Dreamwalker's Tale: Project Greenwood

It was a simple oversight on my part. I woke up still wearing a smug grin as my hazy mind remembered how I had won several bets against Luna this night. It was all in good fun, of course. But before coming out here with this randomly thrown together group of strangers and friends, I had been so worried about feeling lonely and homesick and lost. And while those feelings were not completely absent, I had failed to account for my nightly responsibilities, and how they would bring me together with Luna each and every day.

Home is where the heart is. As long as I could sleep and dreamwalk and catch up with her, I would always carry a little piece of home with me. It was a comforting thought.

That said, any and all comfort quickly dissipated once I noticed something hard and sharp prod into my lower back, just above my dock. “Ow.” I wriggled to the side, with my sleeping bag and all, and stared at the offending object. I knew that the Everfree forest had a mind of its own. Clouds moved by their own volition, they rained down water, chocolate milk, acid, whatever they felt like. Whenever they felt like it, too. The ground could turn sour within minutes. Or it could turn to solid rock. Or muck. The wind, the trees, everything in here was mutable and in a constant flow of change. And most things seemed to have a certain agenda. Not sentience per se, but it was hard to argue that the Everfree was not exactly a welcoming place.

There was a stone. Right beneath the floor of the tent and beneath where I had slept. I was pretty sure that I had noticed a stone last evening before I fell asleep. And it had not been there, but a couple of inches over to the side, closer to the wall of the tent.

I grumbled a little, but ultimately tried to keep my spirits up. Luna had put me in a good mood. I would not let the Everfree taint that so early already. Or the back pain.

When I emerged from the tent, I was immediately faced with another common issue I had with camping. I was late and everypony was already up and about. I briefly wondered how I had failed to notice the recurring chop, chop, chop when Hefty's axe met the sturdy trunk of a tree. I saw Honey busily removing twigs and smaller branches from another already fallen one in preparation of further processing. Roseluck, the Doctor and Derpy were milling about and seemed busy marking out the future crop fields. It seemed like they had already slapped together a desk to work on, as that was the point where I saw Aurora, with a bunch of blueprints rolled out for study.

And I stood there with my toothbrush in my mouth and wondered how to best go about this. I wanted to take a shower, but there were no showers. There was a river. I wanted to brush my teeth, but there was no sink. There was a river. I needed to take a leak, but of course — there was no toilet. There was—

Ah, whatever.

I had been well aware of the numerous minor inconveniences ‘camping’ would entail, and I had accepted them. I grabbed my towel and went to the river. Some sort of public toilet and shower room would have my vote as the first buildings to be set up. Even though I already knew that Hefty's and Honey’s workshop needed to be the first solid structure.

After my slightly altered morning routine, I went back to the tent, deposited my stuff and went over to the freestanding table to greet my daughter. “How are you doing?” I asked as I kissed her cheek. She grimaced slightly, but smiled.

“I’m fine. How are you? Survived your first night?” There was a tinge of mischief in her voice that made me want to groan.

“Barely,” I replied. “The Everfree tried to kill me already.”

“Stone under your bag?”

“Stone under my bag.”

She snickered and nodded. “Same.” It was uplifting to see her deal with this so easily. I got cranky as soon as my usual sleeping routine was interrupted, but she took it like a champ and barely even acknowledged it as an issue. And she seemed so… awake.

Disgusting, really, I joked in the privacy of my own head.

I looked at her plans. She was apparently busy with some calculations, figuring out where the palisade should go, how it should be erected, how deep the individual columns needed to be in the ground to provide solid shelter. She clearly knew what she was doing, so I bit down all those pesky questions in my head that attempted to force me to micromanage everything.

I trusted her. She knew what she was doing. I just had to remind myself of that. Occasionally. Of both.

“Where are Kelab, Graphite, Spike and Gabby?” I asked instead.

Aurora looked up from her plans to think about that. She looked to the side, into the forest. “I think they went in to see if Graphite could start working as well. There’s apparently a decent site nearby where she could open a small, first quarry. No idea how she knew that, but… it’s an earth pony thing, I assume. The Doctor sent Kelab with her to help with minor tasks, the other two went with her for protection.”

I was worried. How could I not worry? The Everfree was dangerous. But again, I needed to remind myself: They knew that as well as I did. They were prepared. They were cautious. I needed to trust them.

Apparently Aurora noticed my slight distress. She put a hoof to my shoulder and shot me an encouraging smile. “Don’t worry. They got this. Go to our supply depot and fetch yourself something for breakfast.”

I nodded dutifully and did just that. It gave me a better chance to take a look at what Spike and Hefty had bought than I had gotten yesterday. Most of our rations were hardy stuff. Dried vegetables. Apples. Hay. Nothing too fancy, but we would be able to live with this.

I picked a couple of apples. The spare one floated alongside my head as I slowly devoured the first one bit by bit. I walked around the camp, asked if anypony needed help. They did not. And I ended up sitting down near the depot, eating my other apple as well and silently asking myself: What now?

Everypony here had a function. A use. A task. My task had been to bring them on board, to cobble this group together. And now that that was done… I felt kind of useless. I was neither a farmer, nor a carpenter. I was no architect or mason. And they currently did not need a leader either.

I felt out of place. But to my great relief: That changed once I noticed Spike coming back from the forest. I stood back up and walked over to sidle up to his side. “Did you bury the bodies?” I joked with a wry smile.

He nodded grimly. “They’ll never be found, boss.”

“Good, good. Take care of the carpenters next,” I instructed him. “Should be easy, they’re close to the treeline all the time anyway.”

His eyes narrowed to slits as he stared at his prey. “What about the axe, boss?”

I followed his gaze and saw Hefty chop into another tree while Honey once again busied herself preparing the freshly fallen one. “You’re a dragon, are you not? Tough scales and all. Be quick and sneaky and he won’t get a swing in.”

Spike nodded again. “Got it, boss.”

“Guys, this is distracting,” Aurora suddenly chimed in. “And frankly, a little bit macabre.”

Both of us froze the moment her first syllable was heard. We slowly turned towards her, only to notice that we stood more or less right beside her workstation. “Uh… sorry, we were just messing around,” Spike offered with an awkward chuckle as he rubbed his claws along his neck.

Aurora giggled and shook her head. “I know that, Spike. Well, I sure hope that, anyway. But would you mind getting into your roleplay a little bit farther away? Some ponies try to actually work here…”

We both grimaced in perfect unison and we both muttered various apologies before we retreated. It served well to make her laugh quietly. Once we were out of earshot, I looked up at Spike. “You came back alone?”

His grin dimmed a little, but a confident smile remained as he shrugged his shoulders. “They currently don’t need me. Gabby has security covered, she insisted. Kelab helps with digging and Graphite takes stone samples. I felt like the fifth wheel on the cart. They sent me back to help Hefty or something.”

It was eerie how familiar that felt. We both looked over to the other side of the camp, past the tents to the edge of the forest. Another tree caved to the insistence of his axe. We both muttered various versions of “what the heck” as we saw the tree fall onto Hefty's back. He braced himself for the impact and additional weight, the tree slammed down and he just… stood there. He shuffled around a bit until both sides were decently balanced out and then moved the entire tree over to Honey. He walked slowly, with very deliberate steps, but he clearly did not need help from anyone.

Honestly, I was not even sure if Spike could move these trees all by himself. They were gnarled and twisted things, they could not hold a candle to the trees at Sweet Apple Acres, which stood tall and proud. But still. They were trees. They weighed a lot.

“Right,” I heard Spike utter.

I nodded. Right indeed. Luckily, I then remembered a plan I had made yesterday and I had completely forgotten about until now. “Hey, if you have a moment anyway — I was thinking we should probably take a look at the ruins. Just to make sure no nasties made it their home. Are you up for some spelunking?”

He furrowed his brow. “Doesn’t that mean ‘cave diving’ or something?”

“The lower levels might as well be caves for all I know,” I replied with a shrug.

He mulled it over and quickly reached his conclusion. A smile bloomed on his snout and he nodded. “Sure. Sounds like fun.”

I was less sure if I would call it fun, but I could appreciate the enthusiasm. And we would both feel less like dead weight, which was probably worth a lot. “Good. Let me quickly grab a firefly lantern from the depot and maybe a rope and I’ll be back. Oh and would you fetch your first aid kit in the meantime?”

“It feels so weird to walk around like this,” I quietly complained. My armor felt itchy. I had not worn it for… years, probably. I could barely remember.

“Still better if the armor takes a hit than you, right?” Spike insisted once more. He was the reason I was currently dressed up at all. I had once again completely forgotten about this even being an option, and now that the additional weight was on my back, I kind of wished he had forgotten as well.

I could obviously not argue with him. The armor was a neat protective shell. Yes, it would help to keep me safe. It would probably deflect a couple of incoming attacks, sparing me from grievous harm. And once combat broke out, my training would hopefully kick back in as well, telling me how to move and how to dodge. But right now, it felt alien and slightly uncomfortable.

I was about to complain a bit more as we crossed the threshold from the courtyard of the castle ruin to the main entrance hall when our surroundings abruptly changed. A change that affected less what we saw, but all the more what we heard.

“Ah yes, we’re here,” I noted.

The Everfree forest was, despite being infused with chaotic energies, still a forest. Forests were never quiet. Well, aside from those times when predators were on the prowl nearby. But even then birds could be heard chirping somewhere farther away. Like a metropolis, forests were always full of hustle and bustle. But once we stepped beyond that imaginary line, that changed.

The silence was thick. Palpable. Heavy with foreboding. Like a graveyard.

My hair stood on end for a moment and I shivered involuntarily. I could see that Spike did not fare much better. He rubbed his claws over his forearms as he looked around the grand entrance hall.

The courtyard had been fine. Great, in fact. A little reunion with Bruno, the apple tree. And the other three trees that grew just outside. I still remembered it like it was yesterday, though it was years and years ago. We came here to defeat a farmer, a powerful dreamscape creature. It had grown so much that even Luna did not dare to face it directly. We pulled it from Sunny’s dream like the oversized leech that it was. We goaded it through a rift into the waking world, where the Elements could take care of it. And they did. It set into motion a weird kind of transformation that counteracted the chaotic energies within the forest.

Our initial expectations had been that the entirety of the Everfree would in time turn into a normal, regular forest. It did not. Maybe Discord's influence ran too deep. Maybe his magic was too powerful even for this creature. The changes that occurred were more subtle. Less packs of timberwolves. Fewer manticores in the region. All the different kinds of predators were less hostile and aggressive. The soil was less moody, the weather less callous. It eased the land's mood swings. Without this change, Greenwood might not have been possible. Not without mustering a considerably larger force for protection.

But now we stood in a grave, and one could probably hear a needle drop.

“Creepy,” Spike commented.

I sighed. I agreed. But it was difficult for me, because I knew what this place could be. What it was meant to be. What it could look like. If I closed my eyes and remembered, I could see these hallways. Grand and impressive. Restored. I could see the halls and staircases, the balconies and large windows. Banners proudly displaying heraldry. Libraries filled with ancient knowledge. Flickering candles and torches. Starlight. A full moon overhead. I was home. I failed to notice the shadows slipping past me, sneaking from corner to corner, just out of sight, green eyes lit up in the dark, fangs, the buzzing of insectoid wings as—

“Hey, Dreamwalker! Calm down!”

I snapped out of it.

Spike held me by my shoulders and shook me. I blinked, stared at him blankly and slowly regained my senses. A thin layer of rime covered the ground and quickly melted away. I shook myself free. I felt cold. “Sorry, I… lost it for a moment.”

He watched me closely. Spike knew better than most what was going on. By sheer coincidence, I had made the right call to bring him along into these ruins. It had been sheer coincidence… right?

After a moment, he seemed… satisfied. His claws left my shoulders and he relaxed visibly. I felt a little embarrassed, but this could have easily turned out a lot worse.

The ruins were still silent as a grave. I looked around the massive hall. Parts of the roof were missing. Parts where energy blasts had hit, and where Sunny's body plummeted through. I remembered seeing that fight. I could not remember why, or how. I had not been present for the fight itself, as that was ages ago. Maybe some kind of vision. A spell to share memories. Something that happened in a different cycle.

“Lots of bad things happened here.” I took a few tentative steps across the moth-eaten, moldy carpet, or whatever was left of it. It made sickening squelching sounds. Despite this, my eyes were transfixed onto the lost glory of this room. The banners were long gone. Rarity had come here time and time again to rescue whatever could be rescued. The carpets had not been part of that exclusive club.

The windows were gone. Once upon a time, they displayed the glory of heroic deeds, not dissimilar from those fancy windows in Canterlot Palace.

I could almost feel the lingering traces of emotions. Even after all this time, the room itself — the ruins as a whole — still yearned to tell their story. About neglect. And jealousy. About ignorance and rejected love. About resentment. And despair. And bitter, bitter regret. All of it a volatile cocktail, crowned by an excessive amount of pain. Loss. Grief.

The disbelief of what she had to do.

The disbelief of what she had done.

The disbelief that she had been capable of doing it.

I sighed once more and softly shook my head. Lingering in the past would not help us. We were here with a mission. And I would be better off not letting myself get distracted by reminiscence. “Top to bottom, or the other way around?” I asked Spike.

He had not strayed from my side. “I dunno. I like top. What’s better?”

It was a simple question. But it gave me something to focus my mind on. In theory, there was not much of a difference. We needed to search the entirety of the ruins anyway. But! The Everfree sported a vast array of predator species and otherwise dangerous creatures. Many of which… were incapable of flight. But all of which were perfectly capable of walking. Or crawling or slithering or whatever.

“I can imagine,” I replied with a wink. He did not get it. That was fine. I still found some amusement in the mental image of him sitting back at camp and suddenly, out of the blue, he would blush furiously as it finally clicked. “We’re starting with the cellar. If anything’s in here, it's most likely down there,” I concluded. The moment I made that decision, I already expected to find nothing in the cellar, but several cockatrice nests upstairs, or something similar.

I pointed over to the right, down a narrow hallway that split off of the main hall. We walked beside the carpet, as neither of us were keen on those disgusting sounds — or on announcing our presence with it. The latter argument fell flat on its face, as we kept chatting at normal volume.

“So you’re telling me they never had a wine cellar?” Spike asked in disbelief.

I grinned and shrugged. “Sunny was strictly a teetotaler back then, and Luna very much preferred stronger stuff. And the atmosphere a tavern offered. Mind you, she wasn’t quite as outgoing as she is today. I imagine her mostly sitting in the corner, cradling her mug of… I don’t know… rum or something?”

Spike chuckled. “That is such a weird image.”

I chimed in as I could not agree more. I had seen glimpses of shy Luna. They were very rare indeed. And almost on the same level of ‘adorkable’ as Twilight. “Anyway, point was that—“ I cut myself off. The moment we rounded the corner, we stopped. I knew the layout of the castle. I could walk these corridors blindfolded. I had, actually. In several cycles. Sometimes as part of party games, other times as part of party games.

There was supposed to be a staircase here, leading down to the cellar. And while the staircase was there, it was blocked by a cave-in. An entire section of the castle had apparently collapsed on top of it. “Huh.” Not my most eloquent moment, but it adequately described my thoughts.

Spike snickered in the background and started to pat my shoulder. “Don’t take it too hard.” I grimaced slightly. “We might be off to a rocky start here.” I grimaced a little bit harder. “You shouldn’t cave in to his turn of events!”

“Urgh, Spike!” I half-yelled, half-laughed. “That was painful!”

My buddy stood tall and proud, grinned from ear to ear and had no shame or remorse at all. We both laughed for a bit, trading several additional stone-related puns of quickly decreasing quality while we made our way back to the entrance hall. Only when our supply of rock-based quips ran dry did Spike switch the topic. “So, that was quick. A job well done, right? What’s next?”

I still smiled, though a sigh escaped my throat. “Well. The cellar is still there, just… buried, I guess. It looked pretty solid. That cave-in wasn’t there the last time we were here, which, you know… it’s weird. The ruins stood here for over a millennium.”

Spike nodded along. “Yeah, sure, but I don’t think it looked like this a millennium ago. Even with all the fighting and stuff. It’s just time gnawing away at the stone.”

“I guess you’re right,” I conceded the point. “That was the only cellar entrance I knew about, though. We will have to clear that at some point. I suppose the good news is that if some dangerous creature was down there at some point, it either starved to death by now or at least left by other means. The entrance hall isn’t far off, so I’d say we switch it up, search the ruins top to bottom.”

Spike shrugged. “Sure, works for me.”

We crossed the main hall shortly after and went in the opposite direction from before, down another hallway. At the end of it was a staircase leading up to the second floor. And the third one. Although a quick inspection made it obvious that there was no third floor anymore. The tower had collapsed in on itself, and the other parts of that floor did not look any better. I had no desire to become a ledge-walker and I was pretty sure that this was enough damage to ensure that no notable dangers were up here either.

So, second floor it was.

That said, I was not careless enough to just call it quits. While we walked around the second floor, I asked Spike if he could fly up and take a look at everything from above as soon as we were done here. With so much of the roof collapsed, it should allow him a good glance into the upper stories.

The longer we walked around on the second floor, the more we fell back into a steady, comfortable rhythm again. We walked and talked along a grand hallway and every now and then, we stopped our current conversation and peeked into the rooms that split off to the sides. There was no interior left. Whatever beds, cupboards, tables, vanities and other wooden or partially wooden things had been here, they rotted away a long time ago.

We mostly found a lot of broken glass. Shards of broken mirrors, too. The occasional rusty bit of scrap metal. Once upon a time, those were the handles of doors. The knobs on drawers. The screws in bed frames. None of the furnishings on this floor had been enchanted in any way, and they were therefore fully subjected to the elements.

“Is there anything interesting up here?” Spike asked as we cleared another two rooms and met up again in the middle of the hallway.

“Well, the castle is stuffed full with secret passages and traps and such, though as far as I remember, most of those were on the ground floor and in the deeper levels. The upper stories were more or less reserved for guests of the palace. You don’t want your foreign ambassador running into a trap you designed to entertain your little sister. Especially if she can take quite a hit without so much as being winded. I mean, none of the traps they designed for each other were deadly, or even dangerous. Obviously. They were just… for fun. But running into ‘alicorn fun times’ unprepared can cause serious damage to a regular pony. For that reason, the castle staff had always been carefully instructed what not to do. To the point where they actually made a ‘dos and don’ts’-list to hoof out to new employees. Luna told me about that on occasion.” My fond smile grew into a grin. “She also told me she tried to mess with that list. Once. Sunny was rather cross with her for that one and explained the serious consequences to her. At length.”

Spike voiced a pained hiss. “When I was a lot younger, Twilight and I played fetch. Like, a lot. Every day. And that one time, she managed to spook me. I shrieked and breathed fire on her. It wasn’t anything serious, just a quick plume to get some distance, but… she still got mild burns. Celestia sat down next to me in the waiting room. I remember how huge she was. I had to look up, like, with my head all the way back. And she just started talking. She did not address me, she just… she talked. Explained how one always has to be careful with the gifts one wields. How one of the most important qualities one can learn is self-restraint. A lot of what she said back then flew right over my head. But I still remember her face. Gentle and soothing and forgiving. But there was a sternness in her voice, too. It was less about what she said and more about how she said it. I understood that this could have gone a lot worse. I could have seriously injured her. We were lucky. I’m pretty sure Twilight got a sermon of her own that day. For spooking me.”

Warmth flooded my every fiber. With every beat of my heart. Just thinking about her lifted my mood a little further. “Yeah, she can do that,” I agreed. That and so much more. I admired her. Loved her. The way she could say something without a single word. She could, somehow, convey entire stories with mere body language and careful intonation. It was so gosh-darn impressive.

And then I suddenly started to giggle.

Without warning, a very specific memory sprang to my mind and just reliving it in such vivid detail made me giggle like a filly. Spike was obviously immediately confused. He looked around to see if I had spotted anything particularly funny, but after failing to notice anything, he stared at me. “What’s up?”

I needed a couple more seconds to calm down enough to answer. “I chewed her mane once. Well, several times, actually.”

He furrowed his brow. “Okay…?”

I battled for self-control until I regained a modicum of composure and managed to dim my chuckle down to a wide grin. I wiped away some tears. “It was relatively early on. I still sometimes failed to fall asleep when I was supposed to sleep alone. So I crawled into bed with her. She was fine with it and all. I had a free night. Luna insisted that I needed to dream occasionally, as it is supposedly important for my mind to sort out stuff. Anyway. So I sleep, and I dream about… heck, I have no idea anymore. I just remember that I woke up and I chewed her mane. She was awake too. She just watched me as I merrily chewed away. I wanted to sink into the bed sheets so badly! I was so embarrassed! But she just asked what her mane tasted like. All serious, mind you. I was fully willing to play along, because that was better than apologizing for the umpteenth time. So I took another nibble and told her it tasted like bubblegum. Honestly, as far as I remember, it tasted like soap. Or her shampoo or something. She nodded, still serious, and started this really in-depth analysis of the supposed taste of her mane in relation to its coloration and her own cutie mark and whatnot. I swear, she made that all up on the spot, but it sounded like those professors reciting their speeches at those conferences Twilight sometimes drags me to. She then mused that if her theory was right, it should be easy to find further evidence to support it by getting another sample for comparison.”

Spike grinned from ear to ear. He knew Celestia longer than I did, if maybe not quite as closely. He could already tell where this was going. “She chewed your mane, didn’t she?” he asked with a barely suppressed chuckle.

I nodded vigorously. “She can be such a goofball at times. And I love it!”

Spike laughed quietly and agreed. “I know, right? So, what did your mane taste like?”

I tried to remember how that morning developed further from that point and quickly felt the heat rise into my cheeks, ears and muzzle. Oh. Right. “I, uh, we… I didn’t get to ask that.”

Spike grimaced for just a moment before he laughed once more. Celestia, as much as Twilight, was a family member to him. A mother, a sister, something in between, something different altogether. It was hard to tell. Either way, he did not wish to think about those kinds of activities in too much detail when they were involved. Fair enough, really.

After a minute or two, we had both calmed down again. I sighed deeply. “Hah. I miss her. It’s stupid, I know. I’ve been gone for only a couple of days. It’s not even been two weeks. Maybe I’m getting clingy again.”

Spike shrugged and gestured for us to continue on our search for dangers. I nodded and followed. “Maybe. But I think if she has a problem with that, she would tell you. Right?”

I tilted my head slightly to the side and thought about it. Sunny could be quite an enigma if she wanted to. Her smile could mean anything and everything and nothing. If she did not want anypony to be able to read her, then they would not. Simple as that. But whenever there was a problem, we talked about it. She brought things up as soon as possible. And if I had some problem and was once again struggling to find words, she gently and patiently coaxed it out of me. “Right,” I agreed.

The Everfree has a mind of its own. It was not sentient as such, but it could be quite resentful. I was in a chipper mood. And apparently, I was not allowed such blessings. I took a couple steps further and suddenly heard a crack. Right beneath me.

I could not react fast enough as the ground simply gave way. The stone burst and what I had subconsciously considered a safe floor to tread on just vanished. I hit my chin on a piece of stone that still clung to the floor as I plummeted past it, my limbs flailing wildly in a futile attempt to get a grip on something. I did not even scream. The thought did not occur to me. And really, what good would that have done?

A second later, I felt a searing pain shoot up my sides, up my spine and straight into my head. I gritted my teeth and held back that pained yelp as best as I could.

Spikes claws dug into my sides.

I could hear the strained, rapid beating of his wings as he tried to get lift.

A moment later I collapsed on solid ground again, a little off to the side from where I had fallen through the floor. Spike stood beside me and breathed just as heavily as I did. “Sweet Celestia, what the heck…!” he exclaimed in between gusts of breath.

“My thoughts exactly,” I agreed. I slowly got up and craned my neck around to inspect the damages. Spike had reacted quickly. Otherwise he would not have been able to catch me at all. But this split-second reaction had meant that he could not be as careful as he would otherwise have been. My armor had prevented most of the damage, luckily. He had used it as something solid he could properly grab. But in the process, his claws had scraped along my barrel. Blood trickled along, down to my belly. The scratches were not particularly deep and looked a lot worse than they actually were.

I still had to look away quickly. “Uhm, Spike?”

He still stared at the hole in disbelief. “Yeah?”

“Would you mind helping me out?” The question stirred him. He looked over and quickly noticed the red staining my otherwise brown coat.

“Oh shit! I’m so sorry!”

I snorted. Which hurt a little, but hey. It was so rare to hear him cuss. Neither of us did that regularly, as neither of us liked it much. But there were just some situations that warranted it. “Don’t worry, it’s not as bad as it looks,” I assured him. “That said… well…” I hemmed and hawed and hesitated. Because it was embarrassing to admit to it, even if he already knew. The fact of the matter was: I could not see my own blood.

It never bothered me in all those gruesome horror movies I watched with Luna. It never bothered me when I read comic books with Spike. Heck, it did not even bother me all that much when it was the blood of somepony else.

There was no reasonable explanation why I reacted the way I did. But whenever I was confronted with the sight of my own blood, I got light-headed. To the point where I would actually faint. What a great night guard I made! And the nonsense did not even stop there. Right now, I was bleeding. But I did not look at it. So everything was fine. My vivid imagination showed me how I was bleeding. Before my mind's eye, I bled so much more profusely as I did in reality. Yet despite this, it did not bother me. Because it was not real.

Quirky, messed up brain!, I complained.

Spike had busied himself in the meantime. He retrieved his first aid kit from his backpack, cleaned and disinfected the wounds and put a few bandaids on them. While I stood still and distracted myself by complaining about myself, to myself.

I shook my head. “I’m a nutcase.”

“Lunatic,” Spike corrected me with a smirk, knowing full well that I appreciated that label a lot more. I appreciated everything a lot more that brought me closer to Luna. Still, this ‘moon sickness’ they raved about in ye olden days was just the weirdest stuff I had ever heard about. Obviously the product of ponies with too much imagination.

“Are you done?” I asked.

“All done,” Spike answered.

I gave in to my curiosity and looked at my side again. Everything was fine. And Spike was busy packing his kit back up and into his backpack. “Right, so… next time we come here, remind me to bring a ten-foot-pole, yes?”

He laughed. I could still hear a bit of tension in his voice, but we slowly got back to normalcy after that jump scare. “The good old ten-foot-pole. Never underestimate it!”

Once we stood side by side again, we both looked down the hallway. Everything looked fine. But everything had looked fine before and apparently, that meant absolutely nothing. We remained silent for a few moments, each of us having his own internal battle. I finished mine first. “Dumb question, but would you mind terribly if I asked you to pick up a piece of stone and just—“

“No problem,” he quickly cut in with a nod. He walked over to the hole, grabbed the rim and broke another piece of stone free. It offered uncomfortably little resistance. Then he threw the chunk down the hallway. It landed with a dull thud. Nothing happened. We exchanged a few glances.

“I don’t trust this,” I admitted.

“Neither do I,” he replied. Spike was the one with wings. Therefore, I had no complaints as he slowly walked down the hallway towards the piece of stone he had thrown. He got there without issues and picked it up.

It was hard to regain trust in the soundness of the structure after this incident.

I took a couple of steps towards him, but this time I immediately noticed the ever so faint sound of a crack beneath my hooves. The floor did not break away immediately, but I was not willing to risk anything either. “Heck no.” I stepped back. And I had not even crossed half the distance to reach Spike. “Throw it again.”

He did. And instead of another dull thud, we heard a crack and the piece he had thrown simply disappeared in another hole.

Apparently the stone of this hallway was a lot less stable than it looked.

“Okay, abort mission,” I decided. “If any hostile creature lives up here, it must have some sort of supernatural stone sense or something. Or it flies. I don’t know. What I do know is that we don’t belong up here. Come back please, and be careful. I don’t want you to get hurt, okay?”

Spike nodded, took one step in my direction and vanished. Through the floor.

“Fuck!” I hissed and stepp—

Stop!

It was an internal battle. His willpower against mine. He rarely announced when he suddenly tried to take over. That always made it hard to brace against his attempts. He failed to wrestle control from me, but I failed to overcome him. We were at a standstill.

Look where you’re going, you useless numbskull!

I growled at him, at myself. But I looked down anyway and I stopped fighting him. I had been one step away from plummeting through the floor as well. I had heard the crack. I had stepped away. And just a moment ago, I had almost set a hoof there again.

It would have been the right thing to do — to thank him. Despite our disagreements and animosities, he usually looked out for me. In his own strange and twisted way. Spike would not have been able to catch me in time. And each floor of the castle was twenty feet high, at least. That would have been quite the tumble. A broken rib or leg was not out of the question there.

Still. He tried to puppeteer me again.

“Fuck you,” I quietly hissed instead, before I raised my voice significantly. “Spike? Are you okay?”

Just a moment later, I saw his claw emerge from the hole and he pulled himself up again. He looked a little worse for wear. Scratches here and there, a bit dusty, but nothing serious. He mostly looked pissed, which I really could not fault him for. “I think I don’t like your castle,” he growled.

Despite myself, despite the shock, I chuckled quietly and nodded. “I think it doesn’t like you either. Or me, for that matter.”

He looked around and considered his chances, but ultimately decided against testing his luck. He flew over to me. We at least knew that the hallways up to this point had been stable, and that the rooms off to the sides were empty and safe. That would probably do for now.

“Let’s turn around and go to the ground floor,” Spike suggested. I couldn't agree more. “But I tell you, if we fall through into the cellar, with no exit but a hole in the ceiling, I’m going to tell Graphite to level this entire ruin. As a security measure.”

I chuckled and leaned against him to nuzzle his belly for a moment. “Well, you have my vote. You are the chief of security, after all.” And a small part of me hoped that the castle listened and took his threat seriously.

We turned around and headed back to the main hall. Again.

It was probably late midday by now. We walked around the ground floor of the old castle ruins, checked for weak floor patches — or crumbling parts of the ceiling. We checked the side rooms for unwelcome lodgers. We were a little bit more on alert and therefore less chatty. One of the reasons it now felt less like a camping trip with friends and more like actual work.

We both stopped abruptly when we heard glass shatter. And a voice cursing in… Old Ponish?

With both our brows furrowed, we exchanged glances and a couple of gestures. We both heard it and we were both cautious but intrigued. We decided to follow the noise. Eventually, we closed in on a crossing in the hallway. It continued to the left, further into the depths of the castle, and a little bit to the right, but I could not remember what was supposed to be there.

One thing was for sure though. We were sneaking around. We had done a pretty good job at it so far. But that probably posed a problem. Whoever was down here with us was not part of our group, but capable of intelligent speech. The likelihood of encountering a brainless, ravenous monster was therefore small. The likelihood of startling somepony and getting a stone or spell flung our way out of sheer surprise, however…

“Hello?” I called out after agreeing with Spike that announcing our presence was the better way to go about this. “Is anypony there?”

No reaction.

Well, they heard us, I concluded. We turned the corner and were confronted with two things I did not expect to find here. For one: This was a dead end. The hallway turned right and then just… stopped. No doors. No side rooms. Nothing. Just thirty feet of hallway. And since it was part of the internal structure, there were no windows either. How odd.

Especially since I could feel a tingling sensation beneath my skin. There was magic present here. An abundance of magic in fact, if I could notice it this clearly.

And then there was the stallion who looked at us a little bit… startled? He immediately gave off a very scholarly vibe. His amber-colored coat was partially concealed beneath a dark gray cloak. Said cloak covered his cutie mark as well. His mane, though. It was almost the same fire-gradient my daughter’s mane had. Although Aurora had the pretty magenta eyes of her mom and this guy's eyes were colored red. A very intense blood red. He wore a pair of thin-rimmed glasses and a horn stuck out between his bangs.

Spike looked at me with uncertainty. So I made the first step. “Hi! I hope we didn’t startle you too much. My name is Dreamwalker, and that is my friend Spike. And you are?”

He lifted a hoof to shove his glasses up his muzzle and stared… past us? “Currently in grave danger! As are you now, my friends! So I’d advise you to run!”

Before I got another question in, he legged it. Right past us. I looked in the direction he had previously stared in and saw the reason for his slight apprehension. “Oh. Right. That does look like an issue.”

There were these… things. They clung to the ceiling. To the walls. Crawled along on the floor. They reminded me a lot of the Smooze, just smaller and with a significantly impaired fashion sense, seeing as they wore no clothing at all. But they were basically gooey green blobs that moved via tentacle-y pseudopods that extended from their main body and were quickly pulled back in again.

They were absolutely silent. And they had been slow. Up until our surprise guest decided to run. Now though, they moved with purpose. They shot their tentacles out to attach themselves to the ceiling and swung along like gosh-darn apes!

“Spike…” I warned as I retreated half a step.

“Run?” he asked.

“Run!”

We decided that maybe, just maybe, that stranger had a good idea. Clearly he seemed to know a thing or two about these creatures. And that was the issue, was it not? We were here to clear out the castle. He had apparently stumbled into these beings before we did. We needed to know whatever he knew about them to better deal with those things.

“Wait for us!” I yelled after him. He did not slow down and I was not exactly in my prime either, but I still managed to catch up to him. Clearly, he was not the sporty type either.

“What are those things?” I asked as we ran shoulder to shoulder, Spike covering our back as best as he could while those swinging blobs gave chase.

“Oozes,” he replied as if that explained everything. My lack of knowledge must have been plain to see on my face. “Unnatural creatures, byproducts of magic that went haywire. They have acidic bodies!”

I furrowed my brow. “Did you make them?” This seemed natural, no pun intended. After all, we were not aware of anypony else making their camp anywhere near here. But he was here. And he knew about them.

“What?!” he asked in confusion. “Why would I make them?!”

He didn’t say ‘no’.

While the vitriolic voice in my head was right, I was not about to throw accusations around willy-nilly. Twilight always preached that everypony deserved a chance. Or two. Or three. I was willing to give this stallion the benefit of a doubt. “Do you know how we can deal with them?” I asked.

“Escaping should not be hard, they have a very bad memory!” he replied as he ran around yet another corner.

I did notice that he ran in circles. Not on the spot, but in a larger sense. Certain hallways offered access to different ‘wings’ of the castle, so to speak, but they formed a rough circle and he stuck to those hallways. He only ever led us into other hallways if those ended up in the main circle again. It would have been terribly confusing were it not for the precise layout in my head. I could see that Spike certainly was utterly lost and had no longer any idea where in the castle we were.

Was this to confuse the oozes?

Or us. Or maybe he’s trying to ensure that we cannot find our way back to that supposed dead end.

“Escape won’t help us,” I explained. I could feel it. With every word I was running out of breath. And a quick glance over my shoulder told me loud and clear: Those things were still behind us! In fact, it seemed to me like their numbers had doubled as the entire hallway appeared to be a green, slimy, moving carpet. “We need to get rid of them! They could pose a serious threat to our village!”

The stranger furrowed his brow. And a moment later, he suddenly stopped and turned on his heel. “Behind me! I might know a shield spell that could come in handy.”

Neither Spike nor I hesitated. We ran past him and stuck close to his back. We were familiar with Twilight's shield spells and knew that the bigger a shield had to be, the more energy it took to create it and hold it. Spike even tried to make himself a little bit smaller, just in case.

The shimmering hemisphere this stallion raised was strange. This magic felt oily and cold. The shield itself emanated a warm orange light, despite my impressions. And a few seconds later, the oozes began their onslaught.

I was not entirely sure what I saw.

They threw themselves against the shield. They tried to grab it with their pseudopods and then hurled themselves bodily against it. Due to all the oozes quickly catching up with us now that we had given up on escaping, they quickly covered the entire hemisphere. To the point where the inside became dark, except for the orange light coming from his horn.

And then the oozes… changed. Due to the fluid nature of their bodies, it was hard to describe. They withered away. Shriveled up. Dehydrated. Whatever it was — within seconds, all the oozes were gone. He dropped the shield a couple of seconds later and an intense smell of burned hair filled our nostrils.

I immediately felt sickened and dry heaved. “What in the world was that…?” I asked.

He turned towards us and regarded us with an intense stare. As if he was appraising the quality of an artifact. Eventually, he sighed. “I am sorry about the intense smell, it is a byproduct of both this spell and the oozes dying.” He shoved his glasses up his muzzle and then stretched a hoof out. “I am Dawn.” His quirky behavior reminded me of Sunburst.

Don’t. It’s a trap!

I accepted the gesture. And not just to spite him. It was a light, friendly hoofshake with Dawn. “Pleasure to make your acquaintance!” The moment I shook his hoof though, I realized something else. I noticed power.

Raw, unbridled power. Lingering, dormant, barely concealed beneath a thin surface.

It was no match for Twilight. Or any other alicorn, for that matter. But I could not remember ever encountering another unicorn with such power. It did make me wary, at least a little bit, but I tried to stay open-minded. Just because he was powerful did not mean that he was dangerous.

Dawn offered a hoof to greet Spike as well, who casually flipped his claws through his head fins and then accepted the gesture. “We totally had this,” he announced.

Oh Spike, I sighed internally and just grinned.

Dawn smiled and nodded. “I see. And what, pray tell, would you have done to them, my scaly friend? Considering a kicking hoof or swiping tail would simply get stuck in their thick, viscous bodies — which consist entirely of acid, I might repeat… and were you to swipe your claws at them, they would actually split, leaving you with two enemies instead of one.”

“You are quite knowledgeable,” I quietly chimed in.

Dawn seemed to take that as a compliment and tipped his non-existent hat. Spike on the other hoof struggled a little with this presented information. “Oh. Uh… burn it?” he ultimately suggested.

Dawn thought about it for a moment and nodded once more. “That would have worked to destroy their bodies, yes. By turning them into highly corrosive gas. Which you should not breathe under any circumstances, lest it burn your lungs. And with these hallways being somewhat closed-in spaces, and no real air currents… alas! Not the point. Tell me, then: Would dragon fire have been your first idea?”

“No,” Spike sheepishly admitted.

It was time to take a stand. I did not mind Dawn presenting his knowledge. I did not mind him making Spike aware of flaws in his plans. But it was truly getting to him now and I did not want to see him crestfallen. So I stood by his side and bumped his hip with my shoulder. “Hey buddy. Don’t worry. We would have figured something out. We always do, right?”

He sighed and nodded gratefully a moment later. “Yeah. Yeah we do.”

The three of us briefly fell silent before Dawn spoke up again. “You mentioned a village, I believe?”

“I did, yes.” I sat down and rubbed my muzzle with a hoof. Somehow, this day started to feel like it dragged on forever. “Greenwood. It’s… well, it’s basically just right outside the ruins. I don’t know how long you’ve been here, but we arrived yesterday.”

“Yesterday?” Dawn echoed with a hint of amusement. “I cannot imagine it being much of a ‘village’ then.”

I grinned and shrugged. “We’re working on it.”

He’s sounding you out.

I grimaced.

Backtrack to that dead end.

I shook my head.

You can’t afford to not know if he’s hiding a lab full of those oozes! Chances are, he’s Twilight's next big villain, currently preparing the army with which he intends to destroy Equestria!

I grimaced harder. But no matter how vile he was, he had a point. Additionally, I was under no illusion that once again Spike — and Dawn, most likely — had seen my facial expression contort in all kinds of funny ways. But I was tired of explaining that particular quirk of mine, so Dawn would have to wait for another day when that voice in the back of my head was less bothersome.

“Spike? Could you maybe bring Dawn to safety in Greenwood? And sent Aurora in, I’m going to wait in the main hall for her. We need to make sure it's safe in here.” Spike nodded. And Dawn did not disagree. Which struck me as strange. Did he not have his own camp somewhere? Saddlebags left behind there? Maybe a purse of bits? A spellbook? Something? But he mentioned none of that and simply agreed with my suggested course of action.

We ventured back to the entrance. Spike and Dawn left the ruins through the transformed courtyard and despite what I had said, I made myself comfortable beneath Bruno.

It felt strange, being here. This grass was green. So lively and green as the grass home at Sweet Apple Acres. As if somepony had just transplanted a piece from there over here. A little bit of Ponyville in the middle of the Everfree forest.

And Bruno.

There were two of those now. It creeped Applejack out. One of the reasons she did not dare to come here anymore. It always burdened her with a lot of complicated and frightening questions. Bruno was an apple tree. One that stood at Sweet Apple Acres. It was an old one. It stood there for decades. It was never moved.

But after the defeat of the farmer, after the transformation of the courtyard, after all those shenanigans, there was a second Bruno, right here. It only made sense if those other cycles I lived through were something different than just a ‘time loop’, right? But the time loop theory fell apart due to many other details already. So what was this? What was I? Where did I come from? Were there other worlds, other lifes, families without their husbands, fathers, friends? Was there a world now, somewhere out there, where Bruno was just ripped from its place, to be planted here? Or was it a duplication of sorts? But Applejack could tell it was real, it was the Bruno. Surely she would be able to tell a fake from the real one, right? A whole can of worms.

I had married Luna. Luna had become pregnant. To avoid the public eye, we rebuilt the old castle. And moved there. Our friends wanted to support us. So they followed us. Greenwood was founded at the foot of the castle. Rarity became a royal seamstress. Fluttershy and Pinkie lived in a massive tree at the edge of the village. I remembered that life.

And Applejack had been our farmer. She had provided an entire village with food. Her tenacity was enough to rival the stubbornness of the entire Everfree. She prevailed, the forest yielded. But Applejack got homesick. So we brought a little piece of home back to Greenwood. It had been Big Mac's idea, initially. It was a gesture. A gift from the Apple family to Princess Luna. Bruno, the apple tree. We planted him in the courtyard. A proud display for all to see and enjoy. And every time Applejack got homesick, she would come to the courtyard and play her harmonica beneath Bruno’s canopy.

I remembered so many details from that cycle. I remembered sitting down next to Jackie. My sister in spirit. Part of the family. She was part of mine. I was part of hers. An honorary Apple. And hoo boy, what an honor that was. I felt proud to be accepted by them.

“Hey dad. You wanted me to come over?”

I blinked. The memories faded. Another lifetime. A different cycle. Before me stood Aurora. My daughter. My little princess. “Hey sunshine.” I wiped at my eyes to clear my blurry vision. I steeled myself and stood back up. Being in this place was weird.

I turned around and put a hoof to Brunos bark. “See you later, old friend.” I was no earth pony. If Bruno heard me, I did not know. If he answered, I could not tell. It nevertheless did not change how I treated him.

Aurora followed me inside the main entrance hall and whistled quietly. “This place must have been impressive back then…”

I smiled. “Right. You’ve never been here before, have you?” She shook her head. “Well. If all works out, this place will be impressive once again someday. Hopefully you’ll get to see it.” I gave her another minute or two to look around. To drink it all in. The grand hall. Many areas of the castle were built to impress. A design philosophy that clearly had survived until the construction of Canterlot Castle. The high ceilings made you feel tiny. “So, tell me. How are your shield spells?” I asked her.

Aurora grinned, sparked her horn to life and gave me a quick demonstration. A floating, translucent disk shimmered in front of her. It spun rapidly, probably deflecting incoming projectiles to the sides. An impressive spell. Probably one she had learned from either her half-sister Arcana, or from Shining Armor.

“Looks fancy!” I both teased and acknowledged. The shield vanished and she took a mocking bow. “I don’t think we’ll stay here for long, I just need to quickly check something while Spike keeps an eye on our new friend out there.”

“I saw that guy, who is that? He’s not one of us, is he?” Aurora asked.

“No. His name is Dawn, we… stumbled upon him, basically.” I recounted our initial meeting to her while we weaved our way through the halls. I set a quick trot as the pace. I knew where I was heading and Aurora had no difficulties matching my pace. She was ‘just’ my bodyguard and I did not expect any further complications.

Thus we quickly reached the supposed dead end again, despite Dawn's best efforts. “Can you feel that?” I asked as I noticed the faint tingle beneath my skin again.

Aurora shook her head. It was a tad frustrating. Both Sunny and Twilight had explained to me that the ability to feel magic was rare. And honestly, considering how many times it literally made me puke, I wished this ‘rare gift’ would have been given to somepony else. Somepony who could get some use out of it.

I closed my eyes and followed the tingle. Whenever it got stronger, I took a step in that direction. It took less than half a minute and I reached what appeared to the naked eye as a wall. But once I put my hoof against it, it felt distinctly different. Wooden, instead of stony.

“There’s a door here,” I surmised.

I felt my way around the wood and indeed, there was stone to either side of it. So I trotted back down the hallway to take a look at another door, just to gauge at which height the door handles usually were. Luckily the doors here on the ground floor were partially intact, not like the ones one floor up. Then I went back and poked my hoof in the apparent illusion until I found the handle. The door was not even locked.

“Ready?” I asked.

Aurora had watched me with curiosity and mild alarm and now that I explicitly waited for her, she gave a curt nod and tensed up, ready to counter anything or shield both of us..

I pushed the door open. And nothing happened. No stream of fire came out, no endless abyss opened beneath me. I cautiously stuck my head through the illusion and saw into another room. An alchemist’s laboratory, from what I could tell. Several workstations and desks offered various equipment that would have felt right at home in Twilight's cellar in her castle.

“Seems clear,” I told Aurora and walked through the ‘wall’ and inside the lab. She followed right after me. “See if you can find anything dangerous.”

“Isn’t this an alchemy lab?” she asked in reply.

I stopped and grinned awkwardly. “Point taken.” There was a reason why Zecora practiced her craft in the middle of the Everfree, or why Twilight banished her experiments to the structurally reinforced and enchanted cellar. We walked in between rows of workstations offering all kinds of funky looking alchemical ingredients — or what we assumed to be alchemical ingredients — and apparatuses for boiling and grinding and mixing stuff.

Our ultimate conclusion was therefore a simple one: Nothing here looked like it was about to blow up, eat us or curse us. Nothing here was suspicious. Despite telling myself that, I could not stop asking: Why hide it, then?

I decided that this was a question best answered by the stallion himself. That would make things considerably easier than racking my brain and coming up with all kinds of crazy conspiracy theories. I was sure he would love that and I was utterly unwilling to give him that satisfaction.

So we returned to Greenwood.

The sun was slowly setting.

Aurora was still busy discussing options with Hefty. They were planning the workshop. The first building that would be erected in Greenwood. A proper building, not just a collection of tents. An important moment for the soon-to-be village. But I found myself distracted. Spike was with Gabby again, but I noticed that he glanced over to us every now and then.

I sat beside Dawn. We both watched the hustle and bustle of almost a dozen creatures finishing up work for the day. I finally dared to breach the walls of silence. “How likely is it that there are any other predators within the ruin?”

Dawn seemed calm. Serene, almost. The entire time. There was no awkwardness from his side. He was a calm, friendly, intelligent, charming stallion. I had to admit it to Voidwalker, at least: It was a bit suspicious.

Told you.

Shut up.

“Oozes are ravenous creatures,” Dawn answered. “Even though they technically do not need nourishment to sustain their bodies. If anything living was in there, it is most likely that they hunted it down relentlessly and used its biomass for reproduction. Oozes do not sleep. They don’t require rest, they don’t think or strategize. All they know is insatiable hunger and reproduction.”

I grimaced. The more I learned about these creatures, the less I ever wanted to encounter a single one of them ever again. It sounded like they could become a plague. An endless wave, consuming everything in sight and using it to only increase the tide. “Given their behavior, are we to expect more of them?”

Dawn mulled it over, but shook his head. “I don’t think so. They are mindless, unthinking. They tend to stick together, sometimes quite literally. They move only to devour, so if one moves, that tells the others that one noticed prey, therefore all of them move. This kind of behavior is unlikely to produce stragglers.”

He never answered your question if he created them.

“If I may ask a question of my own?” Dawn politely inquired. I nodded. “I noticed that you moved like a soldier while we escaped these creatures. You tried to cover your friend's retreat. And mine. Thank you for that, by the way.”

I looked down at myself. I still wore my armor. It was a good reminder to dismiss it, but with this particular question out in the open, I waited. Because dismissing it right after this question would send the wrong signal. “I suppose I am. Kind of. Proud member of the night guard,” I announced.

“Interesting.” He looked at my armor as if it was the first time he actually became aware of it. He even reached out with a hoof, only to hesitate and look up at me for permission. After I granted it, he put his hoof to the cold metal plates. “A fascinating design. It seems to favor mobility and reduced weight.”

Searching for weak spots?

Stop it. He is not the enemy, I told myself.

“With you being a night guard, I am right to assume that you serve under…?”

“Princess Luna, yes.” I grimaced ever so slightly. I had completed his sentence without a second thought. It was so… natural. But why would he phrase it like that? Why would he invite me to complete the sentence? He was a unicorn, was he not? Surely he had to know this.

Except maybe he isn’t. And maybe he doesn’t. And maybe he’s playing you.

Dawn fell silent for a brief while. His brow furrowed and his gaze became distant. “Luna. Yes. I see,” he muttered quietly. There was something in his eyes that made me feel for him. He looked haunted. But the moment passed and he returned from whichever memory had befallen him. “You don’t seem particularly close to her, seeing as she sent you out here into the middle of nowhere. I certainly would not wish to stick my muzzle where it does not belong, but out of sheer curiosity… did you fail your Princess?”

Your?

But again, the answer was so easy. So quick. “No, no, nothing like that!” I replied with a good-humored chuckle. “I’m here on my own volition. We are actually quite close.”

“… I see.”

Why are you feeding him all this information, idiot?

Vitriol. Spite. Paranoia. He knew nothing but fear.

I remembered so many things I had gained by not listening to him. By following the advice of others. Friends, family, loved ones. Were I to let my fears rule me like they ruled him, would I ever feel Sunny's warmth again? Would I still be able to laugh alongside Luna? I only needed to close my eyes to conjure an image of Twilight, grinning at me with such pride in her eyes. For something so small as opening up to a friend.

There had been days when my fears quite literally choked me.

But I refused to yield. I would not succumb to their toxic whispers.

Friendship is magic. Friendship has the power to unify us all. And the one thing friendship requires… is trust. I knew nothing about Dawn. I had ample reason to suspect something fishy was up with that guy. But I liked the idea. I liked the idea of befriending him. For so many years, friendships just… happened. I shared a lot of time with somepony, so I tried to get to know them. I tried to let them get to know me. Sometimes that worked out and I gained a new friend, sometimes it did not. But rarely did I go out of my way to make new friends.

Because frankly, that was scary. And exhausting.

We sat there in silence for a few more minutes. I finally dismissed my armor. Aurora rolled up her plans and stored them away. Hefty and Honey returned from the edge of the forest. Gabby and Spike were already busy cooking dinner from our supplies. Everypony came back together to mingle and give the others updates on the status of things. Everyone cared. Because everyone had stakes in this, even the projects and tasks of the others.

I briefly wondered how long we would manage to keep that tradition alive. At some point, I would need to recruit more ponies. At some point, I hoped that others would simply follow. Find their way here on their own. Follow the trail of adventure, or a second chance, or new business opportunities. There was always a lot of potential with new villages, was there not?

“So what is this project?” Dawn quietly asked.

I considered giving him the full pitch. It would be nice having him on board, I told myself. He clearly knew a lot of stuff. Who could tell how much more he knew? Or how much he was capable of? But just one sidelong glance at him told me that ‘the pitch’ would not work. He was too smart for me. So I stuck as close to the truth as I dared. “We are building a village. Most of them want to stay here if it works out. Everypony has their own reasons for that. But that’s the point. It’s potential. It's an opportunity. I hope that those things will attract enough ponies that one day, they will rebuild the castle. Restore it to its former glory. Or new glory, I don’t particularly care about that part.”

“But you do care about the castle, it seems.” It was a statement. A simple observation.

“I do.” My gaze drifted away from the newly lit campfire. I looked back over my shoulder. In the encroaching dark of the coming night, the ruins looked ominous. A looming presence of age and decay. “It’s an important piece of Equestrian history. Plus, once upon a time, it was home to my families.”

While the phrasing was more than natural for me, it did seem to make his thoughts stumble a little. Yet in the same manner he refused to elaborate on some topics, I saw no reason to explain myself further with this one. And he accepted that.

A few more minutes passed in silence. It seemed part of our dynamic so far. Bursts of conversation, interspersed with stretches of silence. Though I could not say in good conscience that it felt uncomfortable. I always found conversations to be tiring, even when the one I was talking to was a dear friend or loved one. These recurring pauses… helped.

Maybe he felt the same. Maybe we were not so different.

“Well,” Dawn raised his voice again, albeit it still remained barely above a whisper, “I am admittedly quite eager to see where this is going. Plus, I am starving and this smells delicious. Do you mind if I stay? I would obviously help out with whatever knowledge I can offer.”

“Sure,” I replied almost instantly. Somehow, I had known that this question would come. I had waited for it. He had his answer, yet he did not move. Because in the same vein, he knew that I was not done with him just yet. “Where is your camp, Dawn?”

“In that hidden room you undoubtedly discovered,” he replied with an unexpected softness in his voice. It reminded me of the way Sunny spoke with ponies. Her motherly tone simply disallowed anger to take hold. And in the same manner I was unable to muster any frustration with Dawn. He freely admitted to concealing this laboratory. It was part of the castle and therefore technically not his to use or live in, but the owners were long gone. I had not seen a sleeping bag or any personal belongings, but neither had I searched the room fully. A quick scan, in and out, so as to not leave him unsupervised for too long. It was my own fault, really.

Friendship requires trust. A lesson Twilight taught me over and over and over again. It was less about me relearning it and more about reminding myself. Some things are easily forgotten. They slip through the cracks unnoticed. How little kindness can cost, but how much difference it makes. A smidge of politeness can brighten somepony’s day. Respect. Honesty. To give plenty, but to allow oneself to receive as well.

I dreaded accidentally turning this early conversation with him into an interrogation. He was not on trial, I told myself. But surely he was aware of his own curious behavior. Surely he would understand me asking the obvious questions, at least?

“What are you doing here?” I dared another one.

It took some time for him to answer that. He stared ahead, at the pot Spike threw a few herbs into, but he probably saw no pot. Or Spike. “I have begun a journey a long, long time ago. So long, in fact, that I can barely remember its beginnings. I am in the last stages of finally finishing it.”

Cryptic as all Tartarus.

I agreed with that sentiment. Yet despite this, I could not help myself. “Can I help somehow?”

I had no idea why, but the offer alone seemed to catch Dawn fully off-guard. There was sudden movement as his head snapped around. He stared at me in disbelief, his eyes wide. But as quickly as his surprise came, he got it back under control. His charming, friendly smile returned and a silent chuckle shook his shoulders. “That is a kind and generous offer. And… an unexpected one. You do not know me.”

I nodded. “I wouldn’t mind changing that.”

This time, he had better control over his expression. But he stared at me in disbelief for a couple of seconds nonetheless. “Is it because I am a pony? A unicorn? Are you willing to help a fellow spellweaver?”

Spellweaver. What an odd term to use.

I considered his question before I shook my head. “I don’t think so, no. It wouldn’t change anything if you were a dragon. As you can see, I’m good friends with one. Though I suppose Spike is a little bit strange for a dragon. I think you’d be less friendly if you were one. Still doesn’t change the offer.”

“Why?” he asked quietly.

I sighed and looked upwards. The last vestiges of color drained from the sky and the first twinkles of stars became visible. I loved nighttime. For as much as I loved Sunny and her warmth, I always felt much more at home at night. “I’m in a weird spot in my life.” That was no answer to him, of course. But an important revelation for myself. Applejack was back home. Yay. But nothing would change the fact that all of my friends were old. So very, very old. Yet here I remained. I had made new friends, sure. I had families. But I could not deny that Aurora's hips were wide. That Arcana had little wrinkles around her eyes. My own children aged in front of me.

I had made new friends. By coincidence. And they were less in number than the original group. Because I failed to learn how to move on. How to move past the initial cycle I knew. I had never come this far. Never stayed this long in any one cycle. I had no idea what that stupid concoction did to me.

I softly shook my head. “Several reasons,” I finally tried to answer Dawn's question. “Some of them are horribly complex and confusing, even to me. Some I cannot hope to explain. Ever. As for the others… I don’t feel uncomfortable with you. Which is something important to me, as that is… rarer. I… saw something. In your eyes. Like a kindred spirit, maybe. I don’t know. You clearly have secrets. I hope they aren’t dangerous. I hope I am not running with hooves and eyes wide open into a trap. But I think we could be friends. I’d like to be friends. I’m not sure if it's possible, but I’d like to find out. Even if it scares me. That prospect. That question of yours. This answer of mine. Those secrets, yours and mine. All of it. And I hope I didn’t put you off by being this upfront.” I finished with an awkward half-chuckle. Just to emphasize my own nervousness, apparently.

Dawn remained quiet for a while yet again. Just another minute, but it felt considerably longer. Eventually though, he sighed. “Dinner is ready. We should fetch some.” He wore the same friendly, warm, charming smile as he usually seemed to. It was a non-answer. But more importantly, I told myself: It was not a ‘no’. So I got up and followed him.

Dinner was nice. And despite how cringey that sounded in my head, I was serious. Fluttershy was clearly on to something.

It was an opportunity to mingle. To sit down, relax, have some food and kick back. Everyone was talking. I tried to listen for the important bits and sighed in contentment whenever I could just let the voices be my background music as I looked up and appreciated Luna's beautiful spectacle. Wood this, garden that, progress made, no looming disaster just yet.

It was nice.

After dinner however, it did not take long for our group to fall apart piece by piece. Hefty, Honey, Graphite — they were dead tired. No wonder there, really. Even Gabby and Derpy did not make it long once they had food in their bellies. With Gabby retreating to their tent, Spike was obviously close behind. One by one, they vanished. Until all who remained were Aurora, Dawn and I.

My sunshine leaned against me and watched the stars with me. “Want me to tell you another story?” I asked in a hushed whisper.

She smiled and nestled a little closer, but shook her head. “I think I’m too tired. I would fall asleep and I don’t like the sound of that.”

I accepted her decision. Which did not stop me from softly humming a melody. I was a terrible singer. But humming was fine. Her mom on the other hoof, she had a voice. Sweet heavens, did she have a voice. It was one thing to hear Sunny talk. To witness how she could talk down raging dragons and convince stubborn yaks. That was impressive.

But hearing her sing was enchanting.

Once upon a time, the melodies her throat produced were haunted, full of grief and regret. Time dulled the pain, and with the farmers' destruction by the Elements, she got a real chance to actually heal. But I remembered that first time after Aurora's birth, when she sang for her. Her voice trembled ever so slightly. It was still haunted, but… differently. Full of hope. Aspirations.

That first song became a staple. Sunny told me at one point that even she did not remember the time from whence this song had come. She did not remember all of it either. But she occasionally sang it to our little filly as she grew up. And I hummed it as we watched the stars.

My heart skipped a beat when I heard her softly chime in. Aurora was a good filly. No matter her age, she would always be my little princess. I just hoped that someday, she would find a decent stallion. Or mare. Or dragon. I did not really care. So long as it was a decent partner. And that maybe someday, she would sing this song to her own foals.

“Thanks dad,” she whispered barely audibly before I felt her kiss on my neck and she pulled away. She looked drowsy, but happy. And with a little swerve in her step, she hauled herself off to her tent.

That left two, then.

Dawn looked as fresh as a daisy. Which led to another obvious question. “You don’t sleep, do you?”

He smirked. “I do sleep. But I have an enchantment cast on myself that significantly reduces the required amount while simultaneously keeping my senses aware enough of my surroundings.”

I felt my eyebrows rise up. “Sounds impressive.”

He quietly snorted and shrugged. “I suppose. Magic can do many fantastical things. Yet I will say that what I cherish magic most for are the mundane and trivial tasks that it can get rid of. I would call it ‘quality of life’-spells, or maybe ‘convenience-magic’. But either is quite a mouthful.”

I laughed quietly. “It is, yes.” I looked around and addressed the issue head-on, albeit accompanied by a sigh. “We don’t have any more free sleeping spaces, I fear. I didn’t think about packing spares. Or expecting guests.”

Dawn shook his head. “Do not worry. I will simply retreat to my own ‘camp’, as you called it. Though…” He looked around. His ears stood straight, swiveled in search of any noise that was out of the ordinary for the nightly forest. And he found none, except for the soft snoring of either Hefty or Honey. That was hard to tell. “Another question, if you will indulge me?”

I smiled lopsided. “Sure, shoot.”

“When we fled from the oozes,” he started. I was surprised that he kept bringing that up, as if to invite me to ask again if he created them, “I noticed that you did not use your own magic to defend yourself. Or your friend.”

At least this question was somewhat easy to answer. “I’m weak.” He seemed surprised, so I elaborated. “My magical reserve is pitiful. I have a talent with telekinesis, which basically reduces the cost this spell requires of me, but even my telekinesis is severely limited when compared to that of others with a talent in this spell. I can’t even make sparks. Which, I might add, is super annoying when you try to get the fireplace going for a romantic evening. I believe at this point, I own a dozen flint and steel and tinderboxes. Strewn across half of Equestria. And those are only the ones I remember and didn’t displace or lose.” Just as I had hoped for, Dawn chuckled in amusement. “I would have welcomed some ‘convenience-magic’!”

“I see. Well, it is entirely within the range of possibilities for some unicorns to be born so… disadvantaged. This is usually counteracted by their cutie mark magic and I could not help but notice yours seems to correlate to stars. With your demonstrated fondness of the night sky, I was wondering if maybe you have some spells relating to that?”

Stars. Huh. I looked at my own flank. It was a bit of an awkward angle, but I supposed that without further knowledge, one could see it as stars. “I was just committing to the bit there. I do have my strengths, they just don’t really affect, well, the waking world. I have dream magic.”

Now I got him curious, it seemed. It was funny. Fifty years and we still barely scratched the surface in our understanding of the dreamscape and how it worked. And we had nowhere near enough ponies to deal with the workload. “Dream magic?” he echoed.

Since barely anypony knew what precisely Luna did as her job, it was no surprise that barely anypony knew what dream magic even was. I had no idea how many times I had already given this same explanation. “The dreamscape is the plane of existence where all the dreamers go when they fall asleep. My talent allows me to enter the dreamscape consciously. I mean, here I’m still ‘sleeping’, but in the dreamscape, I’m awake and in control. I can leave my dream and interact with other dreams and dreamers. Help them sort out their repressed feelings for their half-siblings and such.” Dawn stared at me blankly for a moment before he grimaced ever so slightly. I laughed and nodded. “You’d be surprised how much that comes up.”

“I am a single child,” he insisted.

“As far as you know,” I retaliated.

“Please don’t,” he asked with a rough chuckle. I chimed in and agreed to leave it at that. “So your special talent is quite similar to Luna's powers. How peculiar. I was not aware that others have these powers.”

I shrugged. “It’s a recent development, as far as I can tell. Last couple of decades or so. There’s a dozen of us by now, but we are obviously severely understaffed.”

“I can imagine,” Dawn agreed. He seemed deep in thought for a while again and I let my gaze be drawn back up once more. That is, until he spoke up again. “Would you mind if I helped you out a little?”

I looked back down and over to him. “How?”

“Nothing invasive, I promise,” he assured, his hooves raised in defense. Yet I had not even considered anything of that sort. It was strange, thinking about what that implied. That this was his own first instinct, his own expectation of my reaction. “I can further bolster your telekinesis. It does seem to be the one spell you have mastered to the best of your ability so far.”

“Meaning… I can lift more?” I asked for clarification’s sake.

“Lift more. Carry it further for longer. Gain more precise control over each held object to the point of fine-manipulation,” he explained.

It was a generous offer.

A trick. You don’t know what backdoors he will implement.

A generous offer.

I was well aware that there was always room for improvement. Twilight lived and breathed this, it was basically her lifestyle. Just because something was adequate, or even good, or seemed to be optimal did not mean that it could not be better. Because there was no perfect. Improvement was something that rarely had a ceiling. It was easy to come up with situations and circumstances in which a better-developed telekinesis would be useful.

You are putting too much blind trust in him. Twilight would certainly not approve of unreasonable faith!

“I’ll do it.” I shook my head. “I mean, sorry. I meant: I would gladly accept your kind offer. Thank you.”

Dawn's brows knitted for a moment as he studied my face, but then he relaxed and smiled again. “Well, as you will shortly see, the change is nothing to worry about. More so, it is fully reversible if you ever wish to return to your current state.”

When I shook his hoof back in the ruin for the first time, I noticed his power. Here and now, he did something that unleashed a part of this incredible potential. I had no idea what exactly he did, as his horn did not even light up. But my hair stood on end. His magic felt wild and unpredictable, energizing and dangerous, like licking a gosh-darn outlet. It was in no way comparable to the oily feeling I got from his shield spell.

Which was weird.

Really weird.

Because a casters magic always felt the same. How magic felt to me was not dependent on what spell the caster wove, but who wove it. Somehow, Dawn just kept on piling up the question marks.

And then I noticed a faint glyph on my left foreleg. It was a strange symbol consisting of three lines. The formation vaguely reminded me of the mathematical symbol for Pi, except these lines looked more like claw marks. And the soft glow emanating from the glyph was a faint, pale blue.

His aura was orange. Or at least his shield spell had been. And every time I saw him use telekinesis, his horn was wreathed in an orange aura. And this glyph did not match my own aura either. Just… more. More and more questions.

“Test it,” he suggested.

And I did. I knew the limitations of my own magic pretty well, having had fifty years to get accustomed to them. I could indeed lift more. I could even grab my sleeping bag within Aurora's closed tent. I had never before managed to manipulate an object with telekinesis that I was not able to see.

I gave a quiet whistle. “Impressive.” I looked at the glyph again. “This thing is some sort of arcane anchor, I assume? To tie the improved spell structure to my essence?” I grinned smugly as I noticed that I had once again surprised him. “I’m not as dumb as I look.”

He chuckled and shook his head. “I can assure you, I did not assume such. I will still admit that I did not expect understanding, no matter how superficial it is. Your understanding of it is perfectly sufficient. The glyph indicates your ability to cast a spell that is outside of your normal wheelhouse, so to speak. There is no reason to worry, it is not dangerous. That said, some might find it strange and you may want to come up with a story.”

I chuckled. “Or, and hear me out about this: I tell them the truth. Way easier, don’t you think?”

Dawn tilted his head slightly and regarded me once more as if he had to make a life-or-death decision. After a moment, his smile slowly morphed into a grin and he apparently dismissed some sort of illusion spell. My jaw went slack as I saw dozens upon dozens of glyphs all over his body. All unique symbols, all with unique coloration. He looked like a freaking disco ball.

“Experience has taught me that these glyphs, simply because of their appearance, can be intimidating to less learned creatures.” The brief moment passed and he quickly reestablished his illusion, hiding away maybe hundreds of spells. “I hope I can expect a better result from a… a friend?”

Yes! I cheered mentally. Though I was pretty sure that he still saw me beam with happiness. And there was some genuine relief in his eyes and tension bleeding out of him as I nodded. “It looks damn impressive. One day, you need to tell me how you got those. And what those are. And do.”

He nodded with a crooked smile. “One day. Maybe.”