Dreamwalker's Tale: First (and Last?) Adventure

When I woke up the next morning, I quickly realized that I was not the first one to wake up. At some point, when sharing a close relationship, familiarity reached a level where it was possible to tell that just by listening to a partner’s breathing. I knew how it was supposed to sound when she was still asleep. Her breaths were calm, steady and even. But they came just that little bit too fast. I was considering if maybe she had a dream that was riling her up in some way. But as soon as I cracked my eyes open, I found her staring back at me.

“Hey there, beautiful,” I greeted her with a smile.

“Hey there, handsome,” she answered, before leaning in for a nuzzle.

I sighed happily. “You know, with the tent canceling the entire camping- and jungle-experience more or less out and only this remaining… I really could get used to this.”

She agreed with a hum before she slightly shifted to slip a little lower so that we were muzzle to muzzle. “It is… nice.”

I had to hold back for a moment to keep myself from snorting in amusement. That sounded an awful lot like Fluttershy and I could not help but quietly chuckle about the similarity. Instead of explaining what had me so amused, I leaned in and kissed her. And every time I did that, no matter if we were in bed or in the bathtub upstairs or out in the jungle, I considered this to be heaven all over again. However, there were signs that this ‘heaven’ of mine was not without its own issues. It had taken me a while to notice, but eventually, I caught up to those bags under her eyes and worry slowly creeped up on me. “You’ve been awake for a while, haven’t you?”

She sighed, and put on a brave little smile. But I was grateful that she did not try to deny it or hide her tiredness. It was not the end of the world, just a rough night. But it bothered me anyway. “I could not sleep all that well. I think I had a nightmare, or two, but I cannot remember any details.”

I doubted that last part. And I had my suspicions about what had caused this turn of events. But she had made it clear that she did not want to divulge this information and for now at least, I saw no reason to pry. “I’m sorry to hear that. That’s actually kind of my fault, isn’t it? And I definitely should have checked up on you. I’m sorry.”

She shook her head as much as lying down allowed her. “Don’t be silly. You two have more than enough to do as it is and you said it yourself — you cannot play favorites. It is a dangerous game.”

While true, I still felt bad. I still berated myself for not being there for her. For not helping. Not seeing that coming. Knowing what was the right thing to do did not help any issues the heart might take with this ‘right thing’. She knew that and I knew that she knew. There was no reason to say it. So I instead just nestled against her as much as she nestled against me. A few minutes might have passed before we pulled apart again. “What do you think? Breakfast?”

She considered it for a moment and nodded. “Let’s. It might help me get rid of the last remnants.”

Without having to coordinate ourselves, we made our way to the bathroom. I let her go upstairs first while I sorted through our saddlebags and supplies in the meantime. We had used little besides the Neverend bottles and the Allfood so far. Well, we had lost a rope. Somehow. But the firefly lantern she had packed seemed unnecessary so far, as did the compass and the pocket watch.

While she busied herself upstairs, I tried to put something approximating a ‘regular breakfast’ together. The little bedside table was dragged to the lower end of the bed, a few pillows placed on the ground would be sufficient as seating and Rarity’s cupboard even offered some glasses that were not meant for wine. Two plates, a bit of cutlery and a little vase with some greenery I had quickly gathered from outside. Which had meant braving the heat early as I ran down the hill, picked up something that did not look as plain as grass and plucked it before I ran back up.

Exercising before I even had the chance to brush my teeth or splash some water in my face felt weird and strangely exhausting. But! I managed to accomplish my goal. I had even found some candles in Rarity’s cupboard. Nothing I intended to use for breakfast, but maybe a nice touch for dinner.

And the pièce de résistance was a selection of tiny bottles I found while rummaging through the lower drawers. Rarity being very organized meant that they were clearly labeled, for which I was quite grateful. I would otherwise probably not have dared to touch them. Could have been fabric dye for all I knew. The liquids inside certainly were vibrant and colorful enough. But no, those were apparently highly concentrated flavors. Brown for coffee — almost empty. Pink for berry juice. Yellow for lemon juice. White for white tea. A dozen other flavors as well, some had seen more use than others. I suspected that this was yet another acquisition of hers meant to ease some of the burdens of camping. I did not mind drinking plain water. I did that most of the time anyway. But I could see the use in having a choice.

When Celestia came downstairs, I turned around and presented the little arrangement. “Tadaaa. Eh? Eeehhh?”

She examined what I had done before she regarded me with a growing smile. I had hoped my enthusiasm would infect her and judging by the looks of it, it had. “Lovely,” she commented.

I pointed my hoof towards the small bottles currently resting on one side of our seating arrangement. “I think those are flavors meant to spice up water. I didn’t see a ‘chamomile tea’ one, but then again, I didn’t read all the labels yet. Sooo... feel free to choose? I’m heading upstairs now.”

And so we switched places. While I did my routine, I could not help but feel a little pride for my idea and its execution. I did not mind having my meals under more unconventional conditions. When I was at home, things were usually calm and orderly enough to have a ‘regular’ breakfast in the kitchen with the good company of either Spike or Twilight, depending on how long I had slept. But when appointments were called or I had been over in the castle, I sometimes just ate while on the move. I was not all that picky about what I ate or what I drank or how and where and when I did it. But I knew that Celestia, while being very patient and lenient, cherished certain routines. So maybe this would help her feel a little bit like being at home.

When I came back down, she was sitting at the table and waiting for me. And I noticed that both glasses were colored. Hers was white, which did not surprise me at all. Mine, however, was gray. I stopped for a moment, my eyes scanned the room for the bottles and found them sitting on the cupboard. There were no bottles with gray liquid. “Uh…?”

Luckily, she perfectly understood my elaborate and eloquent question. And perfectly played down that faint tint. “Well as it turns out, they do not exactly mix all that well. At least as far as color is concerned. I can assure you that it tastes a lot better than it looks. I tried.”

I chuckled and shrugged. “Alright. I believe you.” I finally sat down on the other side. We were still just eating Allfood, which was not much different from yesterday or the day before that. But the simple change of using cutlery to do it and sitting down on an actual table somehow transformed the entire experience. Small observations like these sometimes baffled me to no end.

After two or three bites of the rather dry food, I finally dared a sip of my gray ooze. And my entire mouth was coated with a chaotic blend of all kinds of fruits. “Oh… oh boy… oh goodness…” I tried to refrain from cursing, as the very intense flavor started to burn into my tongue, my cheeks and my throat. And while my eyes teared up, I looked over to her. I originally wanted to apologize, but that fell flat on its face as soon as I saw her giggle behind a hoof held up to her muzzle. “Oh come on!” I tried to complain, but those words came out as a broken croak. She quickly levitated my Neverend bottle over and I took a couple of desperate, greedy gulps. It washed the intensity down my throat. I was a little concerned for my stomach, but hey — that was a problem for future-Dreamwalker.

“So as it turns out,” she started with mirth all over her face, “these flavors really are highly concentrated and my initial attempts to mix something together were less successful than I had hoped. But it does taste interesting, does it not? For the first couple of seconds, anyway.”

I eyed my glass warily. It was still three quarters full. And I suddenly had a brilliant idea. She had apparently tried it herself. And we were such a close and lovey-dovey couple, were we not? So it would only be fair if we would share in this experience.

I grabbed the glass with my magic and as soon as it levitated even an inch off the table, she backpedaled a little. Sometimes I wondered if she could read minds. But that would not save her. All or nothing, she would drink from this and suffer like I had! I jumped over to her with a mad laugh and she jumped backwards. “Drink!” I commanded and she fled. She giggled like a madmare and dared me to ‘make her’.

At some point, I cleverly managed to jump onto the bed while she tried to get around it and used the momentum to jump onto her next. I had to focus so hard on the stupid glass to keep it afloat, but I managed. If barely. And with us tumbling to the ground in a pile of limbs, it was the perfect opportunity. I brought the glass closer, captured her head with my hooves and kissed her. And with a smirk, forced my tongue between her lips just enough that I could tilt our heads and pour a little bit of the vile stuff in between us. It was obviously a mess, but a few droplets managed to get in. Into her mouth and mine. And just like before, there was an explosion of fruity flavors.

“That… was not fair,” she complained while her coughing and giggling mixed in an erratic rhythm.

“You pranked me, you cheeky old mare! What did you expect!” I shot right back as I chuckled and gasped as well.

She suddenly fell deathly silent and slowly turned her head to me. “Did you just call me… old?”

I knew I was in for some trouble when that spark in her eyes turned dangerous. With a snort and a half-laugh, I didn't even try to resist as her magic overtook the hold of the glass. I just legged it. Or rather, I tried. We had wordlessly agreed to the conditions of our little ‘squabble’ at some point. One limitation was that neither was allowed to head upstairs or leave the tent. Which really did not leave all that much area to flee to, no matter how spacious Rarity’s tent was.

A furious Celestia right behind me, I attempted to distract her by levitating a piece of her plate up and throwing it in her direction. Her delighted giggle was disrupted by an amused snort as she saw the piece fly by. “Oh, you did not!”

She caught up to me quickly. I squealed and writhed around, but her hooves had an iron grip and her wings would not have allowed me to escape even if I had, by some miracle, managed to free myself from her limbs. With a laugh that sometimes effortlessly jumped the fence between maniac and heart-felt mirth, she raised my head up high, craned her neck and kissed me from above. It was a strange position and for a fraction of a second, I was worried about my horn pointing in the direction of her throat, but soon enough, the inevitable came — she pulled back, having kissed me just long enough for me to gasp — and in went the fruity torment.

At least I was glad to see that she took a sip herself, so that I did not have to suffer alone.

I stopped my struggle and leaned against her. And while we both broke out into laughter and coughing time and again, we just sat there in the middle of the room, breathing heavily as we recovered from our little chase, and shared a sip of the awful concoction every now and then. Until finally, the glass was almost empty.

She levitated it in front of my face, so that I could see just that. “Last sip,” she announced. She bravely poured it into her own mouth, and kissed me once more, forcing a part of the vile stuff into mine. It was the best kind of torture I could imagine right now.

We eventually both pulled apart again, coughed a little and washed it down with big gulps of water.

My stomach rumbled in displeasure. My throat burned, both from breathing and the burning sensation of that concoction. And my cheeks ached from laughing and grinning too much. “That was awful,” I gave my final verdict.

She giggled and nodded. “I agree.”

But we had made the best of it anyway.

We returned to our breakfast table and I picked up the piece of Allfood I had thrown at her earlier and discarded it outside. Some birds or mice or something might enjoy it. We continued our meal, and I poured myself a glass of plain water. And I was very satisfied with that. Celestia meanwhile explained what exactly had happened. She was not all that familiar with artificial flavoring and had not anticipated it being this strong. Generous as she was, she usually thought of others before thinking of herself, so my glass was the first one she tried to get ready. And she apparently used too much of the stuff. She kept it with the prank in mind and was a lot more cautious with her own. Which I was allowed to taste test, and while the flavor was still strong, it was a lot better than her first try. “So basically… you need like, half a drop or something. You know, considering that… this stuff might have been meant for entire buckets of water or something. Or bottles, at least.”

“Probably,” she agreed. “But I could not find a dropper and I doubt a spoon would have been any better.”

Another mystery I could solve after my eventual return home.

Once we were done with breakfast, we put the pillows and table back to their original places. I was confused for a moment about our saddlebags lying to the left of the entrance when I had thought I had placed them on the right side, but it would not have been the first time I remembered something incorrectly. We put them back on and prepared for another excursion.

While I did become accustomed to the jungle to some degree, that did not make the journey any less grueling. It basically only meant that my brain would shut off sooner. Step after step. Careful with the vines. Do not stumble. Drink water occasionally. Take a break and catch your breath. Those activities did not require higher brain functions. Just the evaluation of sensory input on the basest of levels. There was a small mercy to be found in this development: It made time seem to move faster. I did not talk throughout the trek. At all. Since I was not really thinking. Since I was not really there. But once we arrived at our next destination, Celestia sidled up to me and nudged me with the tip of her wing. “We’re here.”

It was… it felt like a wake-up call. I blinked a couple of times and reoriented myself. I could hardly remember any details of the past couple of hours. A green blur of vegetation. No incidents as far as I could tell. “Sorry, I, uh… zoned out…”

A small, forgiving smile graced her lips. “Do not worry. You are merely dealing with the circumstances as best as you can and I am not holding that against you. However, seeing as you struggle so much, I do have to wonder. Why do you insist on us walking to these structures? I could have brought us here by teleporting. Or even flight.”

I looked at the ruin ahead of us. It was still a good hundred feet away, so few details could be made out. Just splotches of stone visible in the green wall. I took another gulp of water while I collected my thoughts. “See, I’m… I’m not a fan of the jungle. I know that now. I don’t like it here. That’s not much of a surprise, but… you know? It was worth a shot anyway? It could have surprised me, right? And now I know. I know for sure. Because I tried it and it didn’t work. It’s probably silly, I don’t know. We already shortened this ‘adventure’ considerably. You said so yourself. We teleported to our campsite. That’s, like… what? One week of travel? Two? Three? Just done. In the blink of an eye. Now, I’m not all that keen on being stuck in a train for days on end. And we had certain limitations to work with. Getting you out of Canterlot for a week was hard enough. Well actually no, that was surprisingly easy. But I suspect it would have been considerably harder had I been talking about… I don’t know, three weeks, or something like that. Or two months. That would have been an entirely different story, right? And then we arrived and I have this tent with me. It’s great. I love it. I will rave about it to Rarity at any and all opportunities I will get in the coming months, maybe years. It’s a great tent and it makes our lives so much easier out here and I’m grateful. But let’s be honest — living in it? That’s not camping. That’s more like… living in the middle of Ponyville, with a little bit less convenience. And less neighbors, I guess. And I have organized these bottles. So we don’t have to drink from random creeks and ponds. Do you know what breeds in those things? The water could be spoiled. It could make you sick. Poison you even. Maybe. And food, too! We got this stuff from Luna and it’s great. Well, I guess I’m going to be sick of it by the end of the week, but that’s okay. We don’t have to dig for roots or collect berries or whatever. We have so many conveniences with us that it barely counts as camping at all. It’s already, like, the ‘light version’ of an adventure. Rainbow would see us here and what we have and what we do and she would laugh her ass off. Applejack as well. Although I suspect she would be kindlier about it. Point is, I feel like we should do this? I mean, we have been teleporting back every time. We walk out here, do our thing and you teleport us back to camp. That’s just another shortcut we take. And I’m fine with that? But at some point, I feel like there should be a limit. To what we can cancel and shortcut and avoid. At some point, it would not feel like an adventure anymore, right? It would not be one. I’m honestly not sure if we are doing this right. If I’m doing this right. It is my first time, after all. Mistakes are unavoidable, I suppose. And I don’t feel like I’m getting anything out of this. I don’t really spend time with you when I’m marching through the thicket. The edges dull and my eyes glaze over and my head just shuts down, I guess. It’s not exactly quality time I spent with the love of my life. But the thought of cutting that out as well just feels wrong, somehow? Like, I should endure this, at least. To make it a proper adventure, or something. We’re doing really well so far. We already have two locations down. Three more to go. That leaves us with two days before the week’s over, and I was thinking… it seems a tad unfair, in retrospect. It’s our first vacation together. I should have asked you. I mean, you agreed to this, I suppose, but then again, I didn’t ask you. Maybe once we’re done, we can teleport back home and I hoof the reins over to you? And you get to decide what we do for a few days? I think I’d like that.”

I could not pinpoint the precise point at which I had started rambling. But once again, I just could not stop myself once I was going. And she just stood there, a small, understanding smile tugging at her lips, and listened. She apparently saw no reason to stop me at any point. I instead eventually ran out of fuel. Maybe I would have started again after taking a deep breath or three, but that short break was enough for her to spring into action. She leaned down and nuzzled my cheek. Despite the jungle heat and her body heat and my general sweating, it was a gesture I appreciated a lot. Her scent, her being this close. It soothed me. “I think I understand,” she said with the same, patient smile, “and I am not questioning you or your decisions. I was merely curious about the choice. I want you to know that I could have said anything, at any point, were I not in agreement with your choices or decisions. And I would have done so too. I am a little bit too old to be shy about voicing my own opinions and preferences.” She winked at me and I chuckled quietly. I was not allowed to call her old without suffering dire consequences. But if she did it, that was something else entirely, of course. “As for those last days — let us continue here and now, first. While I am inclined to plan ahead by nature, the unknown of this adventure was a part of why I agreed to it. It is exciting. I do not require a lot of thrill and excitement in my life, to be honest. That is more my sister’s part. But every now and then, it can spice things up a little.”

I took another sip from my bottle and nodded. “Alright. We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it. And… thank you. For being patient with me.”

She shook her head, accompanied by a smile, but refrained from correcting me. “Shall we take a look at today’s test of our emotional stability?”

I grimaced a little. “Eh. You know, I would really appreciate it if it weren’t about that. Can’t they just test how quickly I can lift a rock? Preferably without pointing dart guns at me if I’m too slow?”

“Well, you did say all of this is part of some kind of trial — I do not suspect they were testing their physically strongest, judging by those first two challenges.”

She had a point, of course. The first one had been all about teamwork. And a sense of balance and jumping, I mentally added with a shrug. The second one was about being honest. I had to chuckle a little as the thought occurred: Maybe this was just their version of a training facility, not dissimilar to the fields in Canterlot where I had undergone my night guard training. Work together, do not lie. With that in mind, I grew more curious about today’s lesson. “Alright. Let’s go.”

With this being the third structure we visited, I started to get a feeling for their architecture. They really loved their dome-shaped parts and they really loved their long corridors to connect them. This third structure was a two-chamber system. One dome served as the entrance and a long hallway connected it to a second one. Both domes were relatively small, similar to the one we had visited yesterday. Which implied that maybe, they would feature simpler or smaller tasks, or maybe even none at all.

The stone was once again covered in greenery but otherwise undamaged. Time seemed to fruitlessly gnaw at it, only breaking its teeth. Maybe the stone really was enchanted. We walked around the entire thing once to take a look for details. We searched for any clues or signs of damage and to get an impression of its dimensions before we returned to the entrance and stepped in. And just like before, it was considerably cooler inside. I wiped a hoof over my brow to get rid of some of the sweat. The chamber was even smaller than it had looked on the outside. And more importantly, it was completely empty. No pedestal in the middle, no statues or trapdoors, nothing. Just a few wide and flat stairs leading into a very suspicious hallway.

The hallway was divided in the middle by a thin wall. A wall consisting of mirrors. Or rather: A mirror. The entire length of the wall was a single, long mirror. And more such mirrors covered the outer walls. They were, as far as my eyes could tell, immaculate. Little lanterns hang from the ceiling and as soon as we stepped even a single hoof on the first stair, all of them lit up in a warm and welcoming light. With the hallway being divided into two narrower hallways and both of them having mirrors on either side, the lanterns caused some pretty effects. Like the walls were sparkling and twinkling. Even after we stepped back into the entrance dome, the lanterns stayed lit. “What do you think?” Celestia asked with a playful smile.

I wanted to be a bit miffed for a moment. She looked like she had already figured it all out again and she asked me like I was one of her students and she needed to carefully guide me to some grand revelation. But that all fell apart as her earlier words rang in my mind like an echo. So far, these challenges had asked a lot of us. More than I had initially been prepared for. But she? She had seen things I could not imagine. Lived through ages so far removed that no memories of them existed anymore, besides in the heads of those immortals. Almost dying. Sacrificing herself. Having to open up about something embarrassing or troubling. In the great scheme of things, what did those things really mean to her?

Maybe I was downplaying things too much. After all, she did have nightmares because of the recent events. Maybe it really was just the thrill of the unknown getting to her, exciting her. I sighed and mustered a smile. One that grew more genuine with every moment I saw her smile in return. “Well. It doesn’t look suspicious at all, does it now? Something will happen as soon as we step a single hoof in there, I bet. And judging by our previous trials and the existence of two corridors, I think they want us to split up. I don’t see any difference between the left side and right side, so… pick your poison?”

“Right,” she chose and we switched places.

I had no idea why it mattered, why she did not just stick to the side she already stood before. And I was not even sure if she knew. “Alright. The hallway is long, but we should be able to still hear each other. So if something goes awry, just yell and I’ll be there as fast as I can.” Maybe I should not have played up the protector as much. After all, she was the sun-commanding magical alicorn-powerhouse. But it felt right to say it in the moment. Not all situations could be solved with fire and magic after all.

We both stood before our respective entrances. I tried to mentally fortify myself for whatever might happen next. Tried to reign my already rising anxiety in. “Ah, buck it,” I murmured and quickly trotted over to her to steal another kiss for myself. “For good luck,” I whispered with a grin and went back. She smiled and remained silent. “Right, let’s do this.” We stepped down the stairs and into the hallway.

And nothing happened.

“Huh. Anything on your side?” I asked.

“Nothing so far,” came the reply.

I carefully tapped the mirrors. “Maybe this thing is broken after all?”

“I can see the key up ahead,” she said.

I furrowed my brow and craned my neck, stretching my head as high up as I could manage. And indeed, on the other side of the long hallway, a similar flight of stairs went up again into another small, dome-shaped room. With a stone pedestal in the middle and a flat stone bowl containing a key. “Well. That was easy. We should probably stay alert, though.”

The impulse was there. To move at a brisker pace. To just canter down the length of this corridor and sprint up the stairs, grab the thing and teleport back out. But I highly doubted that we were done already. Sure, two examples were not exactly the largest sample size, but so far, all the structures had been intact enough to still fulfill their function.

And my caution indeed proved to be well-founded once I stepped past the halfway mark. The mirrors suddenly changed. They no longer displayed what a mirror was meant to display. A strange, black mist instead seemed to crawl out from the reflection’s floor, and quickly oozed from those mirrors onto the actual one. “Something’s happening,” I half-yelled as I tried not to panic. “Some kind of mist.”

The mist quickly rose higher and higher. I could not feel it. At all. No dampness on my legs, no prickling sensation, no numbness indicating some kind of contact poison, nothing. But after a couple of seconds, the lack of a reply frightened me more than anything else. “Celestia?” Nothing. “Love?”

The mist coalesced into something more tangible. It whirled and stretched and swallowed the lantern's light, until the floor and ceiling itself seemed to fall away. I could still feel firm ground beneath my hooves, but with an inky void below me, I dared not to move. The same darkness surrounded me on all sides now. The hallway was gone. Completely swallowed. No entrance, no exit, no keys.

And then I saw a light.

“… what?”

It was a single one at first. Absolutely tiny. But in this endless darkness, it shone as bright as a sun. It was quickly joined by another, and then another. With increasing speed, more and more lights flashed into being, until a wave of them washed over the void and painted it in the beautiful night sky I loved and knew.

“… that’s impossible,” I whispered in disbelief.

I was standing in the dreamscape.

My body was still my own. I could feel the slowly drying sweat on my leg with which I had wiped my brow earlier. I could still feel the jungle’s heat that I radiated into the colder surrounding. I heard my blood rush, felt my heart pump in anticipation of something. Either the transition into sleep had been utterly flawless in a way I knew even Luna was not capable of, or I had actually physically entered the dreamscape.

I tried to force my will into reality. I tried to manifest something small. An apple. But nothing happened. And despite this plane looking right, it did not quite feel right. So maybe this was not the dreamscape after all? Or maybe it just was not my dreamscape.

How much magic was required to break down the walls between worlds?

“Love?” I heard a vaguely familiar voice behind me. “What a pitiful notion.”

Despite my resolution not to move, I whirled around to face my opponent. And I had been sure that this would be some sort of fight, as I could hear that sneer drip off those words. My determination quickly faltered however, as I saw just what my opponent was. Who it was.

“No…” I whispered as my eyes widened. Tremors crawled up my legs and froze them in place. A splitting headache threatened to overwhelm my senses. I felt like choking as the flash almost made my knees buckle. And other lifetimes granted me a name for that pony.

Daybreaker.

Celestia gone wrong.

The revelation was crippling. Paralyzing. I knew her. The implications of this simple fact were so utterly horrifying. Celestia, with all the powers she wielded, with all that might, fallen to corruption. Limitless. Reckless. Merciless. It meant so much. Said so much about the state of that world I knew her from. But as usual, my flashes provided me with barely enough insight to pin a name to a face. I did not remember how she had come to be. What she and I were to each other. Enemies? Lovers? Certainly not friends. Daybreaker had no friends. Cared not for friends. Knew no friendship.

And I felt a seemingly bottomless well of sorrow and grief open up.

I knew her. And I had wept for her. So many days and nights. I had failed her.

My memories quickly became a spider’s web. I was caught in it, stuck, and I struggled. And the more I struggled to free my head, the more it clung to me, further crippled me. I did not see it coming, but Daybreakers first strike sent me flying. A powerful hoof struck the side of my head. More than the impact rattling my bones and thoughts, I felt the intense heat of the sun itself burn through the hair of my coat and into my skin. For as short as the contact was, I could feel it.

“You are nothing,” she snarled in a cold hatred that made my blood freeze. “Just another body on the pile.”

With harsh but measured steps, she walked over to me. I tried to manifest my armor at least. But the dreamscape still refused to comply. How was she here? Was she just another dreamscape creature? A nightmare that had taken on the memories of… of who exactly? I had only remembered her after seeing her.

I did not understand what was going on. Where I was. Who or what she was. I just understood that my life was in danger. That much was easy enough to tell. Every point at which she raised her hoof off the ground left a small flame behind. Her mane and tail were ablaze. A raging inferno. Wicked, slitted eyes full of cold anger. A forked tongue darted out between sharpened teeth. Her regalia glowed from the heat of her body alone, it almost melted. She would kill me. Without hesitating. Without thinking twice. And knowing what power she wielded… what sense was there in fighting?

Soon enough, she loomed over me. A hoof came crashing down on my neck and pinned me to the floor. I could feel the heat burn my coat again. It was not enough to make me scream. But it hurt. She lowered her head. “Pathetic.” And she charged her horn. Light and fire, more and more energy collecting in a sphere the size of a pin. It would be quick. A disintegration, more or less.

And I still felt such anguish over her fate.

“Sunny,” I managed to croak out.

It broke her concentration. The sphere of annihilation vanished, dissipated. And for just a second, her slitted eyes widened. In surprise. Shock. Maybe fear. I could not tell. She recoiled from me before once more firmly planting her hooves on the ground. “I have not heard that name for a long time. Who are you? How dare you?!”

I felt it more than I knew it. Standing up would be a death-warrant. A sign of defiance swiftly leading to her crushing said resistance utterly. So I instead just shifted slightly. I rolled onto my stomach, sat down and faced her. And I could not keep my pity out of my face. “What in the world happened to you?”

“What happened to me? What happened to me?!” She screeched like a fury. She reared up and brought her hooves down. A wave of light and heat raced away. It was uncomfortable, blinding, but at least it did not truly hurt. “Are you blind, fool? Are you deaf? A dimwitted oaf, perhaps?” she yelled.

I instinctively raised a hoof in her direction. Somewhere in there, I hoped… I liked to believe. Somewhere in there was my Celestia. My Sunny. And while my mind raced and spun and produced more and more horror scenarios, it only now occurred to me that these magic mirrors might have actually changed my Sunny into this creature. Filling a pony with immeasurable despair — a surefire way to create a nightmare creature — was so much easier than tearing down walls between realities.

I had to get her back.

But that cold anger in her eyes was genuine. And although I saw a flicker of something that was neither hatred nor anger, I dared not to press my luck too much and let my hoof sink again. She had reacted to that name once. I hoped it would help me again. “I don’t understand. What happened, Sunny?”

She snorted in frustration and shook her head as if to get rid of a pesky fly. “They abandoned me!” she yelled and her anger flared up once more. “I cared for them! I had helped them! I made them what they were! And they dared to fear her! They dared to touch her! She could have struck them down, any and all of them, and she should have! But she had grown soft and weak and she let them—… she let them…” Her voice broke. Memories flared to life behind her eyes. Torturing her. Letting her relive some horrible moment of her past. Something that broke her. She violently shook her head once more. Steam rose from her face where tears quickly evaporated. “And when I came down on those fools like vengeance incarnate, when I brought justice to their traitorous hides, they dared to turn on me! Me!”

Day and night were concepts. Fundamental parts of how the world worked. They could not be destroyed without first destroying reality itself. But a concept did not need a body of flesh and blood, per se. A concept could exist without being part of the world it helped to form.

How little that mattered in the face of love. And sanity.

A dead Luna. Disembodied, as Celestia had called it once when she spoke about what exactly she had done to Discord. She would of course come back eventually. But after one thousand years of suffering, of loneliness… how long would it take? How long would she have to remain alone this time?

Yes. I could see that breaking her. Easily. The mere prospect of it.

And did I not somehow understand the nature of loneliness myself? Maybe not to its full extent. Maybe not in the same way she did. She, who had lost her mind because of it.

I felt tears stream down my face. I touched a hoof to them in surprise. Daybreaker seemed just as confused. And alarmed, as I struggled to get up. “I’m sorry,” I quietly said, barely above a whisper. Yet with the dead silence all around us, it was heard. “I’m sorry I failed you.” I slowly walked towards her. Maybe she would strike me down. A single, focused beam of sunlight would burn me to ashes quicker than I could realize what was happening. “I’m sorry I wasn’t there for you when you needed me most.”

“Stay back!” she bellowed and retreated half a step. She clearly was not used to doing that.

Had she not told me? I cannot lose you, my love's voice echoed in my head. A thousand years of loneliness. If she clung to me like that. Enough to make this stupid choice. How much worse would it be with her beloved little sister? “I’m sorry it all went this far,” I continued. She took another step back. It did little. Soon enough, I was standing right in front of her. She still towered over me. Her eyes were less slitted than they had been initially. A good sign, maybe. But her mane and tail were still pure, eternal fire. Worse than a flame, worse than dragon fire. A manifestation of the concept of fire itself. It greedily devoured everything it came into contact with.

“I’m sorry I failed you,” I repeated and tried to smile despite the guilt wracking me and the pain I felt seeing her like this. “Give me another chance,” I asked. I pleaded with her. Begged her. “I’ll stay with you. No matter what.” And with that, I leaned in. She tried to retreat again, but I caught her with a hoof and pulled her forward. She could have flung me across this void with little effort if she truly had wanted to.

And I hugged her.

I hugged her so tightly as if my life depended on it. And who knew — maybe it did.

She tensed up and stayed motionless. “What are you doing?!” she hissed. But her voice had lost that sharp edge that made me fear for my life.

Her body was incredibly hot, painfully so. I tried to stay away from her regalia. That glowing piece of metal mere inches away from me. “I will keep you company. So you don’t have to be alone,” I replied as if that would explain everything she needed to know.

“And you would stay with me, through waves of bloody murder and tyranny?” she asked with a derisive snort. “You would stay when I force the curse of immortality down your throat? When empires crumble and the whole world burns to ash, slag and cinder?”

The implications of her power gone rogue weighed heavily on my mind. I had a name for this face. This grimace, disfigured, maimed by loss and grief and anger. Her world sounded like a dismal affair. With only more loneliness feeding her insanity. At the end of all things… something tiny and insignificant… would maybe be enough to make all the difference.

There was no hesitation when I nodded. “I would. I will not leave you.” And she would not allow for her mistake to ever repeat itself. A dead world of fire and dust. No chance of anything happening, ever. Maybe I would go insane as well. Eventually. I did not dare to think about that.

“Then you are a fool,” she replied. But her voice had changed ever so slightly. Instead of the sharpened edge from the beginning, I now heard the faint ghost of a softer side. Something buried so incredibly deep down. But no matter how deep it was buried, it was only important that it was there.

“I know,” I answered. And I wondered about the strange echo I heard. It sounded like my own voice, but slightly distorted. Colder. The void around us knew no bounds, no walls or floors. Where had this echo even come from?

Before I could make heads or tails of this, I heard Daybreaker sigh. It was a brief sound. One of defeat, in a way. Of acceptance. “At least you are my fool,” she said.

A massive crack startled me. I pulled back, frantically looked around and saw myriads of mirror shards fall to the floor. I felt dazed. I turned and wanted to ask Daybreaker if she knew what was happening. But she was gone. I sat in the middle of a hallway I had problems recognizing. Long, immaculate mirrors broke and shattered to both sides while lanterns overhead spent their light, uncaring for all the events. How had I gotten here?

At the other side was a chamber with a strange column in the middle. Some sort of pedestal, with a stone bowl on top. It looked familiar.

But before I could sort through the slowly lifting haze, the wall a few feet ahead started to glow and then melted away. At which point did stone melt?

Celestia stepped through the hole once it was large enough. Patches of molten rock clung to her wings and she flicked them aside without much care. She frantically looked around until she spotted me and rushed over.

Celestia. I had a name for that beautiful face. But it was distorted in grief and anger. No. Neither of those. Concern. Concern and relief.

I blinked. She pulled me into a tight embrace, sparing no word. And her scent was so incredibly familiar and welcome and soothing. I let it lull me in. And memories slowly freed themselves from this haze’s grasp. “I thought I had lost you,” I whispered into her coat. I could still feel the streaks on my cheeks, the trails tears had left behind. New or old, I could not tell. I did not care. I was just glad to have her back. “Luna is fine,” I whispered as insistently as I could. “Luna is fine.” And so was she. And so were we. And so was this world.

And yet I trembled.

I knew Daybreaker now. I remembered her. She had been real. Was real. Somewhere out there. It had become a terrifying reality, knowing what my serenely calm, patient and tender love could become. “Luna is fine,” I whispered once more.

She eventually pushed me back a little. Just enough to take a closer look at me.

“You have burns,” she said with a slight tremble in her voice. I could feel them now that she had mentioned their existence. The right side of my face glowed. It was mildly painful. Needles pricking my skin. “I hugged her,” I said. She carefully tilted my head. I knew why. There was a more severe burn on the side of my neck.

“That does not look like hugging,” she replied, but she did not dare to touch the burnt skin.

I was not about to tell her that she had stepped on my neck, moments away from pushing down and breaking it. I instead refocused my attention as best as I could. I inspected her for signs of struggle. And they were easy enough to spot. Parts of her coat were burnt as well. Just in a different manner. Little patches of hair clung together, forming small spikes. Frozen solid in ice. Several little patches here and there. A story formed. A familiar one. A fight. Kicks and punches. Some connected. A struggle. And finally, a breakdown. A hug to offer comfort. The hoofprints gracing her were considerably smaller than the one on my neck.

Who had she encountered over there?

“We need to get back to camp,” she broke my chain of thoughts. “These wounds must be cleaned, disinfected and treated.”

I numbly nodded. From this distance away, I managed to pull the key out of the bowl and drag it across the floor until it was close enough to properly levitate it over to us. I opened up my saddlebag and let it drop in without a second thought. As soon as the saddlebag was closed again, she teleported us straight out of the corridor, straight into the tent.

“Sit down on the bed, please. I will be right back.”

I did as she asked. Everything somehow still felt a little bit surreal. I didn't even notice a couple of minutes passing by before she came back, prepared with a bowl of water. It smelled like… something. Something was in there. Maybe some kind of disinfectant? I tried to make myself less useless by levitating the first aid kit out from our supply pile. Soon enough, she carefully dabbed the burned sections with a washcloth. “Doesn’t that hurt?” I asked, unable to tear my eyes off of her freezer burns.

She sighed. “It does. But only slightly and we can take care of that once I am done.”

It confused me to no end. Alicorns were tough, were they not? A sword was not able to slice their skin open. Poison was ineffective. How did she have freezer burns?

But I tried to be patient. I kept my mouth shut and waited for her to finish her work. She seemed very efficient at it. Probably had to stitch Luna together more than enough times when they were younger. I had to smile at that image in my head. A small filly Luna jumped and ran around. She had a great adventure in her little world until she scraped her knee or something. And her loving, caring big sister was there for her. She tended to her needs, dried her tears. And put a bandaid over her scrape.

I hissed a little when she put some sort of tincture on the wound on my neck. It burned. “Sorry,” she whispered.

“Don’t,” I quickly replied. “Seeing how much I will have to care for after this, I don’t think you would appreciate me saying ‘sorry’ twelve times or so…” She did not protest further. She instead finished up her work with a balm over the lesser burns and a bandage around my neck. I hated that feeling. There was a reason I rather caught a cold in winter than to wear a scarf. But oh well. Nurse’s orders.

We eventually switched places.

She had come out worse. And I was a lot less experienced in administering first aid. I emptied and refilled the water bowl, got a different washcloth and started to do my best with the occasional question for guidance or little helpful comment from her. It took time. A lot. And at the end, I applied the same balm to her that she had smeared across my face. And neck. And parts of my chest. At least it did not smell like anything at all.

Only after I was done did I take a curious look at the balm’s can. White, unlabeled. “What is this stuff anyway?” I asked.

She looked over and noticed what I held. “It is specifically designed to help treat burn wounds. The castle kitchen staff developed it. The formula is good enough that we stock hospitals with it, even though it is a little bit pricey.”

I did not dare to ask for a number. I had no idea why exactly she had packed this. But I was very, very grateful she had done so. I could barely feel my own burns anymore. And the can was almost empty now. “We don’t have enough for a second application, I think.”

She nodded. “I know. We should not need one, hopefully. By tomorrow, the minor burns should be good and the larger ones… well, they should at least be considerably better. We should have enough to treat those again.”

I looked into the can again and was less sure about that than her. Which made it a lot easier to decide that I would treat her first and whatever else was left could be smeared across my neck.

After we had sufficiently cared for our wounds, we resorted to doing something simple. We laid down on the bed, side by side on our backs — after all, the balm still needed time to work its magic. Literally. And it would be less than ideal if we were to rub it all over the pillows and blankets.

“Sooo… somehow, I did not expect us to actually get wounded. Strange, isn’t it?” I started quietly. And it was, was it not? We had talked about it. A lot, actually. Big cats. Leeches. Rat-sized mosquitoes. Heck, tripping over a vine could lead to some nasty wounds as well. Something as simple as that could break a leg. Literally. Or a skull or neck, depending on how unlucky somepony really was. But even when sticking to the realm of more likely possibilities, there was a lot. First challenge — a bunch of pits. Falling down was a real threat. How had barely any of this ever felt like a ‘real’ threat?

For the first time ever, I felt like I could almost understand Moondancer’s warning. That I was getting way in over my head for something as ‘mundane’ as a Hearth’s Warming present. But it felt like we had already crossed the point of no return. This had become an issue of the sunk cost fallacy. I had made the decision and was too stubborn to think about it again. To revert it. Something like that mindset could just as easily break a leg.

“Was Luna in danger?” she asked after a while. She was still calm. Collected. But her worry was evident nonetheless. “I had forgotten to ask this morning.”

I lifted my head off the pillow, just enough so that I could turn to the side and kiss her cheek without distributing the balm all over the place. “She wasn’t. She’s still in Canterlot and her reign of endless night and tyranny has begun. Those nobles stuck to their guns and told other nobles, and they marched into Court as well, demanding stuff. She kindly showed them the exit. She’s apparently considering raising one of her aides to nobility. Because she had less than twenty-four hours and managed to find some sort of tax law hole or whatever that allowed Luna to shoot straight back. ‘We would technically owe you this much, but according to this thing, you owe us this much — why don’t we forget about this, eh?’ Something along those lines. So… yeah, she’s handling herself well, I think.”

I smiled when I heard her sigh in relief. “Thank you.” We fell silent for a while. Until she broke it once more. “I could hear you, I think. At the end. There was a strange…”

“Like an echo,” I cut in and saw her nod. “Yeah. I could hear you too. I still don’t… I don’t quite understand what that was.”

“Who did you meet?” she asked again.

I considered not answering for a moment. I was pretty sure she already knew. That hoof print burned into my neck was her size. Exactly. And there were not exactly many ponies with a frame as large as hers. Adding to that, the notes in the book could have name-dropped her. And maybe she had simply felt it. The same way I felt that she had encountered some darker, lost version of myself. But she was unwilling to engage in my idle musings about the nature of this test and instead dug deeper and deeper, driven by her curiosity. She would not let me not answer. “You know already,” I suspected.

“I think I do,” she replied without hesitation. “But I need to hear it.”

I sighed. It was strange. She was a mare. Thousands of years old. The embodiment of something fundamental to this world. I was neither of those and there were enough other differences setting us apart and yet somehow, I sometimes felt like we were eerily similar. A name would have been sufficient for her. But that way, I would leave up to her own mind what she did with that name. And I was not willing to take that risk. “Her name is Daybreaker. In her world, ponies never learned to accept Luna after her return. They continued to fear her and eventually… fear led to action. Luna didn’t defend herself. I don’t know how, but they… they killed her. And then you killed them. And everything spiraled out of control quickly. It wasn’t just the loss and the grief that broke her. Luna cannot be truly killed. She would come back, eventually.”

“It is the waiting that wears you down,” she replied with a neutral, carefully measured voice.

I sighed. “Please don’t do this, love. You are not her.”

“But I could be,” she replied, still calm and steady.

“But you won’t be,” I insisted. In that last millennium, how many times did she think about this? How many times did she think about giving up control. Giving in to the most petty urges. Letting her anger lash out. Letting her grief and desperation win. How many times had she thought about this scenario in which the true force of her power was unleashed on an unsuspecting world?

This time, she tilted her head to look at me. “And how would you know? Because you will make sure of that? How, exactly? And what of the time when you will not be—“ She cut herself off. She took a deep breath, and looked back up at the ceiling.

It hurt to see her like this. “I will die someday, yes. One way or another. As all of your previous spouses have. And I’m pretty sure they would tell you the same. You have a good heart, love. That doesn’t mean you’re incorruptible. It doesn’t mean you can’t fall. But there will always be others to pick you back up when you can’t do it yourself. You just have to trust them. There is still Cadance. And Twilight. And when it really comes down to it, you could still give yourself a timeout. And wait for whatever changes might happen to pass. I’m not saying you should. All I’m saying is that… you have a choice. You will always have a choice.”

She remained silent for a while before once again tilting her head to look at me. There was a great uncertainty in her eyes that she did not even attempt to hide. “Would you really have stayed with me? Even in that form? In a barren world? Even when I would have forced you to endure it until the end of time with me?”

The implications were harsh. I had no hope of grasping what eternity was like. I could only go with my gut. And that actually made me smile with tender love and dedication. And no room to spare for doubt for once. “I would.” I leaned over and kissed her. And she accepted it. “I’m not exactly happy with your preferred temperature, to be honest, I'm more of a winter-guy,” I immediately after started to jest. “Like… eternal summer? Really? That’s the harshest form of ‘you will sleep on the couch tonight’ that I have ever heard of. But alright, fine. I’ll deal with it. At least I can then make all the ‘my wife is so incredibly hot’-jokes.”

I coaxed an honest smile out of her. And that was enough.

“Do you want to know about him?” she asked me a while later.

I had honestly hoped we had managed to move past this topic. Maybe I had underestimated something. Or overestimated? Either way, I was not entirely sure how to answer that question. It was not every day one got the chance to learn something about one’s own nightmare version. “Has all the chill in the world while simultaneously daring to lay a hoof on you? Nah. I think I’m good. I know all I need to know, I think.”

She watched me, I could feel it. For a solid minute or two, she just watched me. “You know it is not that simple.”

I sighed. “I know. Well, on some level I do. I try not to think about it too much. He hurt you. And I despise him for that. Which means I’m very angry with myself, in a way. Old hat, you know? It’s just… it doesn’t bring anything new to the table. Not really. The more I think about the entire scenario, the more I come to the conclusion that none of it was real. It was just what you had said earlier. A test of emotional stability, or something like that. You are not Daybreaker. I know that she exists. Somewhere. But this is this world and her world is not this one and there’s a clear line separating the two. I’m not even sure if it is even possible to cross that line. Point is, I’m not… whatever he called himself. I’m not him. Maybe he exists somewhere, too. I don’t care. I don’t want to care. And I don’t want to know, actually. Maybe that brands me as ignorant. But I have enough flaws and fears to deal with. I don’t want to have to study my own fallen version to see all the ways in which I, as a pony, could go horribly, horribly wrong. I think I have a decently solid grasp on how that might happen already, without knowing anything about him. And just as it was with Daybreaker, I also like to think that I know how to prevent him from ever existing in this world. And you know what? I have a couple of very good friends and three incredible mares helping me with that. One of which is lying right beside me, right now. And that she’s there makes me happy. Just because she’s there. And I don’t think you can truly fall to the darkness within you if you can still feel happy. Not satisfied. Not content. But happy.”

She shifted, sat up in bed and looked down to me. A playful smile graced her lips. “You can be so sappy sometimes,” she teased and a second later leaned down and… blew a raspberry. On my belly.

I instantly tried to get away from her, with limbs flailing wildly, while I could not stop laughing. I tried to reprimand her for her actions, but not a single word had any chance of successfully passing through my throat as she continued her assault. Powerful hooves grabbed me and pulled me back down as I had managed to wriggle myself a few inches away, towards the bed’s edge. And she effortlessly pinned me under herself and showed no mercy at all. Even as I tried to beg, she continued.

I was not sure what made her stop. But eventually, she stopped. I took deep, hungry breaths and tried to compose myself. As I was slowly regaining my senses, I looked up at her with a wide grin and she replied in kind, still looming over me. She leaned down again after a moment. I gasped when I felt the tip of one of her wings lazily trail down my stomach. “Want me to make you happy?” she huskily asked.

Still unable to properly work with words again, I just bit down on my lower lip and vigorously nodded. Yes please!

It was late at night when I woke up again. My neck felt sore and I could feel the skin strain. Having sex while having burns might not have been the smartest idea, but I was not about to regret anything. I looked over to my side and smiled as I watched her sleep for a moment.

A stray thought brought with it a random idea. Which, as everypony knew, were always the best and should be followed up on without second thought. So I sneakily managed to extricate myself from her embrace without waking her up and equally quietly climbed out of bed. I used my newfound freedom to look around, but the darkness made that considerably more difficult.

It mostly took time. Moving in the dark with the intention of staying silent mostly meant moving at a snail’s pace, which I did not really mind all that much. I carried the bedside table out of the tent and searched for a decent spot to put it down. It only wobbled a little bit, but that was the best spot I could find. Next up, I brought the pillows out and placed them down. Rarity would have killed me on the spot and I was decently sure that right now, back home in Ponyville, she had a vile shudder run down her spine without knowing why. Her precious, beautiful pillows, placed on dirt. Well, placed on burned wood and ashes, actually. So much better. I then fetched some glasses, some plates, some cutlery and continued to build a little dinner, if admittedly a very late one. An outdoor dinner under the starry night sky.

And with a candle in the vase, the arrangement was done and I finally snuck up to the bed and softly placed a hoof on her shoulder. “Hey, sleepyhead.” She blinked a couple of times before she realized that it was dark. “I have a surprise for you.” She had to have lowered the sun at some point, of course. But I knew that she could do that half-asleep if need be.

“It’s the middle of the night?” she replied but sat up anyway and rubbed her eyes.

“I know, I know,” I tried to mollify her. “Thing is, we’ve been falling asleep waaay too early. We probably would have woken up in the middle of the night anyway.”

As soon as she exited the bed and looked awake enough — as far as I could tell without light —, I started to guide her outside. I stepped up to her side as soon as we were out and while she enjoyed the sights and sounds, I enjoyed her reaction to both.

The marvelous night sky above us painted the inky void with patterns and clusters of brightly twinkling stars. Out here in the middle of nowhere, it was even more impressive than back in Canterlot or even Ponyville, where even a single candle meant some sort of light pollution.

Down the hill to the sides was the jungle. The pale starlight painted it in softer hues and made the shadows between trees grow even darker. And all around the edges, even smaller, yellowish lights blinked. Swarms of fireflies. They were just about everywhere in the jungle, it seemed.

And I had honestly considered leaving it at that. Dragging a blanket out here, sitting down with her and just enjoying the sights. And sounds, admittedly, as the cacophony that reigned in the jungle throughout the day had transformed into something less hectic and chaotic sounding. I had no idea what kind of birds made those sounds, but their singing was beautiful. Still a little mixed up, seeing as so many were singing from so many directions, but still a lot better than it was throughout the day.

I had gone slightly overboard of course. As usual. And with a flick of my horn, I scratched a piece of flint across and ignited the candle in the middle of the table. I had even managed to scavenge a tablecloth. Our seating arrangement was ready to go and I had even prepared the dinner itself a little. Allfood was all good and well, but a little variety did not hurt. A single slice was waiting on the plate, next to a small bowl standing in the middle of each plate. Empty, for now. A pot sat to the side, on the still warm remnants of a small fire. I had taken four slices and drenched them in enough water to hopefully produce something akin to a stew.

Maybe I should have taste-tested that. Then again, that stuff was made from vegetables and starch. It should have worked. It probably worked. Yeah, it’ll be fine.

And finally, I had tried my hoof at a proper mixture of water and flavoring as well. I had not found a dropper either and I had no idea how Rarity usually dealt with this, but I had used a spoon. A small spoon. And half a dozen tries. Per glass.

Before I lit the candle, the night sky was the first thing to capture her attention. She had seen it like this many times before, I was sure. And yet there was still wonder in her eyes. A deep satisfaction. Appreciation for her sister’s beautiful work. She eventually noticed the many fireflies dancing around at the foot of the hill with a smile. And with the candle lit, she took in my preparations. “How long have you been out here?” she dared to ask.

“You don’t want to know,” I replied with a subdued chuckle. I honestly was not quite sure myself. And it was my personal way of saying ‘I don’t wish to answer that’. “Feeling hungry?”

“We did skip dinner,” she replied, which was as much of an answer as I had expected.

I just grinned and ushered her to her seat before I took mine. “Stew?”

“We have stew? Please tell me you did not just—“ she started, furrowing her brow.

“Nope,” I cut in. “I’m not going to risk poisoning us by just throwing random greenery from the jungle into a pot, boiling it for a while and praying that it was enough.” Well at least she had the decency to blush a little as she apparently had suspected me to be that foolish. “We’re sticking to Luna’s rations. I just added water. Lots and lots of water.”

“In that case — yes please.” And she levitated her bowl over.

I raised the lid and put a first ladle in her bowl. I quickly realized that what I had assumed would be stew was more like… a puree. “Oh wow. Just how much water does this stuff soak up, sheesh…”

We both giggled a little as I filled her bowl, then mine, and fell silent as we ate. I took my time to marvel at the night sky every now and then. And eventually, our food was gone. “All filled up?” I asked.

“To the gills,” she replied with a smile.

“Well, I love to hear that. And if you wait for a second, I can make this even better.” While she watched curiously, I unfolded the blanked and put it down next to the table. “Tadaaa. Would my love care to join me for some mild stargazing and maybe some fooling around?”

She rose from her pillow, moved over ,settled down next to me and pulled me against her side with a wing. “She would love to. Although I am not sure about the latter, as she might still feel a little sore from earlier and quite full after such a decadent meal.”

I kissed a little trail on her neck, accompanied by a happy sigh. “Ah, that’s quite alright. I just like to keep options open, if possible.” And thus, we fell into a companionable silence as we watched the pretty display above our heads. And due to the recent forest fire, there were not even that many insects attempting to bother me. We sat there for maybe an hour, maybe two — it was hard to tell. She would occasionally point out a formation and tell a little story about it. I would do the same, although all of my stories were made up on the spot — I was no Twilight after all. She did not mind and seemed quite entertained, which really had been the goal anyway.

And later that night, we got a good reason to question if maybe Luna somehow knew. We witnessed a small star shower. Seven shooting stars streaking across the sky. That was worth seven wishes in theory. I just had one: Let all be happy. It was once again sappy as hell. Rainbow would have gagged. Rightfully so, maybe. It had been the best I could come up with quickly. But then again, there was not all that much I desired anyway.

With the shooting stars being the obvious high point of the night, we decided it was time to retreat back inside. We quickly packed up all the stuff I had previously dragged outside and put them near the entrance once we were back inside. I would have to at least attempt to clean them in the daylight.

And soon enough, we went back to bed.