Dusk faded gracefully to full night as Luna felt her sister relinquish her hold on the day. She settled into a more comfortable position, gazing out into the quiet darkness, then closed her eyes and lit her horn.
She had work to do.
The dreamscape formed around her, the typical calm quiet of early evening: many ponies had not yet sought their beds, and even those most prone to nightmares often had yet to dive fully into their fears.
Luna drifted among the dreams, nudging gently here, redirecting a little bit there; often the best way to stop a nightmare was to keep it from happening in the first place.
Unease curled through her. There was something about that thought –
No, she realized, a breath later. This was not her own unease, but – there.
A twist of will, and she reappeared near the dreamsphere in question, frowning slightly. Whose …? Ah, Starlight Glimmer.
Well, it had not been so long since the young unicorn had confronted Celestia and herself, and the experience had already disturbed her dreams once. Perhaps this could use a more … personal touch.
“Seasonal Shift Day~~”
Luna blinked, reorienting herself as the ponies of Ponyville – with Pinkie Pie and Rainbow Dash in the lead – sang an enthusiastic song of a holiday she had never heard of, and of all the things they could do with the extra hour of daylight they would welcome in on the morrow.
Starlight herself watched from a balcony in the castle, a puzzled frown on her face and unease surrounding her like mist. “This can’t be right,” she whispered, then turned and galloped away. Intrigued, Luna followed.
… All right, perhaps she got a bit lost. Luna had only visited Twilight’s castle a few times in person, after all, and many of the doors did look very much the same.
Still, the sense of unease and the twist in the dreamscape of a time skip reoriented her, and she arrived at the library to see a frantic Starlight pulling what looked like her hundredth book from near the top of one of the shelves while a bemused Spike attempted to reassert order on the first ninety-nine.
“I don’t see why you’re so worried, Starlight,” Spike said cheerfully. “Seasonal Shift Day has been happening for ages. I like the winter one best; even Twilight’s willing to sleep an extra hour.” He considered. “Most of the time.”
“Then why don’t I remember it?” Starlight snapped, magic still tugging at the latest volume – a large one, and very ancient. With one last yank, it – and she – tumbled free. “Aha!”
Having arrested her own fall midair, Starlight didn’t even bother to touch back down to the ground before the glow of her horn strengthened and pages began to flip. “S … S … Seasonal – no, not there, how about – found it!”
She swooped to the ground and shoved the book in Spike’s face. “Stone of Seasons! See! It’s right there! That’s what’s wrong!”
Spike stepped away just far enough to actually read the page, squinted, and shrugged. “Well if you’d wanted to know about the mechanics of Seasonal Shift Day, even I could have told you that. Are you sure you’re feeling okay, Starlight?”
“You– I–” Starlight looked a bit wild-eyed. “I need to find Twilight.”
“It’s a really interesting phenomena, really — I’m sure the Princesses could just agree to raise the sun and moon at different times, but the Stone of Seasons helps keep things stable and helps everypony adjust to the abrupt change –” Twilight.
“Well, the extra hour of daylight sure is helpful during harvest season –” Applejack.
“Summer parties can go for so much longer before everyone gets tired and has to go home!” Pinkie Pie.
The dreamscape shifted again and again as Starlight rushed across Ponyville, seeking out her scattered friends, the cloud of unease steadily growing with each blithe assurance that all was as it should be.
Luna considered. She could step in. But as large as the cloud grew, Starlight’s determination to unravel this mystery still lanced through. Would she truly be satisfied if she were denied the chance to follow through?
Far below, Discord laughed so hard that his head, a wing, and an arm fell off. The wing and arm grew mouths and started laughing too.
“It’s not funny!” Starlight yelled. “This is serious, there’s something wrong!”
Discord wiped a tear from his eye with his currently-attached arm and pat Starlight on the head with the other. “It’s cute that you thought of me, and tricking the Princesses into thinking they should raise the sun and moon at different times of day sounds like an amazing prank.” A notepad popped into existence, and his unattached arm scribbled a note, balled it up, and threw it into a suddenly-manifested trash can. “But Seasonal Shift Day has always been like this.”
Starlight fled.
“It’s like I don’t even know what’s real anymore. Like the changelings came back, except they replaced everyone, but the changelings are good now so it can’t be that–”
Starlight gulped deep breaths as Maud watched quietly – and Luna, in the moon above, still considered.
“Like a mind control spell, one that could affect everypony, but even the Princesses aren’t that powerful, not on their own–”
Unease peaked, sharpened, became fear and self-loathing and a slowly-dawning realization as Starlight froze, book dropping to the stone floor of Maud’s new home. She abruptly sat. “Is that. Is that what I did to everyone else?” she whispered. “How could anyone ever forgive –”
I wish I knew.
This was foolish, Luna knew better than to let dreamers’ emotions intertwine with her own, even those of a particularly powerful young unicorn.
Even though she knew how this felt, far too achingly well – how do you forgive yourself when you don’t even know if you deserve to be forgiven? How do you move on with life after you’ve done the unforgivable?
She’d told Starlight, before, that it got better. That she should trust in her friends. What other advice could she give, for the nights when that wasn’t enough?
“Maybe your past has given you some additional resistance, and that is why you were unaffected,” Maud’s voice cut through the silence of the cave and the tangle of Luna’s thoughts.
Starlight jumped, and stared at her.
The grey earth pony tapped the page. “Pumice can be used to amplify magic, especially when the vesicles are carved into a lattice-like structure like this. It was not my primary field of study, but there have been several roctoral theses on the subject.”
Starlight took a few unsteady steps forward. “You … believe me?” Most of the fear and self-loathing blew away, like dust brushed from a newly-extracted fossil.
Maud shrugged. “I believe you believe what you said,” she said simply. “I do not know enough of magic to know what has really occurred, but testing your hypothesis may lead to the truth; ignoring it will not.”
Starlight hugged her tightly for a moment, then backed away just as rapidly, looking abashed. “I – thank you. But … how?”
Maud looked at her, completely straight-faced. “We could steal it.”
The dream timeskipped again, and again, as Starlight and Maud made their preparations, gathered other friends, and headed out, their determination gleaming brightly.
Smiling wistfully, Luna stepped away; it seemed no intervention would be necessary after all. Maybe, if there was a next time, she’d have figured out the right words by then.
Or perhaps Starlight would be the one to teach her.
