Dreamwalker's Tale

I woke up to the feeling of Twilight slightly shifting behind me and the sounds of quiet conversation.

“—really think that there is any reason to worry about that,” Rarity mused. “You seem perfectly comfortable with this arrangement for now, do you not?”

“I am,” Twilight replied with some hesitation. “It’s just that… I’m worried.”

Rarity’s giggle was barely audible. “You always are, darling.”

“So let me get this straight,” Rainbow’s voice scratched.

“Rainbow, mind your volume,” Rarity chided her.

“Right, sorry, whatever. He stayed awake for five days straight?” the pegasus continued. After a short moment, she inhaled. “Woah. That’s so awesome.”

“No, it really is not,” Rarity disagreed. “As far as I am aware, it is actually quite dangerous.”

“… is totally what I said,” Rainbow insisted.

There was a sigh behind me and while Rainbow and Rarity seemed to get into a little discussion about the ‘awesomeness of danger’, I felt Twilight shift again. She brought her lips to my ear and quietly whispered. “Good morning.”

Her warm breath tickled my ear. I heard the playfulness in her voice and I smiled. I assumed my less steady breathing had given me away and while I did not open my eyes immediately, smiling sure revealed me to be awake. “Do I have to wake up?” I mumbled and shifted ever so slightly in her embrace, just to become aware of how close we were lying. “It’s so cozy.” She nipped my aspirations in the bud by quite literally nipping my ear, albeit very carefully. “Ow,” I quietly whined despite not feeling any pain to begin with. But my eyes snapped open due to the unexpected jolt and therefore, Twilight was content.

“Oh look who finally deigned to join us,” Rarity interrupted her little spat with Rainbow and smiled. “Good morning, dear. You have been quite the sleepyhead.” My confusion grew as I looked around. A quick glance out of the window told me that it was still morning, even if it might have been a little later than usual. But there was no sign of Applejack, Fluttershy or Pinkie Pie. Upon noticing my realization, Rarity spoke up again. “Don’t worry, they will be back soon enough. Pinkie is plundering the kitchen together with Spikey, I believe. They intended to make breakfast for us. Applejack had to rearrange some chores as ‘going off to be a hero again’ had not been part of her initial plan. I presume Fluttershy’s reasons are in a similar vein.”

“She didn’t tell?” I asked. Concern creeped up on me. What if she was not convinced after all…?

“Well she tried,” Rarity huffed a little. “But Pinkie was very… Pinkie, this morning. Albeit the quietest Pinkie I have ever experienced.”

I did not question what exactly that entailed. I was just relieved, as the explanation did not sound like she was just leaving us hanging. Then again — what was I even thinking? Would she ever had done that to begin with? I rubbed my eyes and temples. I was clearly not awake enough yet. I was certainly not thinking straight.

I craned my neck a little and looked over my shoulder at Twilight. She had this faraway look in her eyes and seemed utterly content. It made me want to hug her and squish her like a pillow, but at the same time, I did not want to intrude on that moment. So I waited for a little longer until I felt a certain urge become more pressing. I carefully disentangled myself from her before I left the bed. “I’m heading for the bathroom… uh… should I…”

“With the exception of Twilight, we have already been,” Rarity replied with a dainty smile. “But thank you for asking. I presume we shall meet in the dining hall for breakfast, dear.”

I nodded and made my way out. While following basic maintenance, I reminisced about how I had woken up, surrounded by friends — at least some of them — and how I had fallen asleep in the first place. It had been so quick. Surprisingly quick. Maybe my sleep deprivation was finally catching up to me? Or it was always the same, and had always been like this? Maybe it was a side effect of my condition. That I would just not be able to sleep for the first couple of weeks after a new whatever had started? And it evened out over time?

I did not know.

I briskly trotted down the hallway towards the dining hall and could already hear my friends chit chat and I noticed with satisfaction that both Pinkie's and Applejack's voices were among them. Once I entered, I saw Fluttershy daintily nibbling on a sandwich that, seeing the impressive buffet Pinkie and Spike had produced for us, was probably something she had brought with her from home.

“Good morning everyone,” I greeted those I had not seen yet and was welcomed to the table. The assortment on offer looked mouth-watering. A pot of melted cheese Twilight stayed far away from, fruit salad, three kinds of vegetable salad — carrot, tomato and something with a lot of greens —, scrambled eggs, toast, regular bread, what was left of those hayfries — they had the unfortunate fate of standing too close to Twilight's plate — and several spreads. And rice pudding. With cinnamon, judging by the smell. That has my name on it.

I had to restrain myself to eat something else first, just to sample all the deliciousness on offer before I really dug in with a large bowl of rice pudding. “Oh sweet Celestia, this is sooo goooood,” I mumbled around a mouthful.

“Manners, dear,” Rarity chided.

Applejack regaled us with a funny tale about her morning so far over the course of our breakfast. As she came home, Apple Bloom was apparently about to sneak out the kitchen window. And why was she using the kitchen window? Well because Big Macintosh, who was not aware of her being awake and around already, was trying to sneak out the front door.

“I swear to the heavens, somedays, it’s like herdin' cats!” she complained as she chuckled to herself. “At least Granny didn’t give me a hard time.”

“Because she was asleep?” Rainbow ventured a guess.

“You know it,” Applejack replied and everybody had a good laugh.

With Pinkie and Spike being in charge of the kitchen, it was no wonder that there was a lot more food than any of us could hope to eat. We allowed ourselves plenty of time but this buffet was ultimately an opponent we could not defeat. We all declared breakfast to be over at some point as we surrendered before the might of the buffet… only for Pinkie to utterly annihilate it after that. It was a sight to behold as she shoveled everything that remained in her mouth, not with speed, but gusto.

I guessed that lovely pudge of hers had to come from somewhere.

We all stared in varying amounts of fascination until Pinkie was done and grinned in satisfaction. “Oookay, so that happened,” I started and chuckled. “Thank you again for the delicious breakfast, Pinkie and Spike. Is everypony ready, then?” Twilight, Rarity and Applejack were reasonable enough, they had eaten lightly. Fluttershy did not eat a lot in general and Rainbow had stuffed herself to the brim but was willing to power through her food coma.

Pinkie, on the other hoof, looked down on her visibly bloated belly and smiled sheepishly. “Give me one second!” she requested and before Rarity could say anything about the horrors those words had conjured in her head, Pinkie put both her hooves to her belly and pressed down. Somehow that worked and her mane wobbled a little, as if absorbing additional weight. Rarity closed her mouth again. “Ready,” Pinkie announced.

“I’m not,” Spike groaned and we all had a good laugh.

“Don’t worry,” I addressed him while carefully rubbing his back. “We’ll find you a nice little spot on the balcony where you can sit down and relax. Just don’t fall asleep.” I turned my attention to Twilight and added, “We still need to write those letters.”

She just grinned. “One step ahead of you. Or four I guess, since it's three letters and the correct positioning of the telescope.”

“You… what?” I was perplexed. “How? When?”

Her smile grew a little prouder, her chest puffed out just a little bit and I could clearly see where Spike had learned some of his behavior from. “I wrote those letters while you were still sleeping and I positioned the telescope while you were still in the bathroom.”

I looked around to my other friends in bewilderment and could not help but ask. “I am not that slow… am I?”

Fluttershy hid her smile behind her mane, Pinkie flip-flopped between a vigorous head shake and nod, Applejack managed a silent chuckle and Rainbow was trying hard not to burst into uproarious laughter. It was Rarity who finally gave me an answer. “Taking your time is not a bad thing, dear — I like to enjoy my morning routine quite a lot if I don’t have anything urgent to attend to.”

I gave a nod and tried to push past the revelation. I was apparently a slow-poke. “Right… uh… anyway. So, can we go?”

Everyone agreed and we all helped clear up and clean up the dining hall before leaving the castle to Spike. We trotted through Ponyville and eventually past Fluttershy’s cottage and into the Everfree Forest. As soon as we entered, they all put their respective elements on. While most predators around these parts preferred to hunt lone prey, a particularly hungry manticore or a larger pack of timberwolves — the most common threats in here as far as we knew — would maybe try something anyway. We stuck close together and we stuck close to the dirt path leading through the mass of writhing underbrush and gnarled, twisted trees. Their thick canopies almost canceled out the entire daylight in some areas.

We heard the occasional rustle of smaller creatures, usually as they rushed away from us, and at one point Fluttershy had to convince a young snake that messing with us was not in her best interests. But aside from that, we got through to Zecora’s hut without incidents. It was exhilarating to see them stride through the forest, confident and determined. It seemed so long ago that they were frightened by some scary looking trees or panicked at the slightest predatory noise nearby.

“We’ll be waitin' outside,” Applejack stated as we stared up at the tree Zecora had chosen for her house. “Her rhymin' tends to make my head spin a little and it would get awfully crammed in there with all of us.”

I nodded and looked over to Twilight. She would follow me in. She made it clear with a single look and I was glad for her company. “Okay. Keep an eye out,” I reminded the rest of them. “Most predators won’t come near here, but better to be careful than to be sorry.”

"He even sounds like Twilight," I heard Rainbow groan in a whisper behind us before she was shushed by the others.

Twilight and I walked up to the door and knocked. Zecora was home — we already knew that because we had heard some Zebrian cursing after something clattered. “I should have stuck to my expertise,” the zebra quietly cursed inside before raising her volume to address her visitors. “Mind giving me a moment please?”

“We are not in a hurry Zecora,” Twilight replied.

After some more clattering, we heard her hoofsteps closing in on the door and it was finally opened for us. The zebra looked tired but sported a genuine smile when she saw Twilight. “How lovely it is to see you again,” she greeted and then took notice of me standing beside her. “And who might that friend of yours be then?”

“Zecora, this is Dreamwalker,” Twilight started to introduce us. “He is new around town. And Dreamwalker, this is Zecora. Our local expert for Everfree flora and fauna as well as alchemy.”

“An ‘expert’, she says — that remains to be seen. For sadly I failed to concoct my vaccine.” Zecora's ears pinned back. She looked over her shoulder and after craning my neck to do the same, I saw the chaos that made up the huts interior. Her cauldron was lying on its side, apparently… cracked? I didn't even know that was possible.

A sudden flash made me squint. “May the land be flat and the grass be green,” I started to recite from memory. “May the sun shine bright and the water be clean. May the night stay calm and the company fair, safe journey ahead and please take care.” I reopened my eyes as the memory started to fade into the background. It sorted itself away with the rest of the other puzzle pieces. Twilight looked at me intrigued while Zecora seemed astonished. “It’s… uh… the Traveler’s Greeting, right?” I sheepishly asked.

A couple more rhymes later, Zecora invited us into her hut and closed the door and I started to understand what Applejack had meant. Deciphering what the zebra said was not all that hard, but for some strange reason, those new memories constantly interfered with my thoughts and tried to make me rhyme like she did. It put knots in my head where none belonged, entangling and confusing me in the process.

So I left most of the conversation to Twilight while I busied myself. Zecora had started to clean up the mess she had accidentally produced earlier and for some reason, I knew where to find her small broom and the dustpan. So while they talked and Zecora put a sponge to the slowly drying puddle of gray goo, I swept up the broken pieces of what I presumed must have been pottery of some kind. She had a special bucket for waste material from her experiments, as it was far too dangerous to just tip the bucket out the window.

Although Twilight had initially been a little bit distracted by my sudden bout of knowledge, she quickly regained her footing and asked about something that would help me sleep.

“A strong concoction to help you sleep?” the Zebra mused and promptly started to rummage through her shelves in search of something specific. She finally presented us with a small brown clay pot. “This might do the trick, but it will send you deep.”

I shook my head. Despite Twilight's best efforts, I knew this would not work — it was not enough. “No, I don’t need anything to help me sleep, Zecora. I need something strong that makes me sleep.”

Despite the favor I had gained by reminding her of her faraway homeland, the zebra still lowered her brows at me, warily searching for something in my demeanor. “Those are perilous brews you are asking for. Before I decide, I need to know more.”

It was a reasonable request, I had to admit. There was a risk of endangering somepony’s health with a mixture as strong as I was asking for. So, I started to tell her. Of course I spared her most of the details, as that would make for a great story for another time. Right now, she only needed to know that we wanted to bring the fight to a dangerous foe that needed to be brought here in the first place. This, in turn, could only be done by me using my connection to the dreamscape. And that connection was inaccessible while I was awake. I did, for honesty’s and completion’s sake, briefly mention that I had been able to access it when dreamwalking with other ponies. But given the circumstances, there was no option present. We would not endanger anypony else and we could not risk anything going awry by bringing even one of the Elements to the dreamscape.

She mulled over what I had given her and finally agreed. “I see a difficult fight ahead of you. I wish you good luck and hope you pull through.” She shelved the first pot again and after some more rummaging gave me a thick-walled, round glass bottle containing a deep purple, viscous liquid.

“Looks appetizing,” I joked while shaking it a little.

“It tastes and smells as vile as it looks — I wear a clasp on my nose while it cooks,” she promised me with a concerning amount of amusement.

“Thank you, Zecora,” I replied. Twilight chimed in on that and we left her hut shortly after.

“Took you guys long enough, slow-pokes,” Rainbow greeted us upon our return to the group. “We got ambushed. Several times! It was one heck of a fierce monster!”

While Twilight immediately went into a semi-panicked state and checked everypony for injuries, I noticed that mischievous glint in Rainbow's eyes. “Uh-huh. And what attacked you, if I may ask?”

I deliberately provided her with a prime opportunity to get her punchline out so that Twilight might calm down a little sooner. “Boredom!” Rainbow excitedly yelled and both her and Pinkie broke out into fits of giggles.

“Really now?” Rarity chimed in. “You had all this time and this was the best you could come up with?”

Clearly misunderstanding her a little bit, Rainbow proudly puffed her chest out. “Yeah. It was awesome, wasn’t it?”

“That was not a comp— Haaah. Nevermind.” Rarity gave up when she saw both Applejack and Fluttershy grinning in amusement. Twilight, on the other hoof, looked less amused and seemed to battle her impulse to give Rainbow a lecture, but after a moment of hesitation she let herself get swept up in the merriment and at least smiled at her friend's antics.

“Let’s not dilly-dally any longer, darlings, I would very much prefer for us to be out of all this… muck” Rarity proposed, spurning us into moving once more.

We closed in on the castle ruins around late midday. I felt strangely apprehensive about this the closer we got. There had been a building tension in the back of my head, telling me that there was something I was forgetting. I focused on our surroundings, tried to be even more attentive than I already was, but all I could hear was the wind rustling in the tree’s canopies, all I could see were those chaos-riddled, warped trees themselves.

“You okay there, partner?” Applejack asked as she trotted up beside me.

“I’m not sure,” I honestly admitted. “I feel like we’re about to… I don’t know… walk into something?”

“A trap? You remember somethin'?” she was immediately alert. Her ears swiveled around, her eyes scanned the treeline flanking the dirt path, searching for any signs of danger just like I had done before… and was still doing.

“No,” I answered. “It’s something else. It feels like asking yourself ‘have I forgotten to lock the door?’ or ‘did I turn the stove off?’ Something is nagging me and I can’t pin it down.”

Applejack chuckled quietly in relief. Her good-natured smile eased my worries a little bit, I had to admit. “I know that one. It’s just the tension of knowin' what we’re about to do. Don’t worry. I feel it every time we waltz up to some fancy-schmancy world-ender or some such.”

I tried to let her help me, and it half-worked. But this feeling would not be quelled that easily, not entirely anyway. A few minutes later we finally cleared the forest and entered the thin band of clearing that surrounded the castle ruins. I gave a startled yelp as I suddenly heard a filly merrily laughing right behind me. I hastily turned around and there was… nothing.

“What is it?” Twilight asked, alarmed.

“I… I don’t—” I started and I got no further than that. My legs froze in place. My ears stood ramrod straight and my eyes glazed over. I felt all my muscles strain with tension, ready to burst. I could not move, could not even think straight, could not close my eyes or hear the probably worried voices of my friends while I shook like a leaf. But whatever it was, it got better after a moment. Probably just the stress getting to me. After all, there was always so much to do in Greenwood, and we had all been grinding ourselves to the bone to make it work. Maybe I ought to arrange for another picnic or something.

I looked around me. What had I been doing again? I felt strangely disoriented for a moment. The castle — my home — was close by. I stood on the street. Only a few ponies were milling about. Most of them looked exhausted, but happy. Some were heading for Flim and Flam's Tremendously Tranquilizing Tavern. Hmmm. Getting something in my stomach actually sounded great. I looked up at the sky. Early afternoon. Had I skipped breakfast again? Maybe I should go get something before my growling stomach frightened the foals again. Maybe I got lucky and would even be able to see one of Trixie’s shows.

“Where is he going?” Rainbow asked. I stopped and looked around. She was easily spotted with that technicolor mane of hers. I smiled and waved.

“Oh, hey Rainbow. Hadn’t seen you there, sorry. I was about to head to Trixie’s place for some stew, you wanna join in?” Seeing as she tried to follow me, I took that as my cue to move on. “How’s the endless battle against the Everfree weather going? You’re still winning, right?” She smiled. Of course she smiled, because she was on top of things. She always strived to be. Greenwood was still in its infancy. We had not even had our first anniversary. A famine was the last thing we needed. Then again, if things really got this tight, we could always just send out a call for help. Ponyville would answer. Which turned my thoughts to other matters entirely. It had been a long time since I had last talked to her. “How is Scoots doing?” I asked her. Despite my better knowledge, I was still concerned for the little filly. “Is she settling in alright? From what I’ve heard, she gets along quite well with Ambrosia?” The Apple household was a loud one these days. Applejack's daughter was a rambunctious little filly, and with Apple Bloom and Scootaloo in their teens… I sometimes wondered if Rainbow really was up to the task.

Speaking of little whirlwinds. A trio of foals ran past us and down the road. Ambrosia apparently tried to help Whisper up into the air, but the shy little filly got frightened every time her hooves actually left the ground. Stardust trailed behind, he gave little encouraging hints and comments, ready to use his magic to hold the filly before she scraped her knee with an unlucky landing again.

“Stardust? Mind coming here for a second?” He stopped as he heard his name and looked around.

Once he spotted me, his eyes lit up. “Dad!” He cantered over and I hugged him tightly against my leg.

I leaned down a little to get on eye level with him. “Hey, little one. You’re helping Ambrosia with looking after Whisper?” He eagerly nodded and in turn, I ruffled his mane. “I’m proud of you. Just remember to keep an eye out for Magnus. I don’t want him to tease her again, she got really scared last time.”

“Will do!” He hugged my leg once more. “Can we go see mom? I have a gift for her.”

I looked up at the castle, then back down to him. “Stardust, you know better. Your mom is still sleeping. But I’m sure we’ll manage to catch her before she opens Night Court. You can give it to her then. Now, go play with your friends, I’ll be home soon. Shoo!” I gave the giggling little colt a nudge and he ran off after his two friends. I looked after him until he vanished around a house corner. I turned my attention back to Rainbow but she was gone. Maybe something had caught her attention, or she was simply flying ahead.

“Sugarcube… who are you talkin' to?” came Applejack's voice.

I turned around once more and saw her just standing there. Like a landmark. I sighed, smiled at her and closed the distance, hugging her tightly. “I didn’t notice you sneak up on me. I was talking to our kids, they were here just a second ago. Were you looking for them? I thought the fields would keep you busy this time of day. Actually, your wife was around a second ago as well, but she vanished on me.” A strange thought occurred to me. We had spent so much time fixing problems, meddling in their relationship that it was only natural, at this point. “You two aren’t having another spat, are you? If so, I don’t want any part of that! I think I meddled quite enough as is.”

Applejack furrowed her brow as if she did not understand what I was talking about. No spat then, good, good. Despite their current harmonious lives, their filly would grow up knowing her way around a dispute. I sometimes worried about Fluttershy’s offspring. Whisper was just as timid and superficially fragile as her mother. And in Fluttershy’s and Pinkie’s household, ‘real’ arguments were hard to imagine. Maybe it would do the little filly good to be this close with Ambrosia.

While Applejack was apparently still trying to figure out how she could rope me into her business, Pinkie casually walked up to us, all smiles as usual. “Where are you even walking to?” she asked.

I smiled. “Home,” I answered her and nodded up to the castle. “I was about to get something to eat at the tavern, but Rainbow left me and I remembered that Twi should be home as well, so I was hoping to get some pre-dinner-snuggles in and distract her a little. You know how she gets with these old books. It’s like Golden Oaks all over again.” I thoughtfully tapped my chin with a hoof and shook my head lightly after a moment. “Actually, it’s worse. She has to restore these books first. You should hear her coo to them when she works. Sounds similar to Fluttershy tending to one of her injured animal friends. Anyway, it was really nice talking to you gals, but I’m heading home. See you around?”

They nodded and waved their goodbyes, so I once more turned around and started my walk back home. Past humble homes and the few first shops we had, past the granary and Pinkie’s bakery. I entered through the castle gate, respectfully nodding towards the two night guards flanking the entrance. “Gentlecolts,” I greeted. They did not reply of course, but they gave me a curt nod. I took in the sight before me: The castle garden. Four twisted, cursed trees—

What?

I blinked and shook my head lightly and looked again. Four beautiful apple trees grew into the air from their patches surrounding a decadent fountain. The trees had been a little gift for Applejack. Leaving the farm behind to build up a new one could not have been easy, especially since Greenwood could not survive on apples alone. But she was always welcome here and her four favorite trees had found their way to the heart of the village. Lying down in their shade looked enticing, but I still needed to get something in my stomach first. A simple sandwich from the kitchen would do and then I would find Twilight and pester her for attention.

“I don’t think he sees us,” a timid, quiet voice said barely above a whisper.

I chuckled a little bit. “Sorry, Fluttershy,” I replied and looked over to her. She stood at the fountain. “I have to admit, I had not noticed you. I do seem awfully distracted today. Everpony’s just been sneaking up on me. What brings you to the castle? Everything alright with Hector?”

She looked confused. “Who?” she replied.

Her question in turn confused me. Had I remembered his name wrong? To be fair, she hosted dozens, if not hundreds of her animal friends and maintained contact with even more. All of them had names and she used them all the time. I tried to keep up, but there were just so many… “Sorry, did I use the wrong name again? I meant that manticore you were so fond of? The one that mediated for us?” Greenwood was small. Barely a year old. Most ponies here were craftsmen, farmers, weather duty pegasi… sure, we had the night guard, but with so many manticore territories all around us, there would have been a lot more strife and conflict without Fluttershy. And Hector, of course. Or was it Harold? Harry?

No. Harry was the bear, I was pretty sure. Then again, names weren’t quite that unique, right? It was more than possible that Harry the bear and Harry the manticore could both exist.

I had been lost in thought for just a moment, but that had been enough, it seemed. Fluttershy was gone. Maybe she had only been visiting the castle to get some business done with Twilight? She did like to read some of those novels my love had restored recently. Or had she been searching for Whisper? Damn. I could have told her where to find her, or at least that she had no reason to worry.

Well. Missed opportunities.

I trotted into the castle and greeted the next pair of guards holding the main door. I crossed the massive entrance hall and marveled at the enormous banners and stained glass windows. It was just so beautiful. Luna had reconstructed everything from memory alone. And never had there been a more obvious proof that she was the Matron of the Arts. Certain details were altered to accommodate the new age. But even after living here for almost a year, the wonder to see this castle in all its glory did not seem to fade even the slightest bit.

Up the stairs and—

“Well we must do something! If we let this continue, he will eventually break his n—We can’t let this continue.” A smile creeped up my face. I stopped on the stairs, turned and walked down a little bit to greet Rarity with a warm hug. It felt nice. Familiar.

Of course she was fretting about something again. She always was, it seemed. “What is it this time, Rarity?” I asked her with a good-natured chuckle. Maybe I could sort her out before I got something to eat. But then I remembered who I was talking to. And that she would very likely spring into another of her ‘oh woe is me’-tirades if I would let her. “If this is about Luna's dress again — please don’t burn it this time. I still think the last design was perfectly fine and if you keep burning stuff you’re not content with, you’ll eventually set a bad example for the other Royal Seamstresses in Canterlot.” I chuckled at the mere thought of Canterlot Castle being stormed by firefighters because they followed her example. Rarity still seemed concerned, however, so I sat down before her and laid a hoof on her shoulder. “Don’t worry,” I tried to reassure her. “Whatever it is, we’ll deal with it. Together. As we always do, hm? Let me make you an offer: We head to the kitchen and I make myself a sandwich, because quite frankly, I’m starving. You can tell me all about what ails you and after that, I wanted to head upstairs and bother Twilight a little. Maybe we can use that time to search for a solution for whatever troubles you? Sounds good?”

“Where… is the kitchen again?” she cautiously asked.

I laughed. I always forgot that, with her position, she basically had an entire wing of the castle to herself. Storage, show rooms, dressing rooms, more storage, workstations, bedroom, bathroom, guest bedroom… as if somepony had looked at Carousel Boutique and thought to himself ‘yeah, we can pack all that into the castle, easy, but I wonder if that will be enough…’ I could not quite remember if she had her own kitchen as well or if she was just so used to the staff bringing food to her, almost force-feeding her, that she just forgot.

“It’s right over there, Rares,” I replied with a grin and pointed a hoof at one of the doors leading away from the entrance hall.

“Marvelous!” she replied. “That would be perfect, yes.”

I shook my head, smiled, and we walked down the stairs again. The kitchen was another massive room, but crammed at the same time. Dozens of chefs and kitchen assistants could work here side by side, throwing out the best dishes served aside from Canterlot Castle. Of course, with Greenwood being this small, there was no need for so many ponies working here. In fact, we currently had… none. Spike and I usually used the kitchen to throw something together, and a few staff members who were brought on for other tasks were kind enough to sometimes deliver what he had cooked for us.

I busied myself with throwing a sandwich together and took note of Rarity sitting down on the floor instead of using one of the stools. Weird, but alright. Maybe whatever troubled her really was a problem.

“Dreamwalker?”

I sighed a little. Why, Tia? Why was I always this unfortunate with my timing? I closed my eyes for a brief moment, yet despite my frustrations, a loving smile tugged at my lips. “Hey, Twilight.” Maybe I should not have gone for the sandwich? Then again, that would have meant missing Rarity’s most recent crisis and I could not bring myself to regret that. She needed help and no matter how serious her problem might have been for me or anypony else — we would take it seriously, because it was serious to her.

So I would not be able to surprise Twilight. Fine. “Stardust was asking for Luna earlier. Apparently he wants to give her something? I was thinking… maybe we could have a nice, big family dinner again? All seven of us? We hadn’t had one of those for some time. Would be nice.”

I finally turned around and therefore ignored my half-finished sandwich. As I looked at her, my heart leaped in my chest. She had been this beautiful from the first day I laid eyes upon her, and here she was, still this beautiful many years later. Despite my own position and no matter how many years of writing experience I would gather — words would always fail me to describe how much I loved her.

Luckily, some actions were decent in expressing that and the results of these actions were running around out there, playing. Come to think of it though… “Have you seen Magnus? I presume Arcana is in the library, but I haven’t seen hide nor hair of him all day. I thought he might try to bother Whisper again, but I hadn’t seen him when I spotted her and it’s not like him to stay cooped up in the castle all day.”

Slowly, carefully, she walked over to me and sat down before me. She had this serious ‘we need to talk’-expression. That usually gave me quite a fright, as there was always a good reason for it, but this time? I was not conscious of having done anything wrong. “Please, I can’t lose you,” she pleaded as she laid her hooves on my cheeks and focused all of my attention on her — as if it had been anywhere else to begin with.

I smiled warmly. “You won’t. I will never—“ Flashes. I smelled burned flesh and my empty stomach twisted. It was so overwhelming. My legs trembled. I could feel the blood on my hooves. See the bodies… dear Celestia, sweet Celestia, have mercy… so many bodies… torn limbs, ripped out wings, I had killed so many—

“Please stay with me!” she yelled. I blankly stared at her. I felt numb. I felt like a monster, like I had—

She pulled me in. Pressed me against her so tightly that breathing was becoming harder. I felt her tremble a little. Just a little. And what I saw, and what I smelled, and the cries of pain and death and those for mercy, subsided. In a muddied pool of memories, the monster, once awoken, let itself sink down, deeper and deeper to the pool's very bottom once more. It knew mercy. It spared me. So that I could comfort her. Because even this monster loved her dearly.

I laid my hooves around her. Stroked down her mane, her back. “I will always—“ I started, but she interrupted me.

She pulled back, but held me close. I saw those tears in her eyes. It stung. I saw the desperation beyond the tears. And it stung. “Please stay with me!” she pleaded once more.

I felt strangely distant. For just a fraction of a second, I felt like I was outside my own body. As if I hovered around above our heads and did nothing of any importance whatsoever. But her voice cut through everything I was not doing and not thinking.

I blinked.

And I was back. I sat there with her opposite me. She had managed to hold the tears back, but she was fighting hard, and she was losing. Please don’t cry!, I wanted to say. “I can’t dance,” came out instead. I blinked again in surprise.

“… what?” she asked while sniveling a little.

“I can’t dance,” I repeated. I sounded like a fool. “For the life of me, I can’t. Everypony at our wedding attested to me being a worse dancer than you, and you are already a hazard to the public.” I jumped a little as I heard some of our friends giggle behind me. Looking around and I saw them stand close by. Pinkie and Rainbow snickered merrily, while Rarity, Applejack and Fluttershy seemed worried. Deeply worried. And they stared at Twilight and me.

“Is he back for good?” Applejack asked in Twilight's direction.

I blinked again and shifted my attention to Twilight. “What…?” I started.

“You were gone,” she replied once she had recomposed herself. “You were talking to ponies that were not there, walking around and…” Her brow furrowed in thought. “I think you had another flash?”

I winced a little as a short flood swept by and nodded. “I… yes. I don’t think I had… anything like that up until now. Nothing… nothing this strong.”

“Yeah, well, you better spill,” Rainbow riled herself up. “What the heck was that all about?”

“Oh, there had been a village here,” Pinkie merrily chirped in. “It was kinda small though. And I was living with Fluttershy in this gigantonormous tree! And all her friends were my friends too. Even though I didn’t understand them as well as Flutters does. And with so many friends, we had so many itsy bitsy tiny parties all the time, because of the many birthdays! And we had the cutest little pegasus daughter and we had named her Whisper and she was destined to become the Element of Generosity because the stars said so.”

That had surely been seven seconds. Maybe five. And Pinkie would probably have moved on with her ‘explanation’, had she not noticed most of the attention drifting away from her, towards me, for something a little bit more comprehensible. “She’s right,” I replied. I stood up and looked around. It hurt my heart to see these ruins. I had been at home here. So much work had been… what? Lost? Rolled back? Was there maybe still a place and a time when this magnificent castle still existed? Or maybe it would exist again?

“There had been a small village here,” I said as I looked over the clearing around the ruins. “Pinkie’s and Fluttershy’s house over there,” I pointed my hoof at the empty space. “Applejack’s and Rainbow’s new home over there. Greenwood needed food. Its flora and soil needed taming. The wildlife around this place needed some of that as well. The library was in dire need of someone looking after it, repairing the damage failing wards had admitted over the centuries. The castle had been rebuilt to host the Princess of the Night, and her Royal Seamstress of course. You had a bakery over there,” I pointed towards another empty space and looked towards Pinkie. “Rainbow was fighting the Everfree weather for us, spearheading the charge together with those she was willing to trust by her side. It was… our ambitious little project. We were pioneers. Reclaiming lost and chaos-riddled land.” My throat tightened a little before I belatedly added, “It was home.”

“But for heaven’s sake, why go to all this trouble in the first place?” Applejack asked incredulously.

I chuckled and felt heat rise into my cheeks. “Luna was pregnant. She didn’t quite feel at home in Canterlot, she missed her old home and she wanted to avoid the press for as long as possible, since her relationship was… uh… a little unconventional. Canterlot’s elite would probably not have taken kindly to this news. We had thought about Ponyville for a while, but… it would have changed the sleepy little town so much. We didn’t want that.”

“So we became part of her entourage, I presume?” Rarity asked. That gleeful smile only got stronger when I nodded in confirmation as she seemed quite satisfied with the thought that she had managed to gain such a prestigious position. “If I may be so bold to ask, what was all that about ‘destined to be the Element of Generosity’?” While she did not feel threatened per se — by a filly no less —, her expression did change into something more worried.

I smiled at her in an attempt to ease that concern. “The Elements will find new bearers eventually. Even if everything is smooth sailing from here on out, eventually, they will move on to a new generation. I don’t know how exactly that works. Maybe they only chose bearers when they are needed. But for some reason, the Elements stuck close to their previous wearers.”

That last statement unsurprisingly confused her a little bit. She looked over to Fluttershy, who immediately hid behind her mane and mumbled a little excuse. “No reason, darling, I am just thinking. So her daughter went on to get my Element?” she asked for clarification.

I was considering if I should just end this. Nip their curiosity in the bud right then and there. What use was it anyway, gaining knowledge about other lives they had never lived and would never live? But despite my own growing concerns, it did feel nice to talk about it. I was not sure if it would bring me closure. I highly doubted that. But for a short while, it made me feel closer to those times again. “Yes,” I confirmed her question and saw a similar question arise on Applejack's face. Ambrosia was some kind of apple after all. She knew that by heart. I did not. When she first uttered that name, I had to ask about it, because the only context I knew it from was as a fictional food for gods. Which was actually the source from whence the apple had gained its name, as it turned out. “Your daughter would eventually become loyalty,” I told her.

“Aw yeah!” Rainbow hoof pumped the air as if that somehow was her achievement. She suddenly seemed to remember something as well. “Hey, uh, what was that about Scoots earlier?”

I cringed. “Is she alright?” I asked. “Like… are her parents alright? You have seen them, yes?”

I tried to keep my own agitation out of my voice and believed myself to be decently successful. Enough to not raise suspicion with Rainbow at least. “Yeah, sure. Busy folks, but you know, they love her, she loves them, all the mushy stuff. Why?”

I could see the recognition dawning on Applejack's face. Maybe she would tell Rainbow sometime, someday. Maybe not. I sure wasn’t about to. “That’s good,” I replied with a relieved smile.

On some level, Rainbow understood. At least that she was not getting the answer she had asked for and she was not willing to press me on it either. I looked my friends over. Most of them were thinking about what they had heard. And I was certain that at some point, each and every one of them would come to the same conclusion I had: That it mattered little.

I tensed up a little as Twilight sat down beside me and laid her wing around me. I quickly relaxed and leaned into her. “Are you alright?” I asked. I was still worried for her. She had seemed so devastated. I had once again given her quite the scare. It was becoming a bad habit, one I really would have liked to kick.

She gave me a little squeeze and smiled at me. “I was about to ask you the same thing,” she replied barely above a whisper so as to not disturb our friends.

Don’t lie to me, I heard her plead. I was not about to. I instead thought about my answer for a moment before nestling into the crook of her neck. “A part of me is heartbroken about seeing this ruin,” I replied in honesty. “And seeing the emptiness outside. When we founded Greenwood, we attracted some interesting characters. Misfits of society. Those searching for a second chance. Or third, or fourth one…”

“Trixie,” she interjected with a quiet laugh.

I nodded. “You should have seen her. Flim, Flam and her worked out some kind of partnership. They opened a tavern and she was the only entertainer. They thrived in this place. Remember Lightning Dust? That reckless pegasus Rainbow had a spat with? When she showed up, Rainbow made her leader of her own team. We worked hard for this place and… it’s all gone now. Or rather… it just never came to be. It makes this place feel familiar and alien at the same time. It’s strange. How about you?”

Twilight continued to observe her friends as they started to share their thoughts and theories and speculations with each other. They seemed light-hearted about all of this, occasionally giggling or laughing. It helped slowly lift the weight of my chest. “When you showed me our home, you did not show me this castle.”

“Back then, I didn’t remember any of that. We're not talking about one live, but dozens. Maybe more.”

Her ears drooped. “I’m sorry.”

Now it was me squeezing her a little bit tighter. “Don’t be. Honestly, I still don’t know what to make of it. These memories are a curse and a blessing in equal measure. I remember my sons and my daughter and I could tell you so much about them, and it would fill me with joy. It does so even merely thinking about them. I remember how it feels to be a father. To be utterly overwhelmed and unprepared, to slowly grow according to the many challenges. I remember the exhaustion and the elation. I miss them of course. But at the same time, that was a different life somehow. Before I remembered, I could not have missed them anyway. And now, things seem… balanced? So… are you not curious? About the Element-thing?”

She smiled and shrugged. “If you are eager to tell me, feel free to do so. But to be honest… no. It is strange. But I do not care much about where the Elements would end up, or why. We have been chosen, for now at least. But if you do not mind, if it does not bother you — and only then — I would very much like to hear more about our family at some point.”

I nuzzled her neck for a brief moment before I pulled myself away. “Gladly.”

“Should we maybe reconvene on another day?” she asked thereafter.

I sighed deeply. It was a question I had thought about myself as well. We were in the early afternoon hours and time was mercilessly trickling away. We decidedly did not want to fight any dreamscape creature at night. I did not know if they would gain strength from that or could somehow draw from Luna's magic reserve, but the mere fact that none of us had darkvision was enough to facilitate that decision.

We still had more than enough daylight hours left, in theory. So I shook my head. “I’m alright now, I think. It was just the initial burst that took me by surprise. To be honest, I was kind of an idiot. I had told Applejack that I was feeling something, but I couldn’t specify what. Should’ve clued me in, I guess.”

She watched me closely for a moment, and I held her gaze. She was satisfied with what she had found a moment later and addressed the others. “Everypony ready?”

Their wild speculations came to an end and their attention drifted back to us. “We had just been waiting for you slow-pokes,” Rainbow teased. “Are we doing this or are we doing this now?”

Twilight could not help but smile at her friends’ eagerness.

“Could we maybe do this in the garden?” I asked and received puzzled looks in return. “Uh… the… courtyard? That big open space out front with the four dirt patches, the three gnarled trees and the rubble in the middle?”

Suddenly their faces lit up with recognition and they all knew what I was talking about. We returned there and it was once again a shame to see what had become of the place. The trees looked vicious and twisted, the fourth patch was empty and the once impressive fountain could only be recognized as such if one already knew what it was supposed to look like.

But it would do, I presumed.

To prevent any inconveniences, we stayed clear of the three trees and trotted over to the fourth patch. I was about to just plop myself down when Rarity spoke up. “Ah, ah, ah, dear! Please, we are civilized ponies in no need of such barbaric ways.” She had apparently packed a picnic blanket. Of course she had — she was Rarity after all. She levitated it out of her saddlebag, carefully unfolded it in her magic and lowered it to the ground at just the right angle.

I looked down at my hooves. And then over to the hooves of the others. “It cannot be helped, dear, but I appreciate the hesitation,” she said before, with a slight twitch in her eye, she roughly cleaned her hooves of muck with her magic and stepped onto the blanket herself. The patch below was dry dirt — that was not the problem. The problem had been the numerous puddles and creaks along the way. I carefully knocked my hooves together to get rid of at least some of the half-dried muck-crust before stepping onto the blanket with my front hooves and kicking back with my back legs. It was not perfect, but it was an effort made and appreciated. The others followed suit and soon enough, we had made ourselves somewhat comfortable.

“If this works out,” I began explaining, “it will only take a couple of minutes. But it might be longer. I have to convince Luna, after all, and she can be stubborn if she wants to. Ideally, she will give you some kind of hint that it’s coming, so keep your eyes and ears open.”

“Good luck,” Fluttershy replied and the others chimed in.

I smiled. I had half a mind to tell them again how lucky I felt, how happy I felt, but… eventually they would get sick of hearing it if I overused it, I told myself. So I instead opened the thick-walled bottle Zecora had given me. “Oh dear Celestia, this stuff really does smell vile,” I coughed and fought my gag reflex. “Well, here we go. Down the hatch with you!” In one fell swoop, I emptied the entire bottle. Or so I had hoped. The viscousness of it meant that the semi-liquid took its time to even empty out and more so to leave my mouth and almost crawl down my throat. It was disgusting.

“And keep it down too,” Rainbow added with a snicker.

“I’m trying,” I wheezed out. And I was only partially being dramatic — this stuff really was nasty. Thankfully Twilight was once more better prepared and demonstrated more foresight than I did — she levitated a bottle of water over to me. “Thank you.” The water helped clear my mouth of it and bring it down faster, but it couldn’t quite get rid of the awful taste. Still — it was way better than before.

I started to grow frustrated around two minutes later. “This is not where this was meant to become difficult,” I sourly stated.

“You don’t feel anything?” Applejack asked.

I sighed. “I do feel drowsy. Heavy eyelids, relaxed, like… I should be able to sleep… I just… can’t.”

“Pinkie? Would you maybe help me?” Twilight asked. I looked around to see what they were up to. Twilight stood up and Pinkie followed her example without question. She seemed to know exactly what was expected of her. “Rarity, could you shuffle over a little bit please?” After some more rearranging, my confusion started to dwindle. Twilight nodded to Pinkie and sat down on her belly, so close to me that a sheet of paper would have had problems fitting in between. And on the other side, Pinkie did the same.

I felt my cheeks heat up as I realized what they intended. Twilight had apparently remembered my comment about how nice it felt to snuggle up next to Pinkie and Fluttershy. And I could imagine why she had not asked the latter about this. Thinking about her made me realize that there had been literally no confirmation from her that this was even remotely okay, so I craned my neck to search for her. Fluttershy sat a small distance away, leaned against Rarity and smiled towards us. Not exactly the face I had expected and certainly not a single trace of jealousy.

“T-Thank you,” I mumbled into Pinkie's ear as I turned my head back. She giggled quietly. Possibly because of my breath tickling her ear. I laid down my head, I closed my eyes and tried to drift off. I focused on the warmth that came from both sides. On the light breeze rustling the leaves in the distance. Twilight even extended her wing over my back and another side became comfy, snug and warm. Their breathing was calm and steady. And a moment later, Twilight started to softly hum a strangely familiar melody.

A deep, happy sigh escaped me as I finally drifted off.

And with that, Twilight was free to send the first signal for Spike to send the first message to Luna.

The night sky was welcoming me when I arrived in the dreamscape. Floating bubbles lazily danced all around me and none of the inhabitants were to be seen. Good. I had no use for further complications. I instead tapped the ground three times while I focused on the mental image of Celestia. Her regal pose, her practiced smile, her pristine white coat, her ever-flowing ethereal mane. That playful smirk when she got one over on Luna in their endless prank war.

Her dream followed my call back to me and all the other dreams fled from it. Even knowing full well what happened last time, I could not keep myself from cautiously touching her dream again. I was not surprised to merely get confirmation that I had not imagined her burden. Her song might have changed. To reflect the loss of others dear to her. But her grief and desperation was still very much there. My vision blurred within seconds, my heart grew heavy and my breath became erratic. Despite this torture, I had difficulties tearing myself away from her dream. I desperately wanted to help her. In any way possible. Even if that meant to carry it with her. But I was still rational enough to realize that what I was doing right now would not help at all.

We have a plan. It will help. Stick to it.

It was time to wait for Luna to arrive and have a little conversation. So I just plopped my rear down onto the ground and exercised some good old-fashioned patience and self-control as I had to continuously fight the urge to return to that dream behind me. Maybe I was just a glutton for punishment...

I took her less time than I had anticipated.

When she arrived by stepping through what appeared to be a vertical rift in space, I stood back up. She looked around for a moment, took in where I was and of course she took note of the dream behind me. Her eyebrows knitted together in annoyance. She regarded me for a little while and I endured her inspection despite my growing nervousness, until she finally raised her voice. “Dreamwalker, I thought we had an arrangement?” she said.

I looked to the polished marble floor and thought hard how to phrase my explanation. When I looked back up, I smiled. She was radiant. Even now, tired and worn out because I had stirred her from her slumber early, she was still so irresistible. “Let me explain, Lu,” I pleaded and closed the distance. I carefully cupped her chin with my hooves, “Twilight and I have been talking. We understand your determination, we admire your drive, and we would not dare interfere with your duty, but Luna… we miss you. Some of these days, we barely see anything of you at all. And we are not the only ones. Stardust misses his mom. He’s still too young to understand. He asks about you a lot. And I try my best to be there for him, but he needs his mom just as much as his mommy or his dad.”

Her eyes grew wide as the door opened and a little colt ran into the room. “Mom!” he cried happily and lunged at her. She barely felt the impact. “You’re awake early!”

I threw her a ‘see?’-look and smiled as she furrowed her brow in contemplation. “I’m sure we can figure something out. We have been able to do that so far, haven’t we?” I leaned in to kiss her and—

I managed to rip myself free from this memory.

Luna was close enough that I could still feel her breath on my muzzle. I distantly noticed the ‘walls’ of the room dissolve again, the ‘marble floor’ returning to its star-strutted form. And a little colt clinging to her leg, smiling happily, faded away. But my attention was on her and her wide eyes.

I slowly and carefully pulled back. “I-I’m sorry about that,” I mumbled. I took a step back, then a second one. And sat down with a soft thud.

“What was that?” she quietly demanded to know.

I took my front hooves to my face and slowly wiped them down. “An aftershock of my most recent flash, I assume. I’m really, really sorry about that, I… I had not expected that. And more importantly, that is not why we are here.”

She needed some time to recompose herself and although I feared that she might have questions, she spared me for now and turned her attention to the letter she had received. “Twilight was asking us for this meeting on your behalf,” she roughly summed it up. “But she did not state why it had to be here.” Her gaze drifted over my back to Celestia's dream of course. She had a sneaking suspicion that she now knew after all.

“I want to free her,” I plainly stated.

Her deep sigh spoke of exhaustion. “We know. And we have been talking about this before. It is—“

“I have a plan,” I interjected and cringed only a little bit when her glare hit me. She oh so hated it when I interrupted her.

However, she was attentive. Yes, I had been dreamwalking again, going directly against what she had asked and what I had agreed to. However, I had obviously been sitting here. I waited for her arrival. I had not done anything stupid as far as she could tell her. And I had arranged for a conversation. “Speak then,” she gave me permission. And I was quite happy with that. I smiled and nodded enthusiastically.

Until my smile faltered. Because I knew what came next and she really would not like that part either. “My assumptions so far — and correct me, if I’m wrong at any point: You care about your sister’s well-being.” A snort was my only answer to that first point — fair enough. “You want that thing gone more than I do. But you don’t challenge it, because there is a risk of you not being able to defeat it properly, which means that it might run wild and endanger other dreamers.” I waited a few seconds, but there was no denial coming. Good. “Right now, the situation is stable enough. It has no reason to move, as long as you don’t poke it. But even given the necessary years of training, you are not sure if we can manage to defeat it together.” I saw her uncomfortably squirm in place as I plainly spoke my third point. I was not about to hold it against her. While my ability was unique, I was far from being as capable as Luna. And I might never reach these heights to begin with. The longer I dabbled in this unique ability, the more I became painfully aware of my limitations. And maybe that was a good thing. “So, my plan is based on somepony else defeating it.”

“You cannot possibly insinuate that our own sister should defeat this thing!” she immediately objected.

Would Celestia even have been capable of such? It was an interesting question I had not even considered up to this point. Of course I was mildly annoyed that she had been slipping into the royal ‘we’ again, but this was not the time to remind her of that. “No. I have arranged for Twilight and the other bearers to stand ready. We are currently at the ruins of the old castle. They are alert and waiting, Elements at the ready. We open a tear, we bring that thing to where I am and they immediately blast it. That is my plan. Twilight will signal Spike, who’s waiting at the castle in Ponyville, as soon as either they are successful, or they need help. Spike in turn will send one of two messages to you immediately.”

Her eyes spoke of inner conflict, she switched between regarding me with annoyance and her sister's dream with trepidation. “It is dangerous business to bring these creatures into the waking world,” she meekly objected. And that tone was enough for me to know that she wanted this as much as I did. Her heart sang at the opportunity, begging her to take it. It was only a matter of convincing her reason.

“I know,” I replied. “That’s why we took precautions. We went out to the Everfree Forest where nopony lives. Well, except Zecora maybe, and she is informed about what will be going down soon. If the Elements can’t handle that thing, then… nothing can. And no amount of time will help you win this fight. She could be enslaved like this forever. And it will only grow…”

“We do not know what shape it will take once it passes between worlds. Nay, we cannot know,” came her next attempt to deflect.

I nodded. “I know that too. I told them as much. I told them to be attentive. Look around. Get a feeling for what is where and how. Sounds, sights… a single out of place tree, a suddenly missing wall, upcoming mist, whatever it is. They will know and they will not hesitate. And given this thing is this old and large, I highly doubt it will choose the form of a single blade of grass.” I tried to lighten the mood with a silly joke, but she just nodded in serious agreement and mulled the rest over again and again.

She finally looked at me once more. “Why are you here?” she asked.

This plan could have been given to her via letter, obviously. Or Twilight could have talked to her in private. My involvement was not strictly necessary. I blushed the tiniest bit and I rubbed a hoof along my neck. “Well, to be honest, there isn’t exactly a lot I can contribute to this — I give you that. You are the one that needs to give some kind of signal to Twilight as soon as we start this party, and you are the one that needs to tear open the rift. I can’t do that. But you have been hesitant to even go near that dream and I noticed. I want to spare you from releasing it. You have struggled with this burden long enough and while I might not be able to offer you to carry half of it, I can at least offer you to carry some part. Let me burst the dream. Let me be the one to anger it and set it free.”

Some part of my answer seemed to surprise Luna. Her mild astonishment soon made way for a warm smile. “You really do try a lot. We—I agree however. I must admit, I had not thought of bringing it to Equestria to give the Elements a shot. Literally.” She even giggled and I quickly chimed in.

“Well despite what some ponies might think, you are responsible and reasonable. Bringing that thing over is neither of those.”

“Be that as it may, you have convinced us. Me. I beg your pardon. I wish to try to rid my sister of this plague.”

I lunged forward again without hesitation and embraced her. She quickly tensed up, but relaxed again just as fast and eventually reciprocated the hug. “Thank you,” I mumbled into her coat and nuzzled her chest.

“No, thank you,” she replied.

I took a couple of steps back and nodded to her. “Send the signal. I'll pop it as soon as you give me the all-clear.” I walked over to Celestia's dream and regarded the lazy, gray mass swirling in it. She was not sleeping. She probably still held Day Court right now, so the farmer inside was lying dormant as well. I presumed it felt my presence, but I was tiny. Bold to dare go near it, but ultimately not worth the effort to scare away. I looked over my shoulder and saw Luna brace herself as she gave me the signal. Whatever message she had sent to Twilight, this was it — the moment of truth.

I turned my attention back to Celestia's dream, drew my hoof back and gave it a single, good whack. The bubble burst immediately and an ever-growing mass of blinding bright light was set free.

“Crap, forgot about the light,” I whined as I pressed my eyes shut and stumbled backwards. I tried to open my eyes again every few seconds to see the mass growing even larger and larger until its growth stopped and it started to form into something.

Considering how huge and angry it was, I expected an Ursa Maj-

Or a dragon. Dragon works too.

Luckily the form our subconsciousness picked did not impart any abilities — the option to breath fire, for example.

“Rift, Luna… rift, rift, rift!“ I was egging her on.

The dragon roared. The sheer might of its roar made the dreams flee even further than they already had, giving us a nice, huge clearing to work with. But it also vibrated through my actually non-existent bones and paralyzed me for a brief moment. I distantly noted how I was still standing between that dragon made of light and Luna and how very satisfied I felt because of that. That was probably very stupid, I thought to myself — Luna might have been able to tank a couple of hits from that thing. I surely wasn’t.

The dragon focused its entire attention on the two little things that had dared to stir it from its slumber. Oh, now we were very much worth the effort, as it slowly lumbered closer to us but picked up speed along the way. “Luna…?” I asked with barely restrained panic and looked back. Her horn was wreathed in cobalt blue magic, trails of it snaked across the dreamscape like needles, not sewing shut what harm was done, but piercing the veil and ripping it apart.

Once the rift was large enough, we only had to get the dragon through. Which was surprisingly easy. Sure, it noticed the strange something on the ‘ground’ that it probably did not even understand the nature of. But avoiding it seemed simple enough, it just flew above it.

It’s all a matter of perspective, I told myself. I knew what would happen any second now. It was the oldest trick in the book when it came to outmaneuvering dreamscape creatures. Because for some strange reason, our three-dimensional understanding of space confused the heck out of them most of the time.

That dragon was not thinking about ‘flying forward’. It was thinking about reaching us. Flying straight towards us. So all Luna had to do was focus her willpower and force her mental image into the reality of this realm. She tilted it. The entire dreamscape tilted by ninety degrees, until the horizontal rift had become a vertical one. We had not moved, of course. And the dragon, in its single-minded approach, flew right in.

The needles of magic she had used to pierce the veil immediately went to work to stitch it together again. She closed the rift with practiced ease so that the dragon could not just simply return here.

Once done, she looked utterly exhausted. I ran over to her in a probably laughable attempt to steady her. I pressed against her and tried to hold her tight and close. “Are you okay?” I asked her. She smiled. It was enough that I allowed myself a little bit of enthusiasm. “Woohoo! We did it!” I yelled. It quickly turned out that joyfully prancing in place was a lot harder to do when a pony a few pounds heavier than me leaned on me.

Her ears splayed back because of the sudden volume increase, but she allowed herself a cautious smile and even giggled as she noticed my failed attempts at prancing. “Let us hope the second part of your plan has worked just as well or this nightmare has just begun.”

“Eh,” I replied and grinned in utmost confidence. “It wouldn’t worry. I mean, Rainbow is with them, and she just loooves zapping things with rainbow lasers.” We chuckled for a moment. There was an underlying tone of unease, so I did not dawdle for too long. “We should probably still check though. I mean, I’m still here, so I take it as a good sign that I wasn’t immediately crushed. But yeah, let’s wake up.”

Although unnecessary, we both closed our eyes and concentrated and willed ourselves to wake up. “How’s it going?” I mumbled when I reopened my eyes and blankly stared at the night sky in confusion. With dream bubbles floating all around me. Something very soft suddenly hit me from behind and as I jerked around, I saw my own dream swallowing me. I had mere seconds to react, to do or say or even think anything, and maybe, just maybe… Rainbow had been right.

I was a slow-poke after all.

“… what?” And I was gone.

“Good filly. Now eat your veggies and I’ll read you a story,” I mumbled as I slowly rose from the depths of my dream. A content sigh escaped me, a smile tugged at my lips. It was warm, it was cozy, and I could just as easily drift off to sleep again. A sudden thought almost made me jump however: Why had I been dreaming in the first place?

My eyes shot open and a rising panic tried its best to spur me into action, but all the energy got taken away as soon as I stared into Twilight's eyes, a glint of amusement adorning her expression. “Hey there pretty,” I greeted her and tried to cover up my confusion.

“Hi,” she replied with a giggle. My cover-up clearly was not flying.

I raised my head off the pillow and looked around a little. I recognized her bedroom. A look out the window told me that it was early evening. I must have been asleep for hours. But I still remembered the plan, my conversation with Luna, how she woke up… and how I did not.

I tried to answer the obvious question: Why?

The answer was given to me when I took notice of that foul taste in my mouth.

“Do you want us to get up and get some dinner?” she asked.

I remained silent for a little while, but found no particular need to get up at all. No hunger was spurring me on, no thirst… actually… “No, I don’t think I want to get up,” I replied. “But I feel like I could really use—“

A glass of water levitated over before my face, carried in her raspberry aura. I grinned. “Yeah. That. Thank you.” I took over and gulped down the entire content. It felt refreshing. And it did manage to wash away that awful taste. Finally!

“You had really bad breath,” she remarked and giggled again when I grimaced in return.

“Yet you still insisted on lying in front of me,” I retorted.

She nodded. “It was worth it. That way, I could do this.” She scooched a little bit closer and, as was almost becoming routine, buried her face on my chest. I had to admit: This most certainly did feel nice. If it felt just half as nice for her than it did for me, I could understand her reasoning. I tightened my grip on her only to nuzzle her mane and take deep breaths to fill my lungs with her scent. Never, not in a million years, would I ever get enough of this.

Still, I wanted to sulk at least a little, so I gave a little huff. “I’ll have to talk to Zecora about that stuff sometime. That potion really did a number on me. I couldn’t even wake up again!” I complained.

“I know. Applejack had to carry you on our way back home. She had you draped across her back like a sack of flour and you still refused to wake up, you just kept snoring quietly.” It was all very amusing. For her. Alone.

But I could not stay cross with her, even if I tried. In a weird way, this somehow only felt like second-hand embarrassment. Like it had happened to somepony else. It still made me blush a little as I could only imagine all of them joking around at my expense on the way home. But it was okay. They were my friends.

They were my friends again.

I absentmindedly stroked a hoof along her back, sometimes I let it slide over her wings, always carefully, and enjoyed listening to her content sighs and happy little noises. But eventually, I had to address the elephant in the room. She was here, she was relaxed and that had been enough so far. It told me a great deal of how things had turned out. But I needed more now. “So, since all the awesome rainbow power was obviously too boring to behold… mind giving me a rundown of what happened? Everypony is okay, I hope?”

She did not budge from her position, and I had not wanted her to. She just started to talk, her voice a little muffled at times when she talked straight into my coat. “Luna appeared,” she recounted much to my surprise. How had she done that…? “It was really impressive. She was this translucent recreation of herself… I think she used an astral projection. I have never seen one of those in practice, it was fascinating. She told us to get ready and asked if we really were okay with doing this. She then vanished and we tried to prepare, but there was little else we could do besides standing up. Applejack carried you to a more secluded area in hopes that if an actual fight might break out, you would not be in any trouble. But not far enough away that predators from the Everfree would sense an opportunity. Shortly after, the rift started to appear. To be honest, it looked pretty scary at first. And out of it came this strange mist. It had no defined color, it constantly shifted and there were little dots in there, glowing like stars. The rift closed and it started to take shape.”

So they did not immediately blast the darn thing. I gave a little sigh but tried to restrain myself. Attacking without provocation just wasn’t in their nature. Maybe I should have known better. The brief, light tremble I felt in her made me worry a little as well. So I hugged her even tighter for a moment. “What shape did it take?” I asked.

“I had really hoped I would never have to see her again,” she quietly replied and got even quieter when she dared utter that name. “Nightmare Moon.”

Huh.

That revelation actually gave me pause for a moment. My thoughts were racing as I tried to decipher how this had come to pass. How Nightmare Moon had managed to survive despite what had happened in those ruins years ago, with Luna — her host — being involved. And then I started to understand: She didn’t. She had not survived at all. This creature had been a farmer with a frightening amount of control. It had probably known Celestia's memories in intimate detail. I had my doubts that it understood them, but it knew them. And it was suddenly thrust into an alien world, following alien rules. Maybe it had recognized the castle's ruin? Maybe it had recognized Twilight and the others. These ponies and events must have been linked in some way even in Celestia's mind. Especially in hers actually.

The first form it willingly took in its entire existence was that of a cruel and selfish tyrant. Aside from what that said about this creature, I had little doubt left that they were less hesitant to fire at this point.

“You were right,” she said and her voice grew a little bit stronger. The tremble all but vanished.

“Villain speech?” A nod confirmed my suspicion. I had to admit, though: I was surprised. This creature had no understanding of our world… yet it knew how to talk. Or maybe it was just dangling along from one memory to the next, following them like a script. Maybe it had not even spoken a single original word, only replaying what had been said a thousand years ago. Or followed a script of one of Celestia's nightmares. “So you blasted her then and there?”

“Mhm. She got three and a half words out.” That made me chuckle. Of course she counted. I was amused about how fast they had apparently acted as soon as the enemy looked eerily familiar.

“What came next?” I asked. I was not sure if there was anything left to tell at this point.

The fact that she remained silent for a while was telling. Something had happened. And she was apparently still struggling to fully comprehend it. Or she had difficulties finding the right words for it? I exercised some patience and instead just enjoyed how close she was.

My eyelids started to get heavier again and I considered closing them when she spoke up. “When the Elements lowered us back down onto the ground, Nightmare Moon was gone. Again. There is this… tree now. In the courtyard, on that fourth dirt patch. The empty one where we had waited. I think it is a special tree.”

I furrowed my brow and immediately blurted out what I was thinking. “Special how?”

“She did not say anything and with everypony cheering and celebrating, I did not want to press her,” Twilight hesitantly explained, “but I think Applejack recognized it? She was eager to return home after that.”

Huh. I was confused by this news. “Is it an apple tree?” I felt her nod again and for some reason… I could not help but hope. I was not even sure what exactly I was hoping for.

“From what I can tell, it is a perfectly normal, perfectly healthy apple tree. The dirt around it was overgrown, too. With grass and flowers. It looked really nice.” While it sure sounded nice as well, I still noticed that uncertainty in her voice. Judging by what she had told me, and how, I assumed that these plants showed no signs of corruption. No influence of the chaos that saturated every living thing in the Everfree, every cloud above it and every crumb of dirt below. Maybe she was worried that these lives could not be saved from becoming corrupted eventually? Maybe.

More importantly, I knew that I had to see it for myself. There were things that I could not describe, things that had to be felt and experienced. “Twilight? May I ask a favor or two?”

I could feel her swallow down that giggle. “Anything.”

I raised my eyebrow for a moment and was willing to abuse her offer so hard. Just to see how far she was actually willing to go until ‘anything’ became ‘something’. “You really shouldn’t let Rarity hear that. She might think we’re an item,” I teased her.

She drew her muzzle from my chest, up my throat and gave me the tiniest little kiss on my lower jaw. I could not deny that it made my heart flutter a little. “I’m pretty sure they all think that already anyway.”

“Oh.” I found it hard to define what her assumption made me feel. Was I bothered by this? Did I care? Should I? I leaned in and gave her horn a kiss in return. I delighted in seeing her eyelids flutter and hear that quiet, restrained gasp. They thought we were an item anyway, so why not-

Don't.

It took me some time to disentangle myself from these fruitless musings. There was a specific order to things. She belonged to Luna. I had decided on that days earlier. I was not reverting that decision. So I refocused my attention on my initial request. “I hate to ask this, but could you maybe lend me some bits? Enough for a piece of cake from Sugarcube Corner and a train ticket?”

With her having pulled back a little bit, I could see the apparent confusion in her eyes, but she nodded anyway. “Sure. Where do you want to go?”

“Canterlot,” I replied. It's about time. “There’s something I need to do. And could you maybe write a letter to Luna? She offered me a guest room in the palace at one point, but I’m pretty sure that offer was only meant for the duration of my stay during guard training. If she would be fine with that, I’d like to have it anyway, for one night, and I would need to talk to her. Tomorrow, if possible. Late afternoon, early evening, whatever works for her.”

Her confusion only seemed to grow, much to my amusement. “I could just ask Princess Celestia if you could stay in my old room, if you like?” she offered.

I chuckled darkly and my smile grew into a predatory grin. “What a kind offer. I’m sure there will be nothing to find in your old room during my stay, right…?”

Twelve seconds. She had to think and mentally go through her drawers and dressers and whatnot for twelve seconds before she blushed furiously. When I arrived, I knew of her secret gemstone stash. Not only that, but I had known where it was. “I’ll write Luna,” she quickly conceded.

I chuckled and kissed her on her forehead. “Thank you. And one more thing, if that’s alright?”

Now she was the one raising an eyebrow at me. “This is becoming quite a list,” she jokingly replied.

“That might be true,” I ruefully admitted, but perked up right away and grinned. “But you did say ‘anything’ and I haven’t even asked for anything naughty yet.”

She gave a strangled little noise that I found to be most adorable while her blood returned to her cheeks in force. “… yet,” she echoed with a whisper.

I quietly laughed for a moment before kissing her forehead again. “Teasing you is just so much fun,” I admitted and for a brief moment nuzzled her cheek before I pulled back again to look at her. I forced my expression into something more serious. “I need to see it for myself. The courtyard in the castle ruins. Would you be willing to go there with me? Tomorrow morning?” Because even I was not reckless or stupid enough to venture into the Everfree at night. That was just asking for trouble.

Since my question had given her some time to recompose herself, she focused more on my request and smiled with glee, as I had apparently asked exactly what she had hoped to hear at some point. “Yes!” she squealed. “I had been thinking about conducting some experiments. I was thinking about asking Applejack or Fluttershy to accompany me, but both are always so busy and Fluttershy really does not like going into the forest at all. I had already packed all the equipment I would need in my saddlebags downstairs after our return, so I would love to have you with me.”

I grinned and squished her a little bit. She apparently already had a plan. And I had been kind enough to unknowingly play along. But really, that was fine with me and seeing her this excited was just so incredibly endearing. Plus, spending a couple more hours with her was always a welcome bonus. “Sounds like a date then. We’ll get some shut-eye and head out first thing in the morning.” I hugged her tightly and shut my eyes just like I had announced and I found it surprisingly easy to drift off to sleep this time.