Dreamwalker's Tale: An Anthology

Celestia was a good deal larger than me. It was a simple fact. Hard not to notice as well. I was lying on my back and her head rested on my chest. Her eyes were closed, her breathing calm and steady and her lips were curved ever so slightly upwards, into the faintest ghost of a smile. I loved watching her sleep. Many ponies describe her as the epitome of serenity. And she was. She truly was. But this, this was different. No nobles were bothering her. No international crisis was looming on the horizon, daring to contest her diplomatic skills. Right now, she was sleeping. My thoughts strayed a little as I wondered what she dreamed about.

Her head was large, and therefore a little heavier than, say, Twilight’s. But it was far from being too heavy. And I quite liked it. Even when I closed my eyes, the weight reminded me that she was still there.

I watched her mane, too. At any given moment, it was this ethereal, billowing display of colors. Even when she slept. But contrary to popular belief, she could have morning hair. It did get tangled and messy like everypony else’s mane. It split and twisted and went in all directions. I was probably a little bit of a weirdo to find morning hair sexy, but that I could live with. She was the love of my life and there were few instances when I could not, for whatever reason, appreciate how gorgeous she was.

The size difference rarely bothered us. Sure, one had to be a little bit more creative when it came to kissing, cuddling, sex and the like. But we managed. And I rarely asked her to change into her Sunny Skies-persona. As a pegasus, she was my size. Maybe even an inch smaller. Sunny was the mare I got to know first. The name stuck. I still, to this day, called her Sunny when we were in private. ‘Celestia’ sounded more… official. Meant for the public. And ‘Tia’ was clearly reserved for Luna.

Sunny.

Her smile grew a little wider. And so did mine. It was an automatic response. A reflex, one might say. She seemed happy, and that, in turn, made me happy. Happier. That is how a decent relationship should work, right?

Her affinity for transmutation spells was probably the reason why the growth spell existed. I could still count how many times we had used it. The instances were rare and it was more of a bandaid than a treat. Yesterday had been rough for her. Rougher than usual. Rougher than her ‘rough days’. She did not tell me what happened. She would, eventually. I knew that. And I had the patience to wait. To let her reach that point at her own pace. I would be there for her. As always. But what she had needed yesterday was that feeling of security. A place to retreat to, where she could let her hair down and be as sad, as frustrated or annoyed as she wanted to be.

When we crawled into bed late at night, I offered to be the big spoon. It only seemed logical at that point. I knew from first-hoof experience how much safer one felt, being held like that. But while that would have sufficed on any other day, it was not enough yesterday. She was so incredibly hesitant to ask. Even though it was not a big deal for me. Never had been.

Growing to a size that was ever so slightly larger than her felt awkward. As if I had to relearn my entire limb coordination. And big-me was clumsy as heck. But it was not like I had to navigate narrow corridors in a porcelain shop or run a marathon. I just had to lie there and hold her tight. I could do that. Easily. Gladly. The spell only lasted about an hour anyway.

But she was still so hesitant to ask.

That, too, was very much like her. Give all you can give, but never ask anything in return. I knew her for long enough to expect as much. I was perfectly willing to compromise. To reach out to her, to offer. And the experienced diplomat that she was, she did not even need a single word to make her will clear: She forbade me from offering. She wanted to ask. She needed to ask this for herself. For her own well-being.

The spell had lasted an hour, as usual. Enough time for her to almost crawl back into me while I held her. Enough time for her to fall asleep, feeling safe and snug. I woke up briefly when the spell fizzled out and I shrank back down to my normal size. And in retrospect… I wished I had not fallen asleep again after that.

I had lost track of how many nights I had to contend with these nightmares again. The only certainty was that it was a few, but less than a week. I could tilt my head ever so slightly and look out of the window to see Luna’s beautiful, starry night sky. And even without possessing any celestial magic of my own, I could feel that it was almost time for Sunny to get up.

I swallowed the urge to sigh and closed my eyes. I kept my mind busy in an effort to not fall asleep again. Because I really, really, really did not wish to return to these dreams again.

Just as expected, Sunny stirred from her slumber a few minutes later. She shifted cautiously and that alone almost made me smile. She had bought it. She tried not to wake me up. I still let my lips curl upwards into a smile and gave a faint, appreciative hum when she placed the softest kiss on my chest.

Then she left. And I immediately regretted it. Her closeness was gone, her warmth was gone, the feeling of security was gone. My nostrils flared ever so slightly. I could still pick up her intoxicating scent. I could still feel the warmth of the sheets beside me, where she had laid. I dared to crack my eyes open ever so slightly to watch her walk towards the large glass door. I was willing to swear for a brief moment that she put a little extra swing into her hip. But she had bought it, did she not? She still thought I was sleeping. But I knew that gait. She tried to lure me out of bed. It worked on some days, to be fair. Maybe she did it just in case I woke up due to her missing beside me?

I quickly snapped my eyes shut again when she briefly looked over her shoulder, back in my direction. I was decently sure I had been quick enough. After all… I had been awake for a few hours. And she was probably still tired.

A moment passed, then another one. Until I finally heard the door being opened. She stepped outside and focused. The moon went down, tired from its journey across the sky, and was neatly tucked in by its mistress so it could rest. The stars dimmed down and disappeared one by one. And to the east, the sun rose past the horizon to begin its own journey of the day.

With her first task of the day done, she stepped back inside, closed the door and made her way over to the bathroom. She usually preferred to get up a couple of minutes early to do her bathroom routine before raising the sun, but after yesterday, I was not too surprised that she switched it up.

That of course gave me a couple of minutes to simply lie there and ask myself a couple of questions. Both to keep my mind busy and awake, and to maybe find a few answers. Not that I had not wasted all these past hours on thinking anyway. After all, I desperately wanted to stay by her side, but also wished to not wake her up. Which left me with few options in regards to activities to pass the time.

I never had any difficulties finding questions to mull over. Chief amongst them this time, however, was why I always seemed to choose this path above all others. She was right there. All I had to do was, quite literally, reach out. I could still do that. I could ask her to come over to the bed, sit down and talk to me. And she would. It would throw her daily routines into a little bit of chaos, but she would do it without hesitating. Talking to her was the rational thing to do. It was reasonable. I instead chose to fake being asleep. I chose to lie awake for hours throughout the night. And not for the first night either. Why?

The answer was as simple as it was stupid: I tried to protect her, in a way. I did not wish to burden her with my silly little issues. I did that frequently anyway, more than enough. I did not want her to worry about me. I wanted her to be happy. I wanted to see that smile, and not her concerned frown.

That was obviously not how it worked. And I knew it. Which was the aggravating part. I knew it did not work like that, and I decided to follow the stupid anyway. I could already feel the rising tide of frustration with myself. I had to swallow it down the moment I heard the faucet being turned off. She was done. She exited the bathroom. I heard the lock of the casket give a little click as it opened and closed. She put on her regalia. A last, heavy sigh and she was ready. Her hoofsteps were a lot more noticeable now, due to her horseshoes.

They were muffled when she stepped on the carpet by the bedside. I knew what was coming. A little farewell. A kiss. She leaned down, and I held still. Maybe too still. There was no set spot she usually kissed me on. Sometimes she chose my forehead. Sometimes my chest. Or my throat. Or my nose, if she felt particularly playful. But she kissed me on the lips.

She knew I was awake.

I sighed ever so slightly, but gave up the silly charade and reciprocated. She had been out of bed for less than half an hour and I missed her dearly already. I freed a hoof from beneath the blanket and guided her muzzle down ever so slightly. She willingly followed and the kiss endured for a couple more seconds. And I thought I could feel it. The gratefulness. The slight traces of worry. The happiness. The love. Things she might have wanted to convey nonverbally. If so, she did a great job.

When we finally parted, I opened my eyes. As did she. We held each other’s gaze. Was she alright? Yes, she was. Was I? I hesitated. It had taken her some effort to ask last night. Was I willing to make an effort? For her? Of course. Always. And at that point, she smiled. It was not Princess Celestia smiling at me, but my love, Sunny, who broke through the masquerade for a brief moment to let me know that she would be waiting, patient as always, until I had mustered the courage to tell her.

She quickly leaned down again, placed a very brief peck on my nose and with a hint of a giggle, she left for good.

I stared at the ceiling and sighed heavily. But I only dared to do so minutes after the heavy doors had closed. As if I feared Sunny would stand right outside, with her ear pressed against the wood. The mental image was silly enough to make me roll my eyes.

I finally got up as well, went into the bathroom, regretted every life choice along the way due to the cold marble tiles on the floor and the room's air sapping what little warmth of the bed had remained so far and then I was forced to confront another issue.

I was tired. I was so incredibly tired that I walked at half my usual speed, which was not impressive to begin with. I brushed my teeth at half my usual speed. I felt like I might have fallen asleep on the toilet. I splashed water in my face and all it did was to make me wet and a smidge more miserable.

As much as I hated to admit it, there was no way around it either: I needed sleep.

And because I most certainly did not have my mental faculties together, I came up with an appropriately stupid plan.

Luna’s quarter was right around the corner and halfway down the corridor. Even though it had taken me roughly double the normal time I required to reach this point, I still had more than enough spare time left to dawdle around. Neither Celestia nor Luna would allow for anypony to rush them when it came to their shared breakfast. Or dinner, in Luna’s case. They shared news, talked about their days and nights, pranked each other a little and joked around. It was that time of day where sisters could be sisters, and nothing else. As such, it took time.

I knew the castle staff. I knew the guard routines. I knew exactly when the shift would change. Luna would come here after dinner, she would retreat into her rooms to go to sleep and roughly ten to fifteen minutes later, the two night guards in front of her door would walk back to the barracks. Technically they were only allowed to do so after the next shift had arrived, but Luna was quite lenient with them and honestly, only a madpony would sneak into Luna’s quarter uninvited.

Then again, I was really, really tired. At some point, that mental state could be called madness, right?

I stood right around the corner, occasionally smiled awkwardly and belatedly when somepony from the castle staff walked by and berated myself for swaying slightly while standing still. It was supposed to tell me that I was in bad shape, and I did get the message. I just did not care much for it. I was here to do something about it, was I not? So why bother me with this nonsense. I would have loved to growl in frustration with my own body, but I tried to stay quiet and as hidden as I could be. I had to peek around the corner from time to time to make sure I would catch the right moment. And I was decently certain that the two guards had not noticed me at all.

I really needed somepony to knock some sense into me, didn’t I?

The thought perished as I saw Luna round the corner on the other end of the hallway. I peeked around the corner as stealthily as I could. She walked up to the guards. They talked to her. Probably just a status report. Yes, your highness. Nopony tried to enter your empty bedchamber while you were in Night Court. Yes, your highness. We stood here the entire time and were bored out of our minds. Yes, your highness. We did not notice anypony peeking around the corner over there for the past fifteen minutes. Well, truth be told, they neither looked in my direction, nor pointed a hoof here. Despite the grandeur of these high-vaulted hallways and the echo present in them, I could not make out a single word. And I tried.

Then Luna took a look around. First towards the direction she had come from, which alarmed me. But my reaction speed was somewhat impaired as well. I knew she would turn her head and look in my direction as well any second now. I pulled back behind my corner just in time as she did. My ears swiveled around, trained themselves on any sound coming from that corridor. I heard nothing.

She eventually thanked them and I heard the door open and close. When I dared to peek around the corner again, I was surprised to see the two guards leave. Luna had apparently dismissed them early. Maybe she had given them a task to do before their shift ended, because they walked in the direction she had come from, which was certainly not the direction of the barracks. The shortest way to the barracks would have been…

My direction.

I gulped and muttered a couple of mild curses under my breath. I really had not thought any of this through properly, had I? That of course also meant that the two guards from the next shift would come up behind me to take their post. I immediately snapped my head around and grimaced as I heard a pop in my neck and a brief jolt of pain ran straight into my brain.

The hallway was empty. Of course it was empty. The old shift had been dismissed early. The new shift was supposed to arrive in… what? Half an hour, maybe?

I sighed heavily. “Let’s get this over with.”

My hooves carried me around the corner. I kept my eyes trained on the other end of the hallway, just to make sure I would see the guards returning if they did. I could then pretend to casually walk by instead of following my actual plan. And since I saw nopony coming, I snuck up to her door, pressed my ear against it and listened for a couple of seconds. It usually took Luna a few minutes to discard her regalia, brush her teeth, wash up and crawl into bed. The moment her head hit the pillow though, she was asleep.

I had been fretting around that corner for a while, right?

I had been rather slow, sneaking up to this door, right?

My hooves felt leaden. I had no patience to wait any longer. But I still wanted to be stealthy. As stealthy as I could manage, given the circumstances. So instead of using my magic, which would give off a noticeable glow on the other side of the door were I to grab the handle with it, I used my hooves. And that actually required me to sit down in front of the door and fiddle around with the handle for a few seconds, because the initial two attempts had failed pitifully. I was so used to using my magic for just about anything that actually using my hooves felt alien at times.

Once the door sprung open the smallest gap, I quickly cast a last glance around. The hallway remained empty. Perfect. I snuck inside and silently closed the door.

Once the faintest click was heard, I silently sighed. I stood in a pitch-black room. Luna’s bedchamber had a balcony of course. Two, in fact. The big one where she raised and lowered the moon and could see her sister doing the same with the sun each dawn and sunset, and the smaller one on the opposite side, which she mostly used to sneak out of the castle or to enjoy the rain. With me, occasionally.

When it came to sleeping arrangements, Luna and I shared a lot of preferences. A dark room without any light whatsoever, plus complete and utter silence. I waited for a few seconds until my eyes had adapted to the inky darkness as best as they could. It was enough to make out shapes nearby. I knew the room well enough to navigate it blindly of course, but Luna was a little messier than Celestia and occasionally let her horseshoes lie around. Or a stray book or a present from someone who had visited Night Court.

I managed to sneak up to the bed without problems. I could see her lying there. I stood in front of the bed, stared at her and everything inside me yearned to be at her side. Quite literally. I expected to find sleep at her side. I expected to be safe from nightmares at her side. Even though that was a silly expectation to have. She was busy dreamwalking and she could not play favorites like that.

I shook myself out of my inner ramblings and carefully, slowly, cautiously crawled up onto the bed. It took some mental gymnastics to figure out how to slip under the blanket, but I eventually managed to get close to her. I really wanted to press myself against her. I wanted to be the little spoon. But I knew that the mere attempt would most certainly wake her up. Lying this close to her, without actual contact between our bodies, felt somewhat disappointing. I tried to tell myself that this was as good as it would get. And I tried to calm down. To lure myself to sleep. A minute passed by. Then two. And it started to work.

That is, until she suddenly shifted. Luna rolled onto her other side. I held my breath, but it took me only a couple of seconds to realize, to feel, that she was looking at me. She inhaled deeply. Held it in. And sighed heavily. “We need to talk.”

It was pitch-black. There was no way she could see me cringe, right?

I didn't even try to pretend I was asleep this time. Instead, I simply rolled over and scooched closer until my back hit her belly. She willingly accepted me into her embrace and the very moment her grip tightened around me, I felt a lot more stress melt away than I had been aware of being there. “After I slept… right?” I quietly dared to ask.

The silence seemed to stretch forever. She eventually tilted her head and nipped the tip of my ear. I flicked it and smiled. “Fine,” she relented.

We need to talk. Her words echoed in my head. In a way, I had known exactly what I was getting myself into, did I not? I had tried to outmaneuver myself. And it worked. I was here. In a situation where I would be forced to talk. And goodness gracious me, I was so overwhelmingly grateful for that. And I was afraid of it at the same time.

As usual.

“This night shall last forever, then,” I mumbled, quickly followed by a yawn.

“I would be willing to challenge my dear sister for her celestial domain again if it would help?” she offered.

A voice in the back of my head was alarmed by the seriousness of her tone, while another voice tried to reason that she was clearly joking and trying to lighten the mood. Neither voice fully reached me, as I continued to drift off to sleep. A smile spread on my lips as the thought of her willing to go this far for my sake vaguely settled in my mind. “That’s sweet,” I heard myself mumble.

Luna simply giggled, kissed my ear and wished me farewell.

When I woke up again, I felt a hundred times better. The room was still quite dark, of course. Those heavy curtains were drawn shut and they did not let any light through. But Luna had cast a little spell on the ceiling of the room, where a depiction of the night sky gave off the faintest, bluish glow. It was an artful masterpiece befitting of her.

Luna still held me. Her warmth still warmed me. In more than one sense. Yet I dreaded this talk she had threatened. Enough so that I tried to slip out from her grasp. I would sneak away from the bed and slip out of her room unnoticed and I would continue to avoid the entire topic forevermore!

As soon as I dared to shift away from her ever so slightly, her grip tightened a little. “And where do you think you are going?” I sighed. Both in relief and frustration. I gave up on my escape attempt and instead snuggled against her once more. I did very much prefer to be close to her right now.

Luna patiently waited. For about a minute. Patience really was not one of her strong suits. “You have nightmares,” she simply stated.

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” I countered. “I slept like a log.”

“Yes, you did. Because I made it so,” she chided me. Her issue was not with me sneaking into her room, unannounced or otherwise. Her issue was, as usual, with me trying to avoid confronting the problem at the root of it all. Because what Luna lacked in patience, she made up for in bravery.

“Oh,” was my initial, eloquent reply. I knew a thing or two about her repertoire. She had options to ensure my restful sleep. But all of them, each single one, required some measure of effort.

As the silence stretched on, Luna once again ran out of patience. “Dreamwalker, do not make me do this. Remember that Tia is the patient one. I will make you talk one way or another.”

My mind immediately raced into a panic. Not because she wanted to force the conversation, no. She name-dropped Sunny. She had no reason to do so, the threat in itself would have sufficed. But she did it anyway. And there was a reason for that, too. “She knows?” I dared to ask. I involuntarily cast my mind back a couple of hours. This morning, when Sunny had kissed me. She knew I was awake. And without a single word spoken, she had tried to encourage me to share whatever burdened my thoughts. Later on. I had managed to put it off. And I would continue to do so again and again. Because she allowed for it. Luna… did not.

“She knows,” Luna confirmed my fears. “Obviously. She can be more perceptive than even I am. She cares. And she hopes that you will open up to her. Eventually. At your own pace, in your own time.”

So she knew. And she would let me continue this charade anyway. Which left me with Luna. “And you don’t want to wait?”

“Let me put it like this:” she started and I could feel her shift a little. She brought her muzzle down and spoke quietly, right next to my ear. “My sister believes in you as your best self. Because she wants to encourage you to be your best self.”

“And you don’t?” I whispered back. It was considerably harder to focus with her this close, with her warm breath tickling my ear.

“I do, of course. But I accept that everything moves at its own pace. Including ponies. I know you. I can see what you could be, just like her. But I also acknowledge that you are not quite there yet. And that you may need a little push along the way every now and then. A little help, so to speak.”

A nudge. It was the term she had used a long time ago, when we first had talked about why she was so pushy with me sometimes, when her sister was not. Celestia always had this hooves-off approach when it came to encouragement, while Luna wanted to be more involved, and wanted to have a more active role. Luna gave nudges here and there. To stir up some action. Growth, ideally.

I sighed as I recognized that my current musings were little more than distractions. I was procrastinating. “It’s just a stupid nightmare,” I half-heartedly tried to wiggle my way out of this conversation.

“It clearly troubles you,” Luna disagreed, “so nothing about this is stupid.”

For all her empathy and warmth, Luna could at times share a lot more in common with a dog or even a wolf. Or maybe a shark? She had picked up a scent and she would follow it. To Tartarus with distractions and diversions. She would not give up.

I sighed again. And I gave up. I rolled onto my back and stared at the pretty display above our heads. I could see her watching me out of the corner of my eyes. Her mane was a little messy. It looked really pretty. Because I, on the other hoof, was easily distracted. So I closed my eyes and figuratively shoved myself off the cliff. “It’s a recurring one. And it's frustrating to boot.” I tried to remember it. Details from it. But nothing presented itself before my mental eye. “I wake up, soaked in sweat. I remember everything so vividly. Sharp and clear, like… as if I could still reach out with a hoof and touch it. It’s normal for dreams to dissolve over a few minutes after waking up. I know that. But this dream… it falls apart and vanishes within seconds. So there isn’t even a lot I could tell you about it. What do I do?” I opened my eyes again and looked straight at her. I was surprised to see her this happy. Almost proud.

She considered her answer for a while. But before she gave it, she charged her horn and lowered her head down. I closed my eyes again to concentrate on the sensation as her horn crossed with mine. Because— “I really, really like how it feels when your magic touches me.”

She snorted in surprise and giggled a little afterwards. It made me beam to hear that. “You do have a talent to make unusual compliments. Some of those, if not most, could raise some eyebrows if they were heard without prior context.”

Her amusement still laced her voice as she spoke, and I was more than willing to get in on the joke. So I mustered my worst-best filly-voice. “I swear, mister guardspony sir, her magic touched me! I can show you where on this self-made sock-puppet!”

Luna guffawed. I had managed to break her. Her unbridled laughter rang out in the otherwise silent room and filled it with joy and merriment for at least a minute or two. It eventually dimmed down to a snicker before she finally managed to reign herself in.

Time for a second round. “Please, sir, I don’t have to explain why they are that kind of socks!” This time, when Luna snorted and her barely restored self-control broke, I chimed in and laughed alongside her. It was such a heart-felt, honest, infectious sound. How could one remain in a bad mood with her nearby? “Sir, no! Don’t make me show other guardsponies where you touched me!”

At that point, Luna — still snickering like mad — lit her horn and bound my muzzle shut to keep me from stalling further. I chuckled and nuzzled her chest to show that I was done. She released her magical grip and I simply continued to nuzzle her until she rode out the last waves of amusement.

“That really has no right to be this funny,” she protested.

I nodded. “Shall we take a look if it still is? Could have been a one-time-thing, you know?”

She grinned, but shook her head. “Another time maybe.”

“So as far as strange compliments go,” I started and kissed her throat. My nostrils flared as I picked up her alluring scent. “You smell so, sooo nice. Is that one better or worse?”

She hummed in appreciation and stroked down my mane and back with a hoof. “I think it is roughly on the same level. But thank you.”

“You know, I wouldn’t mind getting a little frisky and— “ And the magic was back on. A few words I continued with the muffled sounds being all that came out until I relented.

I looked up to her and was met by a warm and loving gaze that, at the same time, had a certain steely strength to it. “Don’t,” she simply demanded. I sighed and nodded and she released me once more. “The spell I cast on you should help you remember. While it cannot bring back what is lost, it can lift the veil that usually makes memories of dreams blurry and hard to grasp. As for your question about what you are supposed to do, I think you already know the answer. You share. So tell me. What do you remember?”

I dreaded going back to that place. But I had successfully outmaneuvered myself and managed to put myself in this position where confronting my fears was the only viable path left to trod. I took a deep breath, closed my eyes and tried once again to remember. And I took great solace in knowing that Luna was with me. That she was right by my side.

“It’s a desolate place,” I started. “It doesn’t look like it at first glance. I see trees. Shrubs. Rolling hills. Pastures and fields. Forests. The sun rises and warms the earth. The night brings rest and relaxation. It shouldn’t be that different from our world. But it feels… utterly bereft of hope. There are planes in the sky and trains on the tracks. Houses tightly packed together. Some rise high above, made from metal, concrete and steel. I have never been to any of the other large cities. I’ve never been to Manehattan or Baltimare. But I imagine it would look a lot like this, just from what Twilight and the others told me about it. This asphalt desert. Gray in gray, with just the occasional tree in between. Weeds trying to carve a niche for themselves as they grow from every nook and cranny. At the same time… there is light pollution. So many flashy advertisements. Blinking and glowing everywhere, day and night. These streets are full. I can’t make out faces. I don’t care about their faces. They look barren. Desolate. Hopeless. Some smile, but it never reaches their eyes. I am sometimes surrounded by friends. But my smile always feels weak. Fake and hollow. And the mere attempt to smile makes my heart ache. I feel… barely anything. And I wish I could weep. Weep because I should feel something. I should feel so much. So much regret. And anger. And sorrow. Instead I feel… tired. Mostly just tired. And cold. I can bury myself beneath covers and blankets and whatnot, to the point where I sweat buckets and I still feel cold. Because this cold has nothing to do with my body temperature. And I feel exhaustion in my very bones. It doesn’t diminish. It never goes away. No matter how much I sleep. I talk to others and it tires me out. I do my chores and it tires me out. I sleep and it tires me out. I wake up tired, exhausted. I start each day with so little energy that even small tasks seem daunting… and sometimes they are. Sometimes I truly need to postpone them. And I feel lazy because of it. And I berate myself for it. But no matter how harsh I drag myself to court over these things, nothing ever changes.”

I needed a break. Luna said nothing. Did nothing. She simply waited while I tried to reign in my trembling voice. While I tried to ignore the hot tears streaming down the sides of my face. Just a stupid nightmare, I kept telling myself. It’s just a stupid nightmare. I would wake up again. I always did. I would wake up, and be me, Dreamwalker. And everything would be fine. Kind of.

I continued with a shuddering breath. “I feel such a deep-seated contempt for this world. And for myself. I feel uprooted. Like I have no place to belong to. No purpose. Nothing has any meaning. Nothing I ever did, will do, or could do. Nothing anyone else ever did. I feel like I am forced to live in this world that cares as little for me and treats me with such contempt… like I do to it in return. I feel like I have lived in this world for years. Decades. And I feel the weight of every day and every hour bearing down on me. Suffocating me. It drains everything out of me. To the point where I want to cry out, but I have no voice. Where I want to weep, but I have no tears. Where I want to lash out, but I have no strength. And the mere thought of doing any of that, despite the impossibility of it all, already exhausts me again. Tires me out further and further. And it only gets worse. Time relentlessly marches on. Drags me along a path I don’t want. And I don’t have the strength to fight back. To rip myself free and be left behind.”

A brief moment. Maybe even less then a second. But I had heard that. I had heard her swallow hard. I opened my eyes, despite the tears doing their best to glue them shut. And despite my blurry vision, I saw how grief-stricken her gaze had become. Something I had said, something in all of this, had hurt her. Had struck a chord and reminded her of pain she herself had endured once upon a time. “Feeling lonely is nothing new for you,” she whispered. Because she did not trust her voice enough to not quiver, would she speak louder.

“No, it’s not,” I admitted freely. That was part of why this recurring nightmare frightened me so much. I saw the parallels. I too felt that cold from time to time. It was one of the reasons why I could be so clingy occasionally. Why my loved ones had to put up with me constantly crawling into them at any given opportunity. I too occasionally struggled with my purpose and my roots. With my many, many insecurities. But this other world. This other ‘me’ in those nightmares. Everything there was so much bleaker. So much darker. So much… worse.

“This is different, though,” I spoke up again. “When I wake up, I still feel that cold emptiness inside. It vanishes quickly, as I said earlier. Because I’m surrounded by my friends. My family. Because I have Sunny. And Twilight. And you. I’m constantly surrounded by love and care and tenderness on all sides and I feel grateful for that. I am so happy that I could burst into tears of joy. And admittedly, occasionally, I do.”

Luna furrowed her brow. “Oh. So that’s where that comes from.”

That remark made me stumble. And cringe. Hard. “I… I also usually try to avoid witnesses.”

She shot me a soft, sympathetic look. “I hate to say it, but you are clearly not very good at it.”

I cringed a little harder still, somehow. “Thanks. I always appreciate your honesty.” Luna giggled quietly for a few seconds before she shook her head and leaned in. I sighed and accepted the peace offer and met her halfway. It was a brief, chaste kiss. And I hated how salty it tasted. But when I tried to pull back early, she lit her horn and kept me in place. She clearly did not mind. And she would prefer if I simply accepted the tears for what they were. It still took effort, but I managed to wrangle some enjoyment from that kiss after all.

When she finally allowed me to pull back, I laid my head back on the pillow below. “Honestly, it creeps me out,” I picked the conversation back up. Though as soon as I had teased this part of my thoughts, I stopped and hesitated.

“Why?” She tried to help me along.

“It… it plants this really disgusting, nasty thought in my head that… some lives… that live… might not be worth living. And… I… I don’t know what to do with that.”

Luna nodded. At least she could empathize with my predicament. It was not a thought process that belonged in a pony’s head. Mine or anypony else’s. “Have you tried to influence this dream-life? I know that you are not a lucid dreamer, but you speak of it with a clarity that goes past what my spell should have allowed for. Have you tried to turn it for the better?”

I sighed and my shoulders, despite me lying on my back anyway, still somehow sagged. “I have. It didn’t work. And I think I know why, too. I usually rely heavily upon my friends. But over there, I just… I can’t. They don’t understand this version of me like you understand me. It sometimes feels like we’re speaking in different languages. And no, I’m not lucid over there. I’m never fully aware that it’s all just a bad dream. I sometimes hope it is. I wish for it to be a bad dream. I wish to wake up so badly all the time. But I think that is just an expression of desperation.”

Luna fell silent for a while after that. She mulled things over, I could see as much when her brow furrowed and her face shifted through several expressions while she started at a blank spot on the wall, or the ceiling. She tried to avoid looking at me when she was deep in thought, because I often got goosebumps when she stared straight through me like that. As if I wasn’t even there.

After who knows how many minutes, she finally sighed and returned to me. “You never make it boring.”

I tried to answer her wry smile with one of my own. “Or easy,” I added with forced flippancy.

“Or easy, yes,” she agreed. “We all have nightmares, Dreamwalker. But most nightmares are simpler, more tangible. The fear of not having enough bits for food. The fear of a ‘pony of shadows’. The fear of a headless pony or a zombie-pony. The fear of rejection. The fear of a changeling invasion. But you? You don’t go for small. You consistently go for the straight-up existential crisis.”

I was halfway there apologizing. I had drawn breath, I had opened my mouth, and then I had noticed her glare, warning me not to even dare to say how sorry I was. So I took a sharp turn and veered into another direction entirely. “So, does that mean the Princess of the Night has nightmares about changeling invasions then?”

“A changeling’s capability to wield deceit to such a degree is terrifying not for what it can do, but what it can make us do, wouldn’t you agree?” she answered.

I knew Luna. We all have our own little idiosyncrasies. She had difficulties openly acknowledging certain weaknesses. This answer was as close to a straight ‘yes’ as I would ever get. And really, it was good enough for me. “Sorry for the extra work,” I muttered.

She simply shook her head. “Do not apologize. It is a normal part of life.” She eyed me for a moment before she continued. “Do you wish to know why I would rather encounter ten Tireks than face one Nightmare Moon?” This was not about semantics, as I reminded myself. It was an example, quickly pulled from the air to make a point. So I nodded. “Because one of them is an ill-behaved grump, most likely burdened with father-issues, and the other—”

“—is a centaur?” I quickly cut in with a wide grin.

Luna smirked and briefly kissed me once more. And with every breath I took, it became easier to take the next one again. I grinned in joy and beamed at her as she retreated. And I did not mind how smug she looked. “Now there is a smile I would love to see more of.”

“Is talky-time over now?” I dared to ask. Because honestly, I was fed up with talking about something so dreary. And I had Luna in bed with me. I could easily imagine a lot of less depressing activities. “Can we have kissy-time now?”
Luna giggled in reply. “Under two conditions.”
Well, that sounded promising. “Shoot.”
“I will ponder your dream and see if I come up with a decent solution, or at least I want to witness it for myself the next time you encounter it, so I will need your permission to enter,” she named the first one. That, as far as I was concerned, was not too bad. I had embarrassed myself in front of her way worse than by anything she could witness within that dream. “Secondly… you will tell my sister at your earliest convenient time what ails you! She deserves to know as much, if not more, than I do.”
I grimaced. Of course I did, because I knew fully well that she was right. I should have come out to Celestia and talked with her about this issue from day one. But I did not. Because my head was weird. However, now that I had my pep talk with Luna and ‘kissy-time’ was on the table…? “Done and done!”
She laughed whole-heartedly in the face of my enthusiasm. “Good to know that I still know how to motivate you. Just remember, Dream: Battling your inner demons is nothing like defeating a villain in those comic books Spike is so fond of. They go down in a blaze of glorious battle, with witty one-liners and spewing curses against the hero. Your inner demons however, they rear their ugly head time and time again, and you will have to battle them over and over. It is very much a marathon, not a sprint. But you will have us right there by your side.”
She had this gift. This talent. To find the right words, at the right time, for the right pony. I could never tell if that was an honesty-thing, or a laughter-thing, or a loyalty-thing. But it most certainly was a Luna-thing. I noticed how my eyes teared up a little again. I did not mind. Her pledge to be there for me. To help me. It was good. It made me happy. And I dove for a kiss without hesitation.

The nightmare would return. Time and time again. And I would have to bear it. But at least I would always have the solace to know that eventually, I would wake up again, next to my loved ones, surrounded by my friends and family, and I would be able to move on with my (mostly) happy life.

Wake up.