Dreamwalker's Tale: Project Greenwood

When I needed him most, he was just there. I had no idea where Spike came from. I did not even hear his wings flap as frantically as they must have, given the speed with which he crashed into the two drones lunging at me from my smithy. With a single, precise swipe of his leathery wing, he flung them off to the side. They tumbled to the ground and remained dazed for seconds before they got back up again and hissed in his direction.

“Need a claw?” he quipped.

I chuckled in relief. “Always.”

There were no quips from our enemies. The changeling drones did not share in the joy of cheesy one-liners or villain monologues. There was no warning, no second thought wasted. I glanced around briefly to get a rough estimate of our chances, and it truly looked dire. We were thirteen. They outnumbered us five to one, if not worse. This was going to get rough.

“What’s the plan?” Spike asked.

I was no Twilight. Twilight was a capable leader. A brilliant strategist. Able to adapt to any given situation quickly. Meanwhile my mind ran in circles, screamed in a panic, and the only thing I could really think about was: So few of us are fighters. And it got so much worse the more I thought about it. Because in actuality, none of us were. Even myself included. I wore this night guard armor and wielded a standard issue guard sword and yet I lacked any real combat experience, and neither did any of the others—

We fought them time and time again. If you don’t have confidence in yourself, then let me lead.

I grimaced. While his interruption did serve to keep the immediate panic at bay, I was not too keen on putting Voidwalker in charge. I knew how that would end. I still shuddered from memories of other cycles, from the massacres he inflicted upon their kind. Truth be told: The blood baths we caused.

The brief respite at least gave me a decent idea. “Back to back,” I told Spike. “We need to get out of the open, but we can’t hole up either. Non-combatants secured in the barn, combatants defending our one point of interest.”

Spike furrowed his brow and nodded. “Get the herd together, safe and sound. Then full defense. Gotcha!”

The last syllable left his scaly mouth as the first drone charged and I barely managed to deflect an energy bolt from another one. With the combat starting in earnest, chaos immediately took over. The swarm came over the village, making use of their ability to fly to at least circumnavigate the possible counter-attacks of our ground-bound defenders.

And despite the currently seemingly hopeless situation, we did have defenders. It was not just Spike and myself who stood up for Greenwood.

From the direction of Roselucks fields rolled Kaleb towards the town square. A tiny protrusion extended from within the midriff of his metallic body and the other one on top started to glow as he kept repeating the same word over and over again in his metallic, monotonous rumble of a voice. “Exterminate! Exterminate!”

That should be fun.

I grimaced and quickly looked around. I could not spot the Doctor in this madness of drones everywhere, as I needed to keep most of my attention on dodging their attacks and flybys. “Doctor!” I yelled in hopes he would hear me. And understand.

And indeed, as I ducked for cover with another drone swooping down, I briefly saw a blue light emanating from one of the windows. The Doctors, Roselucks and Derpy's house. All three of which were obvious non-combatants, given Derpys age and the pacifistic inclinations of the other two.

However, whatever that light was, it seemed to influence Kaleb somehow as the machine changed its tune. “Incapacitate! Incapacitate!” And the lower protrusion immediately started to shoot barrages of energy blasts not dissimilar to those of unicorn horns — or changeling horns. A couple of drones tried to swarm the weird, slow-moving machine as it hovered closer to us and were hit by those rays. They fell to the ground, their limbs and wings twitching uncontrollably.

I grimaced yet again as I immediately imagined one of them falling from greater heights. But such was the nature of combat — it was never clean.

Within seconds, a dozen drones clung to Kaleb and tried to tear him apart, but their hooves struck solid metal and their fangs scratched over the surface with no result other than some really nasty scraping noises. They tried to shoot it with their energy blasts point-blank, but Kaleb seemed utterly unaffected. Which currently probably made him our strongest asset in this fight.

“How can we help?” Honey asked from a small gap in the door of her carpentry. I saw Hefty behind her, both of which were clearly eager to do something.

They were carpenters. As Spike swiped another drone out of the air and I blocked another shot with my sword, I realized that I was about to recruit carpenters for our fight. But we needed each and every able hoof. “Get the others to the barn!” I answered, quickly followed by a “Oof!” as a nosediving drone pummeled into me.

We tumbled a few feet, both of us lost orientation and we remained dazed for a second, maybe two. Just long enough for other drones to try and attack me as well.

And again, out of nowhere, he was there. Spike towered over me, plucked the drone from my back and flung it to the side. A mighty roar emanated from his throat, making several drones reevaluate their decision to attack him, and his fire breath caused a couple of others to redirect their flight pattern away from us.

He could have burned them to a crisp, I realized. He could have torn them apart, ripped limbs out, slashed carapaces open. He was a dragon. Their exoskeleton was flexible. Certainly not hard enough to withstand dragon claws. But it served well as a really good replacement for a pot, to be cooked in alive.

Your imagination never ceases to amaze and entertain me. But sure, tell me again how I am the monster.

I wanted to tell him to shut up so badly. But we simply lacked time for this nonsensical squabble. I got back up with Spike's help. Just in time to see Honey and Hefty deal with their own contingent of drones. And they held their ground surprisingly well, with some… interesting tactics. Hefty wielded his axe like a boomerang. My mind boggled as I tried to comprehend how that was even physically possible, and the short answer was: It was not. Probably part of his cutie mark magic then. It certainly was as surprising to the drones as it was for me. He flung his axe and it swerved in a wide bow before returning to him, knocking drones out of the sky or at least interrupting their flight patterns.

I thought that was a pretty neat trick. Impressive, even.

Then I saw Honey pick up an entire tree trunk and wield it like a club.

She flung it to one side and four drones crashed to the ground. She raised the trunk high above her head and whipped it downwards. They got out of the way just in time. And they would have failed to escape, had Honey not hesitated for a fraction of a second. But she did.

Weak.

“Spike!” we both suddenly heard Gabby yell. We looked up and saw her being chased by a couple of drones.

With Hefty and Honey slowly getting the others to the barn and Kaleb drawing so much attention… I sighed as I made the decision. “Help her!” It was not a hard decision per se. I was always inclined to put the needs of others before my own. Especially for my friends and family, and Spike was both. And Gabby was his love. I saw him hesitate for just a moment, as he knew just as well as I did what this meant for me, most likely. I gave him an encouraging nod and with a flap of his wings, he was gone from my side.

He was a great protector. But he was just one dragon. He could not be everywhere at once. He chased the drones away from Gabbys tail and they both did what I had done with his aid mere moments ago. They kept each other safe.

And I was a prime target once more, seeing how I apparently gave orders to the others and kept things halfway organized. Take out the leader. Good tactic.

Half a dozen drones dove for me. I readied my sword, hoped my armor would hold and knew that I was screwed anyway. I did not have eyes in the back of my head and they came from all directions. Even if I somehow managed to defend myself against two, three, four at the same time, the others would break through.

Stop being mister nice guy then!

Voidwalker yelled at me. I could feel him grow agitated, itching to get his hooves on these drones. Fighting one battle was hard enough. Fighting two was impossible. I managed to distract one drone by throwing my sword at it. It dodged, of course. It was a decently telegraphed attack. I went down onto my knees and rolled to the side, making two more drones crash into one another. But the other three managed to land in time. One immediately punched me in the muzzle while the other two tried to restrain me. I kicked with my rear legs in a once more rising panic and hit one drone in the snout. It hissed and immediately grabbed my leg with its magic.

The decision came up.

Not for the first time in my life. Not even the first time in this cycle. Either I focused all my efforts fully on defending myself — which would leave the gate wide open for Voidwalker to take control and do what he did best. Or I would keep him at bay, locked behind bars of self-control — which would probably result in those drones knocking me out.

I. Can. Help!

I know your ‘help’. I don’t want it, I answered. I felt strangely peaceful. A wave of relief just washed over me and I felt… good. Like I had made the right decision. And when I saw that eerie green glow charge up, I knew that this was it. A blast straight to the face. That would not kill me, I was sure. They did not stand to gain anything from killing anypony. But I would not wake up again. Ever, maybe.

Incapacitated victims were cocooned. The fluid inside kept them fed and breathing while also serving to sedate them. Only victims with tremendous willpower were capable of even becoming conscious inside a cocoon. Which still did not mean that they became able to move a single muscle. All the while the changelings were able to leech the love off of them. It was an admirably clever system. Elegant in its design, efficient.

Disgusting. Despicable. Worthy of utter eradication.

The shot hit the ground beside my head.

I blinked in surprise. And due to sudden blindness. A brief flash of golden light had caused this misfire. “Don’t just lie there! Get up!” a familiar voice chided me.

I blinked and did as I was told. Aurora stood close to me, her horn thrumming with magic. She currently wove a shield spell around us, the hemisphere of golden light kept us safe for the moment. “Thank you,” I mumbled as I reoriented myself.

I saw an injured drone crawl into our well to hide. I grimaced just thinking about the possibility of finding random hidden drones for weeks to come, or the paranoia everypony would have to deal with for the next few months. I saw Kaleb lying on his side. Apparently the drones managed to topple him, but he still kept shooting and they still failed to do any significant damage. Honey used her tree trunk of choice as a flyswatter against the drones, accompanied by a well-coordinated flying axe as they ushered Graphite and Pristine into the barn. Spike and Gabby led over a dozen drones on a merry chase across the sky, occasionally knocking one out of the wide blue expanse with a fire breath, a mighty roar or an eagle scream.

This is madness, my stunned mind concluded. But I remembered. So many lives. So many battles. Always the same. It was always madness. And this was not even a large-scale combat. This was just a bunch of plucky settlers holding their ground against an overwhelming force.

“Dad? What do we do?” Aurora's voice was urgent. Five drones clung to her shield. They repeatedly smashed into it. Every attack drained her magical reserve. The shield would not be able to hold forever. And once it failed, it would do so because she was exhausted. And therefore defenseless.

But my great ‘plan’ had made good progress. Roseluck, the Doctor and Derpy were inside the barn. Graphite, Periwinkle and Pristine were on their way there. I had no idea where Whisper currently was. Maybe already inside. Worse still, I had no answer. Even after precious seconds trickled by, I still had no answer. ‘Defend the barn’ had been the initial credo. But they outnumbered us so heavily. Could we even hope to achieve that?

“Dad!”

Stop holding back!

I felt cornered. Like a trapped animal. My eyes scanned every little detail, searching for an exit. I felt sick, pressured, hot… desperate.

And things would have gone downhill fast, I assumed. But in the midst of my panic attack, Spike burped. It was such a strange sound to hear in the middle of a fight. I looked up and saw green flames and something materialized before him. Hope.

He quickly caught both items in his claw. The letter was probably sealed. I would not have expected him to open it up in the middle of combat otherwise. After reading, he scanned the ground. Our eyes met and Spike seemed confused more than anything else. “It just says ‘incoming’?”

He showed me the letter from afar. While I could not read it for obvious reasons, I still managed to see what I needed to see. The mulberry-colored seal was broken. And in his other claw, he held the teleportation stone. My vision became blurry as my eyes teared up and I started to laugh. A manic cackle at first, it sounded utterly deranged even to my own ears. But over the course of a few seconds, it morphed into a deep, bellowing laughter carried by gratitude, by relief.

We were saved.

Our clever peanut.

Even Voidwalker could appreciate this maneuver. “Land!” I yelled towards Spike. So he and Gabby swooped down. Just in time, as a mere fraction of a second later, the stone was activated. I was surprised to see a day guard in front of me. He seemed rather surprised as well. Probably because of the changelings in the immediate vicinity. The battle itself did not faze him much, as he had arrived armored and with weapons drawn, clearly ready for trouble.

“Princess Celestia sends her regards,” he quickly conveyed the message he was asked to give. And then he engaged the drones that currently tried to break through Aurora's shield. Meanwhile another guard arrived beside Spike. And another. And another. They came in quicker and quicker succession.

Dozens of day guards poured out of the teleportation stone. Battle-trained and ready for a scrap. I wanted to just sit down, have a good cry and a good laugh, at the same time. But despite the much-needed help bolstering our ranks, we were far from done yet. The tide was turning, sure. And the drones realized that as fast as I did. Several of them quickly morphed into, well, us. Green spouts of flame shot up here and there, and suddenly we had to deal with a dozen Spikes and a dozen Auroras and a dozen Derpys. The nastiest trick in their books.

My attention snapped to my buddy. “Spike!” He stared at me. “You need to stay on the ground until nopony else arrives or you need to catch them if they fall. Keep that stone away from anyone!”

It certainly was not nice of me. Necessary, but not nice. I painted a massive target on his head, basically. The drones heard what I said as much as he did. They realized that he was the sole reason the battle was turning in our favor. Or rather, the stone he now protectively clutched to his chest with a grim nod. He ran away from us, leaving behind a trail of newly arrived guards. Gabby wanted to follow him so badly, wanted to stick to his side and keep him safe. But there were multiple Gabbys flying about. She knew that it was too dangerous. That in the midst of this madness, she could not ensure his safety. She kept him safe by staying away.

With the guards helping us, Aurora was finally able to disperse her shield spell. I could see how it took its toll on her. “Are you alright? Can you go on?”

She tried to catch her breath. “I-I am…” A brief moment of hesitation before she stuck to the truth. “I don’t know. I’m not used to fighting.”

She was a powerhouse. Capable of tremendous magical feats, second only to Arcana. Well, and their mothers. I knew that as much as I knew that Aurora was no fighter at heart. A shield spell had been her first choice. It made sense for her, it made her nature apparent. I hugged her, making good use of the brief few seconds our arriving support offered us. “It’s alright, sunshine. You did great! Go to the barn. Keep the others safe.” She hesitated. Asking a dozen questions per second, wordlessly. I smiled and nudged her. “Don’t worry. I’ll be alright.”

As she galloped across the square towards the barn, I could not help but wonder if I had lied to her or not. I could not say with certainty. At the same time, I wondered how many more day guards would arrive. I still saw Spike running around, chased by several Doctor Whooves and Pristines with new day guards teleporting in every couple of seconds.

Charging the teleportation stone took a lot of energy. Even after decades of fiddling around with it, Twilight had never managed to reduce the required amount to a degree that satisfied her. And if she had sent that scroll, with day guards arriving on Sunny's order, then this was most likely Twilight's stone Spike carried around. Meaning the stone in Canterlot was repeatedly charged for each and every teleport. I could only imagine the strain it put on Sunny to do this. Expending such massive amounts of magic on such short notice. Or maybe Twilight charged the stone and that was the reason she had not teleported to us yet? Because I fully expected her to show up sooner or later. Maybe Luna contributed as well?

It was a funny image. All three of them charging the stone in sequence and all the guards piling into the room vanishing one by one. To me, it made perfect sense to send guards instead of themselves. When a princess entered a battlefield, it changed everything. It was no longer about capturing or winning, but about pure survival. It was a reason to no longer hold anything back. To fight desperately, because the chances of getting out had diminished to the point of basically not existing anymore. Princess Celestia could have cleared out this rabble in seconds. But at what cost? She was the benevolent ruler. A counselor. Guide. Teacher. Mother. Not a brute who used the sun as a magnifying glass on drone-shaped ants. It would put all the wrong ideas into everypony's heads.

Luna could have gotten away easiest with her image barely taking a hit from participating in combat. But she tried so hard to change the perception of ponies. This would have signified a step in the wrong direction.

Twilight however, everypony expected her to show up. I certainly did, and I was sure everyone else did as well. She was Equestrias go-to problem solver.

I was rudely interrupted in my musings as another drone tackled me to the ground. “Where the heck did you come from?!” I spat as we traded a couple of blows. His hooves mostly hit my armor, which I was eternally grateful for once more, but two hits landed straight on my belly before I managed to buck it off. The drone had a rough landing a few feet away and before he managed to get up, two guards charged it and knocked it out.

“Thanks, guys!” I told them as I got back up.

I had a sudden sense of vertigo and faint nausea. Everything was spinning a little bit too fast. The colors were a tad too bright and vibrant. The sounds just a smidge too loud. I turned around. Took in the scene before me. Running ponies everywhere. Flying ponies. Chased by drones, chasing drones. Madness, I repeated in my head.

And it clicked.

It was. It truly was. Very, very distracting madness. There was so much going on that it was nigh impossible to focus on any one thing. Attacks from all sides. The need to defend oneself and others. The worry about potential property damage. Who was who — the guessing game where a wrong answer could land one in a cocoon.

All very distracting.

Dawn.

Void came to the same conclusion I did. This was just another play of his. A feint. I had unknowingly pushed him, and this was what he came up with on short notice. Or maybe this had been the plan all along. I only knew: He was not here. He had vanished from the castle ruins, abandoned the guise of the charming, scholarly loner and cleared out his lab. And the next day, our place crawled with changelings.

Arranging for a full-scale invasion was a tad much. A bit more extreme than the other ruses had been. The tatzlwurm attack might not have gone down as intended. Neither had Lord Tireks emergence. But these events kept the ball rolling. They kept things on track. That much could be confirmed by his continued presence. But now he was gone.

Or is he?

My eyes were drawn towards the ruins. And my guts told me: It was now or never.

I wanted to tell somepony. Anypony. But as I looked around, I saw the madness continue. I could not even tell friends from foe anymore, as the changelings merrily morphed back and forth between all their guises. I could not even tell for certain if a guard I might tell things to actually was a guard or not.

They were as much on their own as I was. I could only hope for Twilight's arrival sometime soon as I charged towards the ruin. I rammed one of the drones out of my way, called my sword back to my side and blocked two energy blasts with it before discarding it again by throwing it at yet another drone in my path. And I left through the village's back gate. I ran all the way to the castle and quickly crossed the courtyard, silently greeting Bruno and the other apple trees in the process. The noise of the fighting seemed strangely muffled out here. One could easily have misinterpreted it for a rowdy celebration of sorts.

I stopped at the entrance and sighed. Did I really just abandon the battlefield? My friends? Because of a hunch?

Any lingering doubt that they would be fine was suddenly and rather abruptly dispersed when the earth shook. The tremors quickly added up to a proper earthquake and moments later, good old Peter broke through the ground with a terrifying screech. Seeing a live, fully grown tatzlwurm would never not be intimidating. The only thing making this sight a relief was the comparatively tiny hot pink speck with the sunflower-yellow mane on top of Peter's head. Oh. So that’s where Whisper was.

I shook my head, turned around and made my way inside the castle. The entrance hall was grand. Deteriorated, but still grand. And once inside, the sound of combat was muffled even further to the point where I could barely hear anything anymore. The silence in these walls however seemed almost oppressive.

“Where, oh where…” I muttered as I cautiously walked down the hall. I had done a decently thorough search for Dawn just yesterday. I checked all the rooms of the castle, all the floors. At least all that I could reach. I was not strong enough as a unicorn to cast telekinesis on myself and use it to levitate or even fly. There were areas inaccessible to me due to completely broken-down staircases or entire parts of the castle just crumbled to dust. Other parts were not fully inaccessible as such, but the ground was treacherous and unstable and I had no intention of actually getting buried by a staircase. But all the places I could reasonably reach, I had.

There’s only ever been one place he got skittish about.

This was so much better. I actually lauded him for his contribution instead of having to keep him at bay like a rabid monster rattling at the bars. And he had a point. I mapped out parts of the castle time and time again. Dawn occasionally showed up to keep an eye on my progress and sometimes to — arguably — distract me from progressing too quickly. But in this entire ruin, there was only one place that made him hesitate. That caused some sort of incident each and every time.

The staircase to the cellar.

It was blocked, of course. A cave in. Tons of stone and debris in the way. But whenever I suggested clearing that path, something came up that occupied us, that demanded our attention elsewhere, that kept critical resources bound in other projects. A powerful unicorn like him though — was a bunch of rocks really such a great hurdle for him? He could probably just teleport straight past them. Which, given my lack of teleportation capabilities, meant I would face a problem. At least I expected as much as I walked towards said staircase, but my expectations were met with a faint gust of wind carrying stale air and dust while I gazed upon rubble indeed — rubble blasted to smithereens, from the looks of it.

If you ever wondered what it looks like when somepony powerful doesn’t bother being patient anymore — here you go.

The depths below were not as pitch-black as I expected either. The occasional torch in a wall-mounted sconce lit the staircase just enough to give it a gloomy atmosphere. “This is great. Just great,” I sighed as I mentally prepared myself and then stepped downwards.

I was intimately familiar with the layout of the castle, and that included the cellar. However, such familiarity was not even required. I walked down the stairs following the trail of light, past closed and barred doors or those withered away by time until the trail of lit torches ended. There were two rooms on this layer, one to each side. The left one was barred by a half-rotten wooden door, with utter darkness lingering behind it from what I could tell due to the multiple holes in it. The other door however, that one was an entirely different matter. It was clearly cared for, maybe even repaired or entirely replaced at some point.

“Well. Here goes nothing,” I quietly muttered under my breath.

Good luck.

I was taken aback to hear something so… genuinely nice from him. It even made me smile, despite all the things going on right now. “Thank you.”

I grabbed the door handle in my telekinesis, pushed it down and slowly opened it. Light streamed out from within. Colorful light. Accompanied by the sound of occasional hoof steps. I slipped inside once the gap was large enough and closed the door behind myself. Because I already had a sneaking suspicion that I would not try to flee this room, and with the door closed, that would be more difficult for anypony else as well. Just in case.

Dawn stood there.

I was less surprised than I had imagined myself to be. He stood there with his back to me, wearing a nondescript dark cloak. He had dropped his illusion and therefore, all the runes were visible on his coat. Some emitted a bright glow, others only glowed dimly. It mingled and mixed with the colorful display on the ground.

Runes, glyphs, sigils. And symbols of power, can’t forget about those. I knew that there were differences between these. Nuances. Somepony like Twilight would probably understand what she was looking at here. I did not. To me, this was all just: magic. Symbols of different sizes and colors, some carved into the stone floor, others painted on it with various means. I grimaced slightly when I noticed some of these symbols looking like blood.

Dawn stepped very, very carefully in between them. The ritual he conducted clearly was fragile in nature, susceptible to disturbances. He stepped in between patterns of symbols, staring at them, muttering quietly under his breath. He probably checked, double-checked and triple-or-quadruple-checked. I waited for a good opportunity to address him and eventually found one when he moved to another section. “I hope I don’t disturb you.”

I had been curious about his eventual reaction this entire time. And knowing Dawn, I was not surprised at how… measured it was. A sigh briefly battled the room's silence, but he did not turn to me yet. “Despite what you might believe: No, you do not.” He hesitated a moment and finally turned around to face me. “My work here is almost done, Dreamwalker.” He grabbed a bottle from the corner of the room. With the light show being too in-my-face, I had fully overlooked it even being there. A bulgy flask of transparent glass. But what swirled within it really caught my eye. A dark-blue, almost blackish haze with specks of light glittering every now and then. It almost looked like condensed dreamscape matter. Which was utterly impossible, of course.

“Is this what you wish for?” Dawn asked, curiously tilting his head to the side ever so slightly. “To disturb me?”

I had to be honest with myself. And him. “I don’t know. I hope not.” I looked at his intricate setup again. Some symbols might have been drawn with blood. But that was not evil per se, right? In an attempt at gallows humor, I shot him a wry smile. “No ‘welcome back from the dead’?”

Dawn chuckled briefly. “Do not insult our intelligence, please. However, I am glad that you are in good health. It was a marvelous trick you pulled off.”

“You knew?” I asked.

He smiled wryly and shook his head. “Not with certainty. Not until now.”

I tried my hoof at a graceful bow, like an actor on stage, no matter how silly I felt. And his smile confirmed that he appreciated the silliness. “I had some help. From friends.”

He nodded. “I figured as much. One in particular, I assume.” He set the bottle down with utmost care, lifted the cloak that was draped over his back, just enough to get a good look at one of the many spell tattoos he wore. He plucked one from his coat as if it had just been a sticker. The glow of the symbol faded, and with it faded the illusion that apparently had been layered over the room. Little changed aside from the appearance of a sphere in the middle of the patterns of symbols. It floated several inches off the ground, transparent like a soap bubble, and caught within it—

“Luna,” I gasped.

Her dark blue coat was ruffled, but her ethereal mane still floated as if submerged in water. Her eyes were closed, her wings tucked in. As if she was sleeping. And indeed, after taking a closer look not at her, but at the intricate patterns on the ground, I managed to spot some symbols that had not been there before, clearly hidden by the illusion as well. And these I even vaguely recognized.

I had spent years and years living with Twilight. Eventually, no matter how dense one was, knowledge started to rub off. There were… patterns. I always found them hard to explain, but easy to recognize once I had seen them. Similar patterns were the foundation for similar spells. Evocation spells — those that made things go boom or sizzle — usually had spiky designs with sharp, pointy corners while abjuration spells — protective charms — favored smooth curves, ovals and interconnected circles.

These new symbols were enchantment spells. And since they were roughly the same pattern and given Luna's incapacitated state, it was hopefully not too much of an assumption to figure them to be sleep spells of some kind.

All of this within a few seconds. And really, it should have served to calm me down. She had no visible injuries. Sleep spells were harmless for the most part. But the fact alone that he involved my wife in his ritual at all, the fact that she was incapacitated, that panicked me.

I had to weigh in with every ounce of self-restraint to not say or do something rash. And he knew that. He watched me with the same curiosity he had before. He was the audience cheering for the raging battle in my heart and mind, uncaring for who would win. “What have you done to her?!” I asked through gritted teeth.

Dawn briefly glanced to the side. “Nothing. And if everything goes according to plan, neither will I ever have to. Her name was Eclipse, Dreamwalker.”

Eclipse.

It finally made sense that he always tiptoed around that. Had he used her name earlier, I would have managed to figure out that Luna had to be involved somehow. Eclipse, the dragon. With what I knew about Lunas and Celestias cycle of rebirth, it made sense. And it was devastating. A noble sacrifice and her time in this world came to an end. She returned to where she came from. And she carried all her mortal memories with her. Richer in experience, but a bodiless force of nature once more. Until eventually, she would have recovered enough from the ordeal of dying to once more form a mortal vessel for her spirit. But to regain mortality, even a limited one, she would need to leave behind as much as possible. Say, all those memories from all her previous lives, for example. They would still be up there. Waiting for her return once she died once more. Enriched by yet another lifetime once she did. But she — Eclipse —, she was gone.

Except she was not. Not fully. Not if one searched at the right time.

“Dawn… please!” I begged. I made no illusions about it. “We can talk about this!” They rose from the depths of my mind with terrifying speed and immediately started to torture me. Those infamous two words.

What.

If.

What if something went wrong?

Dawn meanwhile shot me a sad smile. “Dawn. It is a moniker I have used for so many years now. A new dawn for a new life. A second chance. But you do not wish to call yourself ‘Chance’, it makes you sound like a semi-professional gambler. Believe me, I tried. My name, my actual name, is Velvet Dusk. I like to think I would have told you sooner. Introduced myself properly. But somewhere along the path, I… I lost it. I lost my name and forgot. It is only in recent times that I remembered. In no small part thanks to you, my friend. You have done everything in your power to befriend me, and a good friend you have been. I am truly, and will always be, deeply grateful for your companionship. For your efforts. And our time together.”

This is his farewell, Void commented. Be ready.

Ready. Ready for what? I tried not to tear up. With less than stellar success.

“But this is the end, my friend,” Velvet continued. “There can only be one way for this to end. I went to great lengths to get my love back. I went to the end of the world, beyond and back. I did terrible deeds you cannot hope to imagine. I terrorized entire civilizations, tortured, killed, stole. You do not come back from such deeds. I lived for thousands of years on stolen time and bent history itself to my will to get here. Right here, to this point in time, to this place. To this very moment.” He sighed and sounded so terribly exhausted. Tired. Resigned. Yet that small smile persisted on his lips. Slowly, he grabbed the bottle with his magic and once more lifted it off the ground. “Tell me — with that kinship between us, with your alleged understanding of my plight… do you claim you would not do the same? For her?”

Despite the vast emptiness of the room, it suddenly felt crowded. The arcane symbols were concentrated around the middle of the room, the radius of their patterns did not extend beyond three quarters and I still stood near the entrance and yet I found my hooves frozen, rooted to the spot. My mind raced. Dawn — Velvet, I quickly corrected myself — had stepped in between these symbols with utmost caution. Disrupting ongoing rituals could provoke volatile magical resonances. And those heavy-duty sleep spells… maybe she would wake up if I were to disrupt them. But at that point, what would happen to us? To him? I felt choked and needed to buy myself a couple of precious seconds to sort my thoughts. And he had delivered me a suitable distraction. “Velvet Dusk, hm? It is my pleasure to make your acquaintance. I’m… still just boring old Dreamwalker. May I call you Vivi then?” I shot him a lopsided grin.

His sudden bout of laughter sounded strangely unbridled, especially for him. “Please don’t!” he quickly replied once he was able to. “I imagine it would be a very awkward conversation to try to explain to her why you use my pet name.”

At least we were still able to joke around. Even if the tension was palpable and easily heard in both our voices. “And what is all of this then, Velvet?” I asked as I vaguely gestured towards the room full of arcane symbols — and the bottle in his grasp.

“I call it the ‘time vortex’,” he replied without specifying if he meant the content of the flask, the room itself or the array of symbols. “It is an anomaly I had chased for centuries before I finally managed to get hold of it. With the right incantations, preparations and spells, it can be used to access the timestream itself.”

I grimaced immediately. Twilight had dabbled in time travel on occasion. And never, not once, had anything good ever come from that. “You want to reverse time… by several millennia.”

I made no effort to hide my incredulity. And Velvet quickly shook his head. “Not quite. Neither am I powerful enough for something on that scale, nor do I wish to undo so much history, so many lives lived, so many lessons learned, so many memories made. I will turn back time on your wife to the moment she was mine. I will copy her body, mind and soul. And then reverse the time flow for your wife back to its original point, back to her current state of being.”

Maybe Twilight. There was no pony other than these two who could say something like that and make it sound halfway reasonable. Make it sound possible to begin with. It was baffling. Yet despite this, my gaze wandered over to Luna. How she peacefully floated in the middle of this massive array of magic. She was the focus, the heart piece of this ritual. And I spoke freely from my own heart. “Velvet… a single mistake, any miscalculation…”

“I know,” he quietly whispered.

I felt my throat tighten. “Nothing like this has ever been done before. Not even attempted. There are no guidelines. You’re flying blind.”

“I know.”

I swallowed hard. “Velvet… this is my wife.” It was finally there. The point of mutual understanding. I can’t let you do that. It is too dangerous.

He smiled sadly. “I know,” he uttered for a third time. His shoulders sagged. “I am sorry, friend. It truly has been a… nice time. I had forgotten how that felt. To live and enjoy doing so. To have company and relish it.” He sighed, but then squared his shoulders with effort and turned around to finish his ritual. “You will not fight me,” he stated.

I wanted to puke. We reached an impasse. And I hated each and every option. “Neither could I, even if I wanted to,” I mumbled. Velvet had made clear not just how long his story had been at this point, but he had demonstrated before how powerful that story made him. He could have ‘dealt’ with me at any given moment. The fact that we talked at all, that I still stood here, was all due to his concessions.

“What is our hero’s plan, then?” Velvet asked without taking his eyes off of his ritual.

I shook my head almost immediately. “I am no hero,” I rejected the label. “Neither am I an arcane prodigy like my daughters or wives, or a warrior like her.” I briefly glanced at Luna. It hurt.

I carefully walked towards Velvet. Similar to him previously, I stepped cautiously in between the symbols without ever touching any single one of them. Meanwhile Velvet lifted the bottle higher and then smashed it onto the ground right beneath the sphere Luna was contained in. Whatever that content was, it now welled up in a misty vortex. The whirlwind of pure night sky rose higher and higher and slowly but surely, the sphere with Luna in it vanished from sight within its midst. Strangely enough, I felt no threat from this thing. It instead felt oddly familiar. Almost like an old friend I had not seen in ages.

Either way, there was no going back now. For any of us.

I felt the jittering in my legs. How wobbly my knees had become. It took sheer force of will to move my hooves forward as every fiber of my being wanted to escape from here so badly. “But you know what I do?” I asked Velvet as I had almost reached him.

He did not turn around.

I understood that. I would not be here had he not allowed for it. Maybe he could not teleport at all — or maybe he could and consciously decided to blast the rubble from the staircase, hoping I would find him in time. Maybe he wanted to be stopped, but could not do it by himself anymore. Too many maybes and not enough certainty, as always. Life was frustrating like that.

And Void screeched down my ear that this was the moment, this was the opportunity ‘we’ had apparently waited for. I was supposed to summon my sword and… stab him. Stab my friend. Who I understood. Who I emphasized with. His question still lingered in the back of my mind: Would I not do the same in his situation? How could I judge him for that? How would I have any right to judge him at all?

I reached his side and put a front leg around his withers while placing one of my rear legs on one of the heavy-duty sleep spell symbols. The display right in front of us was magnificent. A beautiful swirl of light and darkness, dancing with each other. As beautiful as the dreamscape itself. Not a bad last sight. Not bad at all.

What do you mean, ‘last’?

I smiled serenely as I grabbed Velvet tighter. “I try a lot.”

One last push. I made sure that my rear hoof destroyed the symbol on the floor as I pulled Dawn with me forward. Into the maelstrom of time itself.

What’s the worst that could happen, right?

I bet he didn’t see that one coming!

Fear not, my little pony.