inside the perimeter that my people patrol," Seigetsu replied.

"Yep. We've been over this a hundred times," Rainbow pushed back. "But hey, let's be fair, here! Your scouts were covering such a huge amount of terrain, they surely couldn't be bothered to check out every single random cave and hole in the ground they came across, right?"

Twilight gave her a cross look. "Rainbow..."

Rainbow jumped down and patted her smugly on the shoulder. "Don't worry, Twi. You'd be on their case twice as hard if you didn't have your princess image to keep up, so just think of it like I'm giving them a hard time for you."

"And as we've thoroughly established," Twilight countered, "there also happened to be a giant city in a hole in the ground less than a day's walk out from Ponyville, which none of us knew about, either."

"That one was completely buried. This one is in a hole. Anyone with wings could see it, they're not even comparable!" Rainbow rolled her eyes, gesturing for Starlight to slow down. "It's right in the center of that boulder field there. You can practically see it already!"

The ship slowed, and soon, everyone filed out onto the deck to get a better look straight down.

South of the rails connecting Snowport and the Crystal Empire, the terrain devolved into a grassy swamp that looked like a pleasant meadow yet was actually a bog, as Rainbow remembered everyone else finding out during Twilight's marathon teleport session to get there a month ago. Fed by runoff from the mountains that couldn't collect into streams or lakes, that bog stretched far to the east and west, losing itself in extensive forests to the east. But to the west, rocky hills occasionally broke the surface, big slabs of flat stone stacked at odd angles, like the world's surface had been broken and scrunched together a little, long ago.

"What are they growing down there?" Applejack asked, the rising moon providing enough light to see the sheen of the water beneath the grass. "That looks organized like farmland right up to where the rocks start, but I've never seen a crop what can breathe underwater."

"Rice, mostly," Seigetsu explained. "A special variant bred for cold or temperate weather."

"And holes," Rainbow said, pointing down at the rocks near the farmland. "See? Right there."

Down below, a particularly large sheet of rock jutted up like half of a tent, supported by nothing and shadowing a long crevice. The crevice was raised enough not to flood, sitting on the slope of a small hill, at an angle where she couldn't truly blame ground-bound farmers from failing to see it: no one would want to climb these hills when the footing was so treacherous, especially if the bog was actually good crop land. But didn't some dragons have wings? There was even a faint light radiating up from below.

Someone had to have seen this.

"Yep, I can definitely see it," Twilight agreed. "At least, I don't know what other hole you could be talking about, Rainbow. Has this really never been noticed before?"

"Am I just blind, then?" Applejack asked, lifting her hat and scratching at her head. "No big holes down there are jumping out at me."

"I don't see it either," Fluttershy noted, standing quietly to the side and craning her neck to see the terrain below. "I don't think I'm bad at seeing in the dark..."

Rainbow stepped up next to her and pointed a hoof. "It's literally glowing. Night should make it easier. Right there, see?"

Fluttershy stared in confusion. "Um, I really don't see anything..."

"It's not that hard..." Twilight started to say, then trailed off. "Starlight?"

Starlight was staring over the edge, horn lit, a look of intense concentration on her face.

Eventually, she let out a breath, and her horn went out. "I don't see it either," she said, shaking her head. "But I have a spell that can detect cavities behind solid objects, and there is something down there. I think. It feels weird when I try to use it. Something is going on."

"Seigetsu?" Twilight turned to the dragon, who was leaning against the bridge and thoughtfully rubbing her chin. "What do you see?"

Seigetsu tapped a claw on the railing. "I think I'd like to see how you all handle this before I weigh in."

"What's that supposed to mean?" Rainbow asked. "Is the hole magic, or something? Why would me and Twilight be able to see it if no one else can?"

Twilight's eyes widened in realization.

"Figured it out already?" Applejack guessed, raising an eyebrow.

"I don't know why this could be significant," Twilight said. "And I don't want to bring Corsica up here to test. But Rainbow and I are the only ponies here who have used Writs of Harmonic Sanction. And those allow us to bypass the spell that obscures the true form of the Aldenfold's terrain."

Rainbow blinked at her, then Starlight, then her again. "Yeah, but, okay, what's that magic got to do with a random city in a hole in a boulder field? And, uh, did you really not have a writ?"

Starlight shook her head. "Just one of the many things about this trip I've been putting off. I've turned them down twice now."

"You know we're going to Ironridge, like, really soon, right?" Rainbow pointed out, raising an eyebrow.

Starlight pulled out a writ.

"Oh, well, okay, then. Just conveniently have one-"

"I asked for it while we were in the Crystal Empire," Starlight interrupted with a sigh. "I was thinking I'd have a little more time to psych myself up for it, but if it's suddenly relevant right now..."

She looked down over the edge. "You know this can't actually be what's going on, right? Maybe it's some other class of illusion magic, but the spell in place over the Aldenfold consumes incredible amounts of power. I told you about how it's powered, remember?" She looked back at Rainbow and Twilight. "Using entire crystal palaces? Two of them? Using technology from Indus? Even if it was on a smaller scale, that kind of effect shouldn't be something just anyone can replicate."

Seigetsu stepped forward. "Perhaps a reminder of why we are here is warranted. In the past thirty years, Snowport has suffered two desertions of clergy from the Order of Silence, who wield the power to erase memories. This power is regulated with utmost care. Such events should be unthinkable, and our inability to find the perpetrators is a source of great shame and consternation."

She narrowed her eyes. "But that is, indeed, an enchantment like unto the Aldenfold beneath us. It is every bit as out of place here as you say. And whatever it is hiding, it would go a long way toward explaining why that something has never been found."

"You can tell that's the kind of magic at work?" Twilight asked.

Seigetsu flexed her claws. "Did you think I reached the station of Special Inquisitor for purely political reasons? I have my methods." She narrowed her eyes at the crevice among the rocks. "If only those methods had included free requisition of airships. That cave is hidden both by the mountains' magic and by regular camouflage that make it difficult to see from the ground. Even when plainly visible, it looks scarce more than an ordinary shadow. This was hidden by someone who refuses to be found. And I can easily guess the culprits."

"Just saying," Rainbow cut in, "but I did go down there for, like, long enough to see there weren't just two dudes in that hole. It's a city. Or at least a village."

Starlight stepped forward, holding a now-empty writ, a regretful look on her face. "...It's true. I can see it now."

Twilight gingerly took the empty writ, and Starlight didn't try to stop her.

She did look back after the empty scroll, however, and shook her head. "Figured if I did it spur of the moment like this, it wouldn't feel so... weighty. Anyway." She squared her shoulders and turned to Seigetsu. "Your Order of Silence uses Nightmare Modules for their memory erasure, right?"

Seigetsu raised an eyebrow. "They've been known by that name."

"Do they have any others?" Starlight pressed. "I assume you wouldn't have this job if you didn't know a thing or two about how to fight them."

Seigetsu looked taken aback.

"Well, I'm more familiar with what they can do than most," Starlight said, walking back to the railing. "But the only time I've seen the memory erasure used, it was cast from a horn. If they try to fight us, how will they use it? Being the Elements of Harmony might protect you from their effects, or it might do nothing. And I don't think any of you would enjoy losing your memories."

"They activate their powers by physically stabbing the target with a knife made of black metal," Seigetsu explained. "Rather than leave a wound, it renders you susceptible to their magic through the duration of the blade's contact. When we encounter them, I would prefer if you all stood at a distance and left the fighting up to me, to avoid this exact scenario."

"Hopefully it doesn't come to that," Fluttershy murmured.

"The only way it wouldn't is if they were to surrender quietly," Seigetsu answered, shaking her head.

Starlight cleared her throat. "Do these black knives look anything like this?"

She pulled out a black sword of her own, plain and unadorned save for a triangular hole in the hilt. A sword Rainbow Dash was accustomed to hearing about from her stories about life north of the Aldenfold, and had seen in person once or twice as well: Starlight's current vector for wielding the Nightmare Modules, both the one that erased memories and others.

Seigetsu's eyes narrowed at the sword. "I wondered if you might be harboring something like that."

"Can I take that as a yes?" Starlight asked, keeping the sword at her side.

"You would be wise not to wave that thing around where my people can see it," Seigetsu said. "At best, it would constitute high heresy and crimes against public order, and that's if they don't realize it is real."

Starlight sighed. "Sounds like just another Tuesday in Ironridge. And if they do realize it's real?"

Seigetsu nodded. "You could incite mass panic or even societal collapse over the imminent end of the world."

Twilight's eyes went wide. "What?"

Seigetsu put a hand over her face. "Tell me you aren't carrying that around without at least some sort of idea of what it is..."

"A weapon used by one of the titans who destroyed Indus," Starlight said, putting the sword away again. "The counterpart of which, by the way, is currently flying invisibly inside our harmony comet, and hopefully didn't raise too many eyebrows when we used it to fix the ship back there."

"Then you can conceive of at least one reason why it might produce such a reaction," Seigetsu told her. "And I would not worry about Snowport's citizenry. About four months ago, we transported a five-ton magical relic through our port that caused it to constantly rain even when no clouds were present, and required a specially-constructed train car to move. They are no strangers to strange comings and goings."

"Right," Twilight groaned. "I remembered that..."

"Wow, we're getting to be a real walking doomsday armory!" Pinkie remarked, strolling straight through the middle of the crowd. "Does anyone else miss the days when we could just roll out the harmony laser and turn the baddies good with a single strike?"

Starlight cleared her throat. "Actually, if these are batponies using Nightmare Modules, that's probably the most effective way to deal with them. Exposure to powerful harmonic effects seems to directly purge the emotional energy needed to power Nightmare Modules, so even a little harmony could render them useless."

"As I said, you would be best leaving any fighting to me," Seigetsu said. "I am extensively trained for this specific scenario. While any contributions you can safely make will be welcome in the moment, you have quite a lot riding on your safety."

"Well, someone's going to need to stay with the ship," Applejack pointed out. "You know, just thinking off the top of my head, here, but if too many bodies might just get in the way, Twilight and Starlight are the only ones of us who have been in real, serious fights here... and Rainbow's the fastest, so she could easily make a getaway. And you three are also the ones with the writs. So maybe it should just be you three that scout out the place first with Seigetsu, and then the rest of us come check it out once it's safe, if there's much more to see?"

Rainbow glanced around at her friends. She could hold her own in a fight; there was no way she couldn't. But Pinkie, Fluttershy, Rarity... "Applejack has a point," she admitted. "Maybe we should split up for this."

"I'm not sure we have a choice," Starlight said. "If that magic really is the same as the Aldenfold's, anyone without a writ might not be able to get down there in the first place."

Applejack swallowed.

"Perhaps," Seigetsu said. "Now, if there is nothing more to discuss, should we not get going?"

"Been waiting for someone to say that!" Rainbow backflipped over the edge, plummeting down the short drop to the boulder field and flipping out her wings to catch herself at the last moment.

Seigetsu dropped shortly later, landing with the grace of someone who had jumped from the bottom step of a staircase rather than a hovering airship. And a moment after that, following some distant farewells and advice-giving atop the ship, Starlight and Twilight arrived as well, the former floating along in a cloud of telekinesis and the latter wobbling along on unpracticed wings.

Not that Twilight was a bad flier. She certainly wasn't a pro, but Rainbow couldn't help but note how much funnier she looked after Celestia gave her that power. The last time Twilight was this souped up, the slightest errant twitch of a feather could send her accidentally rocketing across the horizon, and watching her trying to avoid a repeat of that performance was like watching an amateur clown practicing with stilts.

Speaking of those powers... "You're leaving Aegis back on the ship, right?" Rainbow glanced up at the harmony comet, where a slight distortion signaled Aegis's presence.

"We're still connected by remote," Twilight assured her. "And being able to control Aegis up on the surface means we can still contact the ship if we need to for some reason."

"This hole doesn't give fantastic vibes," Starlight said, hovering over to the entrance, not trusting her footing on the precarious terrain. "And there's so much water around here, shouldn't it be flooded?"

"That's kinda why I started poking around here in the first place," Rainbow admitted. "It felt kinda weird that this marsh was here at all with the ocean so close by. It's even got some gentle currents."

Seigetsu nodded. "Hundreds of years ago, this area was an estuary that drained more freely into the sea, but we began to control that drainage rate when we realized we could make the area more suitable for certain types of crops."

"Well..." Rainbow landed, stepping up to the lip of the crevice and waving for the others to take a peek inside. "Guess you'll get to find out where all that water drains to instead."