Dreamwalker's Tale

I had learned my lesson. Sort of. There was light on my face and I wished I could hiss at it. Instead, I just refrained from opening my eyes instantly and instead attempted to crack it open ever so slightly.

Huh.

It was dark?

It took me a moment to realize. It was warm. Downright cozy. Fur was tickling my nose. It smelled like forest and underbrush, autumn leaves and loads of animals. Not my favorite bouquet, but still quite pleasant. Fluttershy had turned over in her sleep and… held me. I felt snug and secure in her embrace. She was so incredibly soft, I could have drifted back to sleep right this instant.

But my member was still standing at full attention and twitched, just to remind me of that fact. Why thank you.

If I was awake, then so was she. Lying as close as we were, if I had felt that…

There was a little squeak when she hurriedly tried to get away from me and almost fell out of the bed. I grabbed her in my levitation fast enough, but she was struggling quite a lot, so I set her down as fast as I could. Much to my dismay, she had taken the blanket with her in her struggle. I immediately rolled onto my stomach to hide my current embarrassment as best as I could. “Well… this is awkward,” I mumbled. “I’m… really sorry.” My entire face was burning.

She stared at me with flared wings and heaving breath. “W-What… w-what happened?” she demanded to know.

“Ehrm… you… have you ever had a wet dream?” She was blushing more furiously than before. “Pinkie’s dream wasn’t as… as innocent as I thought. She kind of surprised me and I didn’t want to interrupt your talk by breaking the dream, I… uh…”

I had to admit: I got nothing. She was standing there, eyes still full of a mixture of shock and fear and I was lying on the bed and felt incredibly uncomfortable. And that was not just because of the situation. She mumbled something under her breath a short moment later that I had no chance of hearing and then made her way to the bathroom. And I allowed myself a sigh of relief.

Well.

That could have gone better.

Could’ve gone worse, too.

I slumped and buried my face in the pillow. It still smelled like her. “Oh for the love of—,“ I mumbled before uttering a frustrated scream, muffling it with my trusty pillow.

After a few minutes, Fluttershy actually came back. At that point, I was glad to be somewhat more decent. “I… wanted to say that I’m sorry,” she said to my surprise. She was sorry? “I-It’s just… you startled me a-and… i-it’s a perfectly normal… t-thing… to happen…”

Right. Animal caretaker.

Internally cringing as hard as I ever had, I tried to lighten the mood somewhat. “Tell that to the licorice.” I did not wish for things to be left like this, though. It would leave a lingering taste — harr harr, funny — that would color future interactions. So I slowly walked over, stopped right in front of her and held up a hoof. A tiny smile brightened her features a moment later and she met me in a light hug. “Thank you,” I said.

I smiled widely as we pulled away from each other. “Listen, I don’t know your plans, but if you stick around for a couple of minutes, I’m gonna fix breakfast. Sounds good?”

She just nodded and let me leave for the bathroom. I really needed some ice cold water in my face.

When I returned to the guest room, Fluttershy had left. The bed was made, the window opened. I went to the kitchen only to find her setting out the table for breakfast. Apparently the mere mention had awakened some maternal instinct or something. To be fair, her salad looked great and was probably a hundred times healthier than waffles.

Twilight and Spike were already there and judging by the ordinary greeting I received, they knew nothing. Good. Great, even.

We were in the middle of eating when we heard a rather insistent knocking at the door. Again. Fluttershy had just asked me who I wanted to visit and reconnect with next — a very good question actually. “I’ll get it,” Spike said and was already up.

I held him in place with my telekinesis and looked over to Fluttershy. “Uhm… you might want to get that?”

It clicked immediately. She blushed, hid behind her mane and nodded. Maybe there was even a little “Mhm” in there, who could tell. So I let go of Spike, who just sat back down and furrowed his brow.

“Who’s that?” he asked.

“I can’t tell the future,” I reminded him with a chuckle, “But if I had to guess… I’d say it’s Pinkie, asking her future special somepony on a date.”

“Okay? But why would Fluttershy then— oh.”

Even Twilight could not help but giggle. Of course, being mature and reasonable and so-not-nosy, we stayed at the table and continued our breakfast in a civilized manner…

Nah, kidding.

We totally stacked up on top of each other right at the kitchen door, trying to hear and maybe even see everything.

Pinkie rattled down a lot of words, like Pinkie usually did. But none of us failed to notice that growing sense of dread and unease in her voice. Sadly, none of us could make out the exact words. They were too muffled and too quiet. So Spike dared to open the door just a bit so we could look down the hallway and see the door where Fluttershy was standing. And we had perfect timing to see her put a hoof on Pinkie’s muzzle. “I’d love to,” we heard her say. In reaction to that, Pinkie managed to once again vibrate on the spot. Like a drill or something that just moved without direction or real force. And we heard a Fluttershy-worthy “Yay!” from Pinkie. That was weird, given the hoof in her mouth.

“It worked!” I yelled excitedly. I was so happy, so elated and did not think this through at all. I pranced around merrily. In the middle of the hallway. I had accidentally tripped Twilight over when I burst from the door and now she was picking herself up and smiled apologetically in Fluttershy's and Pinkie's direction. I slowly turned towards them as well and my cheeks got considerably warmer again. “Ehehehe… heh… oops.”

“I am so happy for you two,” Twilight tried to divert the attention.

“Ehrm… Flutters, you might wanna…” I vaguely gestured towards Pinkie.

The sudden use of a pet name seemed to embarrass her, but concern for her friend made her address that first. And indeed, Pinkie's pupils had shrunk down to pinpricks, slowly drifting to the outer edges of her eyes, away from one another. “Pinkie?” she asked, her voice laced with concern. When she dared to remove her hoof from Pinkie's muzzle, Pinkie skyrocketed. Quite literally. In a continuous stream of confetti and glitter. I ventured a guess as to where she would be landing: Sugarcube Corner.

We could all hear her yell questions to Fluttershy about when and where they would have their first date. With her being high in the sky though, the pegasus had no chance of actually answering those.

Following the spectacle, we made our way to the doors ourselves. “Sorry for eavesdropping,” I apologized.

“It’s okay,” she replied and hugged Twilight first and me right after. “But I really should be going now. I have my animals to care for and I should probably do that before Pinkie finds me again.”

After our short goodbyes, Twilight closed the door. She turned around and sat down on her haunches, her back against the door, and looked me over again. Her expression was one of serious consideration, but beneath a very thin surface was an ocean of nervousness. “This is really happening… isn’t it?” she asked.

Should I have been offended? Then again, I had to consider her situation. She liked me, which was great. But she knew me for a very short time. And I just waltzed into her life, with the wildest claims, and basically threatened to bring about some very big changes. Twilight did not like changes very much. She liked consistency. Routines. Knowing what to do and what came next. Sure, she had gotten better at adapting and leading and a whole bunch of other skills over the past years, but for the majority of her life, she had lived a very different lifestyle. Old habits died hard.

Maybe she was just afraid.

So I sat down beside her. Close enough that our coats were brushing. She did not mind, and that alone brought a smile to my face. She did not flinch or tense up either. “I don’t… exactly know what to say,” I admitted. “Most of the time, I’m operating on… some sort of instinct. This feels right, this feels wrong, this must be corrected, stuff like that. But beneath that, there’s care. And love and wishes. I can imagine that it’s hard to grasp, hard to really understand what it’s like. To know someone, three times over, who doesn’t even know your name yet. And to remember their lives. With families and children and so much fun and happiness. Bad times too, obviously. I can’t tell you how… how many really bad arguments R—… two of my best friends had. Sometimes, multiple times, it really looked like that tear could not be fixed again. But they came out stronger than ever before. With help, obviously. Always with help. From those close to them. Who cared for them, loved them. As family. I… feel lost.” For the first time, I talked about that. I felt her eyes on me. But she did not say anything, did not want to make me stop. She had her reasons, I was sure. I was just grateful when she laid her wing over my back. “I have a hard time not feeling lost. I want to belong so much. I can’t put into words how desperate that desire is. I want my friends back. My family. My home. All these cherished memories are so charged with emotions that it’s sometimes overwhelming. Some of these insights feel like a carrot, dangling before my nose. I want what I see in them. Even knowing full well that I can’t have it. Because what I remember are times past. Other lives, loops or universes or whatever they are. But I want that. So, so badly. I want to love. And feel loved. I want to laugh with my friends. Running around in open fields. Swimming in a lake. I want to groan in fake agony, being dragged along for shopping. I want to… I don’t know… live. And I know that I have to deal with these details that vary and differ. I’m trying. But there is still… so much more to be done. And I just know that I won’t be able to rest until I somehow figure this out. This ‘life-‘thing. I—“

A sob choked me. I had not noticed tears streaming down my face and I could not bring myself to care. Her wing drew me that tiny bit closer and hugged me tightly. I rested my head on her shoulder… and just broke down. It's pathetic, really, I distantly noted. But it could not be helped.

She was there for me. And I was grateful.

I felt so utterly, utterly broken.

Spike had appeared at some point. Seeing my sorry state, he did not know what to do at first and looked to Twilight for guidance. In the end, he came over and just sat down before me. I pulled him into a hug and he endured it. Being squished like a pillow, rained upon and shaken with every tremor. Brave little soldier, weathering the storm. Nay, I told myself, just a number one assistant, doing his job.

I did not know how long we sat there. I felt like dirt. My eyes were swollen, my head felt uncomfortably light, my voice was hoarse. Weak and sudden tremors still shook me occasionally. My breathing had normalized by that point, so... yay. Go me.

I sighed deeply. “I love you guys. Like you wouldn’t believe.” Goodness, my voice really did sound horrible.

After some more minutes, I tried again. The tremors were gone and I took that as a good sign. “Twilight? Can we… maybe just… stay in today? Study magic? Please?” I instantly hated just how much it sounded like begging. And I knew for a fact that pleading with her was not even necessary in the first place. I could have just asked. A regular, normal question. But I was not really capable of those right now.

“Gladly,” she whispered and squeezed me a little.

“Hey, Spike,” I started. I forced a very brittle feeling smile when he looked up. “You look like crap.”

“You’re one to talk,” he retorted and we both chuckled quietly.

“Thank you,” I whispered. I held him up with my hooves and pressed him against my chest with all my not very impressive might. “You’re one cool buddy,” I added belatedly.

After setting him down again, I tried to stand up. My knees were still weak as jelly. Great, just great. Twilight used her wing, still draped over my back, to help me. She held me steady on those first steps towards the library. I really needed a good book right now.

In the end, we did not read much after all. Once we arrived at the library, I did pick up ‘The Mystical and

You: Cutie Mark Magic’, but I read three or four pages until I closed the book again. Not a single word from those pages had actually made it past my barriers and into my head. “It was different again,” I noted instead.

Spike was reading one of his comic books and enjoyed what had involuntarily become a free day. Owlicious was sleeping somewhere in the castle and White Tip sat on a perch near the ceiling and looked surprisingly drowsy. Maybe he actually did get along well with the owl. That would be nice.

It took Twilight a couple of seconds to realize that I had spoken, and what I had said for that matter, engrossed as she was. Her book was still open, still waiting. She looked over and studied me for a brief moment before she closed her book, softly floated it down onto the table and in its stead, several sheets of parchment levitated upwards. One summoned quill and inkwell later, she smiled and was now fully prepared. “’Different’ how?”

I was pretty sure that we had both accepted that books would not help us much by this point. At least when it came to studying dream magic and its mechanics. And concerning my amnesia or whatever that was, I highly suspected that Twilight was planning to rope me into seeing a doctor. Whatever that one might have to say about the issue might in turn help her with solving the riddle of my arrival. I felt guilty even for admitting it to myself: This meant that I had no intention of making it any easier for her to get me to that doctor.

I did not care about ‘how’ anymore. In fact, I felt a certain resistance building up over these past days. I did not want to know anymore.

But that was of little importance right now.

“It felt easier to enter the dreamscape,” I started. “And once there, I saw more dreams. Not just my own, but… maybe half a dozen others? I didn’t count them.”

Suspecting the need for something more than just notes, she effortlessly summoned a blackboard into the room. Chalk included. “Can you tell if this had anything to do with Fluttershy?”

I had not exactly expected this to be her first question, but of course it was a legitimate one anyway. Magic responded to emotional states, that much was common knowledge. If I were to have a stronger bond with Fluttershy than I had with Pinkie, maybe that could explain the ease of entrance. “I can’t,” I admitted. “Neither can I tell if it’s about practice or affinity or… maybe even flashes. Some of them have been so subtle that I have difficulties recognizing them.”

She hummed a moment to herself before writing down a couple of notes and questions both on the board and her parchment. “Then we need to keep an open mind. There are many variables at work and so far, we cannot exclude a single possible factor.”

Sounded reasonable enough, so I nodded and continued to describe in excruciating detail how last night went. Considering how much I wanted to distract myself, I didn't even leave out the part with the licorice pool and silently chuckled a little bit as she did not even seem to notice anything unusual. She was once again completely devoted to research and had thus detached herself from everything else.

It became apparent that we faced several problems. One of them was the impossibility of distinguishing the source of my knowledge. I reasoned that it probably was due to those flashes of insight, memories of past lives teaching me how to work my magic and talent. However, Twilight was right — we had to keep an open mind. She countered that it would be just as easily possible that my memories had nothing to do with it. My magic could instead just lead me to get an almost instinctive grasp on the matter. Her talent was magic as a whole and ever since she’d gotten her cutie mark, whenever she encountered a new spell or new type of magic, her mind was flooded with ideas about how it might work and how she could reproduce it. She understood, because magic talked to her, in a way. It was an intrinsic part of her. Dreamwalking, given my name, might be an intrinsic part of me then.

Since we were running into a dead end for now, we changed direction. The changes after my arrival were interesting in their own way. With only two data points, it was hard to make viable assumptions, but it left us enough room to speculate nonetheless. “It feels like… reestablishing a connection,” I tried and grimaced as the description felt imprecise.

Again, we ran into the same issue. It could be that I was learning and growing. Or it could be that I was reestablishing something piece by piece that was already there, just dormant, somehow. In addition to that, my flashes told me that the dreamscape should look different. I just could not tell how. Or why.

Another dead end, then.

That led us to my instinctual understanding of how to work with dreams. And while I once again could not bring forth any actual evidence, I at least had a strong suspicion that this knowledge was founded in my direct interaction with the dreamscape itself. “It’s like… by just being there, it’s teaching me. Back in the day, when you were still a student at Celestia's school, you sat down in class. You didn’t do much, per se. You just sat there and made notes and listened. This feels eerily similar to that. I know that the dreamscape isn’t conscious. It’s not even alive by any definition, it’s ‘just a place’, but at the same time, it reacts to me. I do something and it responds. When I first brought Pinkie in, it felt… patient. And last night, with Fluttershy… there was this other dream. Somepony was having a nightmare. I… forgot his name already. Something with dust? Dune? Desert? His dream was about to turn into a nightmare. I wanted to help him so badly. But I didn’t quite know how to do that yet. And I had Fluttershy with me. We had plans. I still don’t fully understand what I did, but while doing it, my surroundings felt… encouraging, but also… demanding. Like I was supposed to get this. To do it. And do it in a set amount of time. Like a test of sorts.”

Twilight was fascinated. I could get that. It was a kind of magic she had no chance of studying until recently. And while it was frustrating how little of actual substance I could give her, she knew how to handle such frustrations, as this was not her first encounter with something like that. When she had tried to study the celestial magic the two sisters used, or Discord's chaos magic, she had run into similar issues. Come to think of it, was Discord even a thing this time around?

We continued on for another hour or two until Spike basically force-fed us with some oat cookies and we took the interruption as an opportunity to once again change the subject. Or rather, Twilight did. “I’m worried, though.” Her words confused me. I looked at a stack of notes I could not read from that far away, then at a blackboard with so many notes that she had started to write them ever smaller. Since I could not find any clue, I looked back to her, waiting for an explanation. “Obviously, we need more data points. But you have been here for a week now. And you have slept twice.”

Oh. That again. “Twilight… I’m fine,” I tried to appease her.

But she shook her head. “No. No, you are not. I’m trying not to intrude too much. You are your own pony and you are entitled to your own decisions. But I worry about your health. I have to admit, you seem to take it well, so far. After so many nights without sleep, you should have been a mess. Such a long period is not just unhealthy — it is dangerous! But I believe you when you tell me that you did not have any hallucinations or other side effects. It is strange, but maybe it has to do with your connection to the dreamscape.” Her lips pressed into a thin line as she mulled it over. “So far, you have only been able to sleep when sharing a bed with somepony else.”

I chuckled. “I think that has more to do with the spell than with the bed.” For just a short moment, her look was almost inconsolable. “I don’t intend to make that a habit, if it helps?” I tried again, but to no avail once more.

“I’d rather you do, if it helps,” she said in a surprisingly quiet tone.

I wanted to comfort her. She worried about me and I felt guilty making her worry about me. Not that I had a choice to begin with. But once again, I found myself in the awkward situation that words just failed me. So I scooched over and snuggled up to her side. And I dared to nuzzle her cheek for a moment. “I’m fine,” I told her, as if repeating that would somehow make everything pointing towards the opposite being true just go away. She sighed and said nothing.

Apparently failing in my attempts, I reached for another straw. “I can fly in there.”

“I know,” she answered quietly. “You already told me.”

I nodded and forced a smile on my face. “It’s about willpower. Within the dreamscape, there’s nothing working against me. If I want to fly, I just have to will myself to do it. Within dreams, it's a little bit more complicated. I can even teleport! Or light a bucking candle!”

Well, that got her attention. “Language,” she chided softly and looked for Spike, who was not even in the room anymore. She shook her head. I did see a little, precious smile tug at her lips. “I’m happy for you.”

“Yupp. I mean, I could’ve just given myself darkvision, but it was about the principle.” Her giggle was almost silent. I did not hear it so much as I felt it, still sitting quite close to her. The silence that followed was not as oppressive as it had been before. I was counting it as a small victory.

“We need more data,” she said after a while. “I think I have an idea how we can gather that.”

My first assumption turned out to be entirely false after she led me down into her basement laboratory. “You know… I never quite understood why these things are being built downstairs, instead of upstairs,” I wondered.

“Because of gasses, mostly,” was her immediate response and after I just looked at her funny, she explained further. “If something goes wrong, the surrounding earth can take the impact without splinters and debris flying all over the place, in turn endangering other ponies. But at least for me, it is mostly about gasses. I work with a lot of alchemical ingredients, some of which I get from Zecora. If I accidentally create a heavy gas, it fills this basement and remains there for later cleanup or until it dissolves. If it is a gas lighter than air, it will rise up and, depending on how judicious I was, might fill the castle before venting into the sky. But you do not have to worry about that one — there are several spells weaved into the ceiling, teleporting any rising gasses high above the cloud layers, so they don’t inject any substances into potential rain.”

I nodded dumbly, looking around the room with a newfound sense of appreciation. I had a sneaking suspicion that she had created these ventilation spells herself. I was about to ask how many accidents she had had, but thought better of it. It is safe here, don’t worry.

“So… what are we going to do?” I asked.

“I believe some forging is in order,” she said in excitement. “I have not done any of that for so long!”

“Okay. So what are we going to forge, then?” I continued my inquiry.

“Considering it is supposed to be a tool to help our research along, I do not think it needs to be overly complex or fancy. Two bands of silver should be enough, maybe… but… hm, no. We better make that four. It would be easier on the enchanting and we do not want any cross-interference between the enchantments. Then again, we could just make two and then duplicate them.”

“Duplication spells are notorious for messing with pre-existing enchantments,” I threw in. My statement surprised her as much as myself. Apparently, I knew some stuff about that.

She nodded slowly and a wild grin spread on her lips. “Yes, but we are still talking about the forging process. We duplicate the silver bands and enchant them afterwards, separately.”

“Why silver?” I wondered. And mere seconds later, I gave myself the answer. “Because it’s one of precious few metals that have the unique ability to not only hold multiple enchantments, where most other materials can hold one at most, but it also eases the appliance of enchantments in the first place, significantly reducing the cost of magic and thereby the toll enchanting it takes on the enchanter.”

She had stopped, turned around to me and was smiling at me like a very proud teacher. “Very good,” she praised.

I shook my head. “Okay, another question. Why not gold, then?” This time, there was a noticeable hole in my memory. I knew that gold could be enchanted with several spells as well.

“Because gold is actually harder to enchant, but it increases the strength of the enchantments used. And it’s more expensive.” Right. “In this case, however, we do not need stronger magic. I just want to put some spells on those bands to automatically gather information and store it for later. They are supposed to monitor your physical, mental and magical well-being. Mental and magical state being intertwined like they are, they should easily be able to share the same space. You get two bands, and I take the other two. We wear them around our legs, which should be unobtrusive enough. I’m going to be the reference group, so to speak. The next time you dreamwalk, we should gather a lot more data this way.” I chuckled. She slightly tilted her head in reaction and her ears stood at attention. “What is so funny?”

“I just… I don’t know… at this point, I really shouldn’t be surprised by how smart you are.” I chuckled a little more as she blushed and then turned away to start our work. And to hide her rosy tint, maybe.

I somehow knew how to operate a forge. Or at least parts of it. I applied fuel, carefully tended to the fire and melted several bars of silver while Twilight had started to prepare all the things she needed to apply the enchantments later on. From time to time, she took a look at what I was doing, more out of curiosity than to double-check. In the same vein, I looked over to her and tried to understand what she was doing and why.

With the silver melted and the mold prepared — something that had taken her a single spell after measuring out the girth of our legs —, I carefully poured the liquid in and set the molds on the side to cool down and harden. Midway through, they had to be dunked into a barrel with some sort of acid or alchemical mixture, to prepare the metal for the appliance of magic.

Doing all this made me wonder. I still had no bits of my own. Because frankly, I was still a freeloader at Twilight's castle. I had no job. While she did not seem to mind, these hours spent down here made me think if maybe, I could open up a smithy? Apparently I was quite good at it. At least according to what she told me. “It does look like you have done this hundreds of times,” she remarked at some point.

Dreamwalker, the smith. Well. That was just all kinds of wrong.

Librarian, then?

Or… uh! Writer! I could be an author, publishing my own books about… the… stories I saw in… dreams… yeah, no, that was a terrible idea.

Maybe I should apply for an assistant job with Cadance? I was trying my hardest to play matchmaker, with at least one roaring success so far. Or what I hoped was a success. Then again I would probably run out of memories to draw from at some point, right? Maybe. Potentially.

These musings led nowhere. I discarded them for now and presented the silver bands to Twilight. “They look perfect,” she remarked. And she was not exaggerating either. She looked a little bit too surprised to do that. She took them in her magic, laid them down on her massive stone table — because having too much wood in a laboratory was just an invitation for fire — and started her part of the process. Applying the enchantments was surprisingly fast. “It’s the preparation of all parts involved that takes the most time,” she explained. She even had to take a short little break at one point, due to the enchanting process draining her magic a smidge too fast.

As she was reeling from the strain, I suddenly was the blur in the room as I zipped to her side and stabilized her by propping myself up against her. “Please, please, please — say something before you do stuff like fainting! I’m not Rarity, I can’t summon a fainting couch within fractions of a second,” I joked as she leaned against me for support.

“This is better than a fainting couch,” she answered with a smile.

I swallowed my comment about maybe not being able to summon myself to her side in time either, as the only instance of that was this very moment and I thereby proved myself wrong.

A couple of minutes later, both bands were ready. They were cold for a couple of seconds after donning them, but then adapted. Aside from some unfamiliar additional weight, it was like they were not even there. We walked around a little bit. Twilight checked the enchantments and was happy about them working properly. We returned to the library only to find Spike asleep, curled up on the carpet before the fireplace.

We had no reason to disturb his nap, so we just sat down on the sofa again and after silently exchanging some glances, we each took a book to let the remnants of this day fade away in peace and quiet. She read something about Equestrian geography. Studying the Everfree, I suspected. I tried not to shirk my new duties and chose a book about crows. Habitat, life cycle, behavior, all the good stuff. It was somewhat surprising to me how adaptable they were.

I vaguely acknowledged that we had skipped dinner. Or rather forgotten about it entirely. It was almost midnight when we both closed our books in unison. Spike had not reawakened at any point and neither she nor I were particularly hungry, judging by the missing growls of empty bellies.

“I had my doubts,” she broke the silence. “When we first met, it was…”

“Strange. Weird. A little embarrassing,” I supplied.

“A little,” she quietly snorted. She resumed after recomposing herself. “I do not have them anymore.” Well, that got my attention. My ears swiveled in her direction and stood at attention. “When I first met my friends here in Ponyville… my first friends here, anyway… it was a rush. I met them out of necessity and by chance. We stood up to Nightmare Moon, overcame challenges, and learned to trust each other. Sometimes, I find it hard to believe… sometimes, I have trouble remembering… that all that happened in less than one day. We had a long road ahead of us. A lot to learn about each other, and ourselves. And we did, in time. But at the end of that first day, I trusted them. I believed that, if I were in trouble, they would have my back. Because I had gotten into trouble, and they proved themselves trustworthy. I have known you for a lot longer than one day. However, we had no Nightmare Moon as a catalyst.”

“I’m not at all heart-broken about that,” I interjected.

“Neither am I. But these past days got me thinking. Maybe it would have helped me overcome my reservations faster. I think, initially, I did not want to believe you. But I have seen you struggle. I have seen you risk something for those dear to you. Even though you were a stranger to them.” She was losing focus. I could tell. It was a problem we tended to share. Soon enough, she would careen from one random thought to the next, start to ramble and fail to make her point.

So I tried to help her out. “Twilight… where are you going with this?”

It took her a moment. She leaned back, away from me, so that we could turn to each other and look into each other’s eyes. “I trust you. And I feel safe with you. And you are my friend, as much as I am yours.”

I had to swallow hard to get that lump out of my throat. It meant so much to me to hear her say that. I leaned in, as did she. Not for a romantic kiss, but to embrace each other. I brushed my neck against hers. I smelled her mane again, that bouquet of wisdom of ages past, paper and ink. I felt like melting into her. I retreated slightly after a few seconds to whisper an honest “Thank you” into her ear. I retreated further but stopped again to kiss her cheek. And finally, I pulled back after that. She was smiling at me. Just looking at her smile filled me with warmth. I suddenly felt like I had been a frozen block before, but now I started to melt. Her smile radiated.

It took me a moment to realize what was happening.

Over the past few days, I had slowly started to understand her sorting system. I knew where to find towels, knives, plates and coffee in her kitchen. I suspected that it would not be too much of a problem if I were to accidentally barge into her bedroom. She felt safe with me.

I was home. Truly home.

I would need to talk to her about this at some point soon. To state it. Plain and simple. So that it had been said at least once. But at this moment, it seemed too fragile and too precious to disrupt the mood with something like that. I was sure, however. Sure that she had invited me to stay. The castle was massive… and empty. There were a dozen bedrooms nopony cared about. Spike and I got along really well. Even Owlicious and White Tip seemed like they had hit it off immediately. We had worked in her lab, side by side. It had just clicked. We were great lab-buddies.

Home.

I liked the sound of that. No, I loved it.

We were silent for a little while longer. Just enjoying each other’s company. When she grew tired, I wished her a good night and watched her leave. My eyes fell upon the table in front of the sofa. The tea pot and our mugs remained to be cleaned up. You wouldn’t leave that to a guest. But I was not a guest anymore, was I?

I cleared the table, cleaned the mugs and put our books back. I went to the bathroom afterwards, then into my room. My room? A room. This had been a guest room previously. Now, it might very well be my room.

I tried to sleep for a couple of minutes and expected no wonders and was therefore unsurprised at receiving none. I found myself fiddling around with the silver bands. I feared I might accidentally break them somehow, so I got back up and went back to the library. Owlicious and White Tip were both wide awake now. Apparently my feathered buddy was taking on some of his new friends routines? “Hey you two.” I lazily trotted over to the window they used to look outside. A beautiful moon and all the sparkling stars shone their light on a sleeping town. No clouds in sight. That gave me an idea. “How about a walk, hm?” Soft hooing and cawing confirmed their approval of my idea and shortly after they tried to settle down on my back. “Eh. At some point, we have to find a better solution for those claws of yours,” I stated. It did not hurt, per se. But it was not entirely comfortable either. I could bear it for now.

We went for the door and as soon as we were outside, both of them relieved me of their claws by taking to the air. They chased each other around, flew side by side and then… hunted, maybe? I tried not to think about it too much, just in case Fluttershy would come around asking about some mice friends of hers…

I walked along the edges of town until I found a nice looking bench and sat down. A brisk but lazy midnight breeze blew through my mane. It felt great. My eyes adapted to the low light levels and I watched Owlicious and White Tip chase what looked like a fox around in a field. On the odd and rare occasion, I felt like being observed. But whenever that happened and I looked around for some other night owl, nopony was to be found. Maybe there was a point to the rumors that Luna could use her stars and moon to spy on ponies. I thought about it and found that I did not care much either way. I did look forward to meeting her though. At some point.

Meeting with the Princesses was admittedly something I still dreaded in a way. Luna had some similarities to Pinkie in that she could be quite exuberant and bubbly. But she could be dead serious just as easily and her mood could change rapidly. What had her Elements been back in her days? Laughter, Loyalty… and Honesty, was it not? It fit quite well. She could be blunt as a hammer. That was funny, considering her favored weapon was a silver scythe. Don’t know what it is? Poke it with a stick!

Her ‘advice’ made me chuckle.

That left Generosity, Kindness and Magic for Tia. I felt a sudden pang of longing as I thought of her. I could not quite decide if Luna was an introvert with too much energy or an extrovert with surprisingly low battery life. But she could be exhausting at times. Celestia, on the other hoof, had always been the eye of the storm. That one point in all the chaos where one could find peace and calm. She could be mischievous if she wanted to, and one was better off not underestimating her, but her serene smile could calm down rampaging dragons.

I felt unprepared for meeting either of the sisters.

And with a little bit of a guilty conscience, I remembered there being a third Princess. Cadance. If the Crystal Empire was a thing here — and I had failed to check yet, I noticed —, then she was a sovereign ruler in her own right. Even without her own empire, she had her own domain. But curiously enough, ‘love’ was so much less tangible as the sun in the sky or the moon at night. More easily forgotten about. Maybe because one could not see it.

Cadance could. I knew that. On several occasions, I had been given several descriptions of how she saw love. Lines connecting ponies, colored according to their kind of love. Auras around ponies, their intensity telling her about the strength of their heart. Even a colorful glimmer in ponies’ eyes.

Searching my own memories, I did not come up with enough to decide if I should be disappointed or not. I never had any issues with Cadance. I got along with her just fine. She was easy-going and it was therefore hard to not get along with her. But on the same grounds, I had never been really close to her either.

And for now at least, I barely remembered anything about Shining Armor, Twilight's brother and Cadance’ husband. I knew that he was the kind of brother that would relentlessly question my intentions out of a sense of duty to protect his baby sister.

It would probably be best to stay away from Canterlot for just a little while longer.

Looking up in thought, I marveled at the beauty up there. I preferred star- and moonlight. It was soft and careful. It flattered what it touched, played with it. Celestia's light was different. Strong and unyielding, exposing all flaws and imperfections without mercy.