“You’re sure this isn’t a dream?”
Luna smirked, but the expression went unseen in the pitch black of the night. “Not everything I do is confined to the realm of dreams, Scootaloo.”
The filly next to her looked away to the ground and dropped a nervous chuckle. “R-right. Sorry. It’s just, you know—”
“Hard to believe it could be real, yes?”
“Yeah.”
Luna nodded and extended a wing out to nudge Scootaloo closer to her. She twisted her head around and spoke to her, appearing all the world as a mother goose checking in on her goslings. Scootaloo shivered, and Luna spoke to her in a whisper.
“While dreams may be an avenue to greater things, they are merely guideposts for our lives. How you interpret them is up to you and there is never a wrong interpretation, of course. But they are simply the cards upon the table. It’s up to you how you want to play them. Hush, now,” she muttered, turning her head away to stare into the darkness.
“Are they close?” Scootaloo whispered, hating herself for the tremble in her withers. “A-are you sure this is safe for me, Princess Luna?”
“Yes, child,” the alicorn assuaged, before picking Scootaloo up in her magic and setting her upon her back. “So long as I am around, the monsters will not have power over you. Hold on now. I’m going to go a little closer.”
With the filly firmly clutched about her barrel, Luna took three quick steps upon the rock before ascending from the top of the rocky outcropping. Scootaloo couldn’t help herself but gasp as the world changed to a top-down perspective. Massive moraines and fields of overgrown grass spotted a deep and ancient forest, the leaves shining a deep and inky blue in the late moonlite. In the distance she could see the faint edges of the Frozen North, and as they rose in the sky she felt she could feel the sapping cold from those icy flows seep into her bones. She shivered again and nestled deep into Luna’s downy coat, content with simply the sensation of flying.
They landed gracefully, and the only reason Scootaloo had noticed it was due to the shadows of trees sweeping past her eyelids. She blinked, realizing that somehow she had nodded off even while in the air.
It was almost morning, she figured, clamping down on her jaw in response to the urge to yawn.
Luna leant over and Scootaloo let herself down to the forest floor. If this was a dream, she thought, Luna had done an exceptional job of making the peaty ground damp and realistically soft.
“Shhh,” Luna mimed, holding a hoof to her mouth before using it to point in front of the two of them. Scootaloo followed the hoof with her eyes, and then snapped her mouth shut at the last second, suffocating a gasp of wonder.
Before them a family of Ursa Major nestled into each other, not two hundred feet away in a clearing of their own making. The massive constellations shimmered and glinted in the dark shadows of the forest, each huffy snore sending galaxies swirling off into the aegean sea. Stars danced with each other in a silent jamboree, backed by a symphony of colours. Purples and blues and greens swirled about in the gigantic bears, and it took every ounce of her self control not to shriek in amazement.
The princess next to her allowed herself a soft chuckle as she dropped to her hindquarters. That same, dark blue wing came out again, not to pull Scootaloo away but to rest around her shivering back. It was not so much the warmth but the touch itself that eased her twitching muscles, and despite the pure magic of it all, she found a frown sneaking onto her face.
She shook it away and looked up, catching Luna’s eye and returning her warm smile. She could ask about it later, of course. Now was not a good time.
One of the Ursa Major snorted and shifted, and Scootaloo felt the gentle weight on her back turn tense, ready to snap shut in an instant. Now really was not a good time.
The bear returned to sleeping and the wing settled down once again and for an age the two ponies, yearling filly and ancient demi-god alike, sat and observed. They watched as two galaxies collided into one inside an Ursa and the dust from that explosion drifted into another of the creatures. They watched as the smallest one—just big enough not to be a Minor—yawned and stretched out to what must have been its mother, and watched as the mother pulled it in close. They watched, silent and unmoving, until finally the first rays of sunlight began to pick their way through the pine needles and broad leaves, shifting the navy blue world to a bright and cheerful green.
“I fear we have run out of time,” Luna said in hushed tones, wary of the rays of light now aiming for the Ursa’s eyes. “Worry not, young Scootaloo,” she added, scooping her back up onto herself. “There is still much night left in Ponyville.”
“Wait,” Scootaloo whispered, though exhausted as she was the word came out with no sense of urgency. Even as the turquoise magic highlighted her hooves and legs, she couldn’t seem to muster the importance of her question in her voice. “Are you really sure this isn’t a—
“—dream,” she finished a moment later, speaking into her pillow. A quick glance out the window showed the moon still to be high, and the distant bonging of a clock bounding through an empty house confirmed to Scootaloo what the time truly was.
She spent a long time staring at her ceiling, considering how cold her wings felt.
She spent many nights like that.
Tonight, however, she focused on how the chill was all throughout her body as well, and the damp scent of peat moss filling her room. She sighed, and she shrugged, and then, she snored.
It was the sudden change in feeling from her soft and perhaps too-warm mattress to the cold and definitely too-hard ground that woke her. Scootaloo cracked her eyes open, noting that once again she was outside, her body curled up in a lower section of a grassy field. Opening them further she could see an unfamiliar sky far above, the endless sea of stars off from the one she knew from Ponyville.
There came a long, low, scraping noise from behind her, but she ignored it for the time being as she slowly shifted to her hooves and continued to examine her new location. Fields rolled far off into the distance, and instead of the shadows of great frozen mountains settling menacingly off to the north, she could hear the distant shimmer of waves crashing upon a rocky shore. Between here and wherever exactly that body of water was, the rolling grassy knolls were interrupted only by sparse bundles of bushes and small thickets of thin, willowy trees.
The scraping noise came again and she turned, popping her wing joints while stretching her back up like a cat. For reasons she couldn’t quite expect, no surprise registered in her mind as her eyes settled onto Luna, who had sat down by the small glowing embers of a fire. Next to her was a huge, two-hoofed broadsword, and a whetstone shone in turquoise magic as it slowly slid from tip to guard along the sword’s edge.
“Did you have a good birthday?” Luna asked, not looking up from her handiwork.
“Yeah,” Scootaloo answered, before stifling a yawn. Her body felt tired but her mind seemed not to be affected by the interrupted sleep. “Yeah, it was really good. Not as crazy as my cuteceanera, though,” she chuckled.
“I would love to hear about it,” Luna replied, finally breaking her focus to smile warmly at her. “The fire is low but warm. Have a seat, young Scootaloo.”
Scootaloo dropped quietly to her hindquarters, still bending her neck around as she tried to place where she was—or thought she was. The fire was nothing much more than a few embers of long-spent lumber, but true to her word it gave off a comfortable heat that warded off the chill of late night. Sticking her forehooves out to warm them, she spoke.
“I woke up a little earlier than I normally do with plans to make myself a good breakfast. Normally there’s just cereal if the milk is still good, but I planned and used some of the gift money my parents mailed me to buy some orchids and lilies to fry up. We already had the stuff to make pancakes, and with the leftover bits I was even able to get a bottle of cider from Sweet Apple Acres.”
Luna paused in her sharpening and raised an eyebrow at her.
“Er, the non-alcoholic stuff. I heated it up on the stove and had it hot. After that I cleaned up and was about to go out and hang out at the treehouse, but Sweetie Belle and Apple Bloom suddenly knocked on my door! Sweetie managed to get tickets from Rarity for the circus that’s in Canterlot right now, and Apple Bloom convinced Applejack to let us go on the train by ourselves there.”
“You have some wonderful friends.”
“Yeah,” Scootaloo smiled, scuffing a small circle into the grass. “Anyways we spent most the day there, and at the end when we got back on the train, that’s when they surprised me one more time.”
“Oh?”
“I thought the present was the circus, with them, you know? But they actually got me something. It’s a music box. A little enchanted kinda thing, where you can speak to it and ask it to play something in whatever genre you want. They said it was to help keep the house a little less quiet. I, uh,” she stammered, her voice choking up. “I cried. A little.”
Another eyebrow came up from the alicorn. “You, Scootaloo? The strongest of the crusaders?”
“Have you seen Apple Bloom? She’s getting bulkier by the day! Besides, we’re all strong in our own ways.”
“And from what I understand, the one with the most emotional fortitude is you.”
“Maybe. Sure.” She looked up at the stars again and sighed, her exhalation coinciding with another scrape of the whetstone. “Sometimes maybe it just feels like I don’t feel anything, not that I’ve felt it and dealt with it. Besides, I’m only telling you this because it’s a dream.”
“Is it?” Luna set the sword and whetstone down, and then stood up tall and walked around to sit next to Scootaloo. “Is not the heat of the fire and the touch of my wing real?” she asked, settling said wing down on the filly’s back. “Must all my interactions be within the realm of dreams?”
“With a pony like me? Usually. I’m not famous like Twilight or Rainbow Dash. Everypony knows that you visit foals in their dreams when they need someone, but a Princess is too busy to come to us in person.”
Luna snorted. “And while you are correct in that regard, have I come to you? Or are you now here, with me?”
Scootaloo blinked and looked around once again, her orange cheeks giving way to a light blush. “Well, right, okay, sure. But why then? And where are we?”
“You answered the why yourself just now, though consider that perhaps I sometimes need a pony’s company myself. As to where, we’re on the southwestern coast of Equestria.”
“How come?”
“...”
“Luna?”
“Do you remember the other month, with the Ursas?”
“Yes, of course.”
“Still think that was a dream?”
Scootaloo tittered. “I-I guess. But it was wonderful regardless.”
Luna stood up again and stood tall next to the blade, her visage suddenly far darker as the embers gleamed off the blade. “Part of my duties as Princess include defending the borders of Equestria. My sister manages this aspect of her position through political means. When force is required, however, is when I am called for.”
Scootaloo squinted. “Don’t we have a military for this?”
“Not one that can teleport to deal with single issues across the country with short notice. The Ursas were reported to me the morning of the night I brought you to visit. They were of no danger to anypony, however, and I later spoke with the traveller who had sent word requesting they be dealt with, and explained the sanctity of nature in our land.
“However, other threats are more substantial. Threats such as a timberwolf threatening a farmstead. The locals are unequipped, and having a squadron dispatched would take too long and be a waste of several resources.” She picked the blade up in her magic and swung it around, the recently-sharpened edge hissing through the air as Scootaloo stared in awe. “Some creatures are resistant to magic, and require more physical means.”
“That seems pretty dangerous,” Scootaloo spoke slowly, waiting for Luna to nod in acknowledgement before continuing. “So, this is a dream, right?”
Luna levitated the sword over next to her and levitated the sword over so the pommel hovered in front of Scootaloo’s muzzle. “I’m afraid this is very real, but once more I assure you you are in no danger. I will send you home soon, worry not.”
It was Scootaloo’s turn to raise an eyebrow. “I, uh… Maybe it’s inappropriate to question royalty, but like… why am I… here?”
Luna sat back down next to her, the sword still levitating before her. “You were having another nightmare,” she admitted. “I felt it and undid it before it committed to memory for you. During this it occurred to me that you had just turned fifteen, and I felt some more compensation than simply a dreamless sleep was in order.” Her magic flared a bit, and the sword moved closer to Scootaloo. “Would you like to hold it?” she offered, rotating it so the mouth grip that formed the handle was apparent.
Scootaloo smiled, satisfied with an explanation for this dream. With an excited nod she reached out and grasped the handle in her teeth, and found herself beaming even harder.
Luna chuckled and, with a spark from her horn, the magic around the broadsword vanished. Scootaloo found herself dropping hard, managing to catch herself from completely falling as the point of the sword plunged into the grass and stopped. She could hardly hold the handle up off the ground, her jaw and forelegs shaking violently with the effort.
Just as fast as it had vanished the magic returned, and the blade left her grip and settled next to Luna once again. The alicorn was laughing softly, but she reached out with a wing once again and patted her softly in reassurance.
“That was precisely how my first time went,” she admitted, and Scootaloo replied with a nervous laugh of her own. “I hope, however, that you take this as a metaphor for the weight of this duty. I did not bring you here to gloat about my power over monsters. I hope, if anything, you remember that so long as I am around, the monsters will not have power over you.”
“I’ll remember,” Scootaloo answered.
