Diamond Tiara was looking in a mirror.
It was smiling back at her.
She backed away and turned. There was another mirror.
It was smiling back at her.
She turned. Another. And again. And again.
All of them grinning. She fled. The voices were following her. Everywhere she looked, she smiled back at herself. She was turning. Turning. Turning. They all wanted to talk to her, they all loved her. All of them smiling. All of them—
“Child?”
Diamond Tiara came to a halt and looked up. Looming over her was a blue and black unicorn, looking down with concern. Or, at least that’s what she thought until the alicorn flared her wings and the looming, grinning reflections of herself disappeared like so much smoke.
“P-princess Luna!” Diamond Tiara scrambled to bow.
Luna let out a soft giggle.
“Rise, child. There is no need for formality here. ‘Tis but a dream.”
“A dream?” Diamond Tiara slowly rose and then scowled. “Right. A stupid dream.”
Luna laughed again.
“Dreams are often bizarre, but there’s no need to call them stupid. They are but reflections of the self. Disorganized and messy, true, but they are but the idle thoughts of a sleeping mind.”
“Pfft, right.” Diamond Tiara rolled her eyes. She then looked around. Only an empty void lit by an unseen, overhanging light greeted her. She groaned. “Princess, can you give me a better dream?”
“I’m sorry, child, but your dreams are your own. I can change them, but only while I’m here, and only so much.” Luna walked next to where Diamond was staring out at the black emptiness. “The only way to truly change your dreams is to look within, and resolve that from which they spring.” Luna reached down with a wing and patted Diamond. “I do feel I have been rude. What is your name?”
“What’s it matter? I’m just having dumb dreams, and you stopped it. Don’t you have other little ponies to help?” Diamond looked up,expecting Luna to be annoyed, or concerned, or to have that placid, understanding Adult Face on, only to be taken aback that the Princess of the Night looked… embarrassed? “Eh?”
Luna coughed and hid her muzzle briefly behind a wing before regaining her composure.
“Apologies for staring. Your name… ?” She left the sentence hanging and her eyebrow raised in a question.
“Diamond Tiara.” Diamond sighed, defeated.
“Oh, you’re—Oh!” Luna fluttered her wings and gave an awkward grin. “I know of you, but apologies for my manner, again. I admit to being… somewhat relieved to meet a normal filly such as yourself this night, so, I want to assure you, it is no burden!”
“Why would-” Diamond’s face screwed up into a suspicious scowl when suddenly memories came flooding back to her. The book. The 'convention.'
All those strange, new people.
She shook her head, frowned, and looked back up at Luna.
“Right, right. The whole,” she spun a hoof in the air, “aliens and their magic book thing.”
“Right!” Luna looked relieved. “I have been traveling much this night and it was somewhat of a relief to meet a fellow pony in all this. Plus, helping ponies in their dreams is my job.” Luna giggled.
“Didn’t you retire?” Diamond squinted.
“From the throne, but the dreams of ponies still need a defender!”
The words 'workaholic' and 'needs a life' popped into Diamond’s mind, and she stamped them down with prejudice.
The fact that she heard them in her mother’s voice didn’t help.
“Well, Luna, I’m right as rain, now, thanks for the help!” Diamond gave her best Good Filly Grin “So, feel free to help other little fillies or those aliens or whatever.”
Diamond looked straight into Luna’s eyes and saw with mounting dread that Luna was not embarrassed, or bored, or wearing the placid Adult Face. No, Luna had a look Diamond Tiara was uncomfortably familiar with. That look of 'I know you’re lying to me, but I can’t prove it.' It was one of Cheerilee’s favorites.
Diamond never broke her Good Filly Grin. She had a lot of practice.
Luna’s frowning look relented for just a second as a thought crossed her mind. She then smiled.
“Perhaps, then, maybe you’d like to help me instead?”
Diamond Tiara blinked.
“What?”
“Woahoho!” Diamond flailed her hooves, trying and failing to gain traction. She arced up, and then, inevitably, down, straight into one the glowing spheres, the images of someone’s dreams flashing across its surface, only for the sphere to compress, and then, with a boing sound, launch her back out into the dreamscape.
Luna, laughing, caught Diamond in her telekinetic grip, and deposited her on her back.
“Apologies, Diamond Tiara. I thought you might take to the dreamscape easier than that!”
“How?! There’s no ground!”
“By flying, of course,” Luna chuckled as she weaved in between a cloud of floating dreams.
“I can’t fly!” Diamond shouted back, holding on for dear life.
“But you can! This is the realm of dreams, Diamond, and in a dream, anypony can fly!”
“Well, I can’t!” Diamond spat back, grumbling. “Plus, if this is a dream, why are you flapping your wings?”
Luna gave a good natured giggle.
“I am used to flapping when I fly, so in my dreams I do so, just like how in yours you walk on four hooves, when you could just as easily walk on two or eight! I once saw a pony in a dream fly by creating an infinite bridge of bits which carried him across the sky.”
“Sounds like my dad.” Diamond rolled her eyes.
“It was in Ponyville, so it very well could have been!” Luna looked over her shoulder to grin at Diamond Tiara, only for Diamond to stick out her tongue and make a fake gagging expression.
“Say, you said you knew me.”
“Hmm?”
“Earlier, in my dream, you said you knew me, but I’ve never met you. I saw you a few times, like at Nightmare Night, but we never really talked.”
“Ahh!” Luna turned back forward, rolling under an incoming dream, causing Diamond to clinch down even harder. “I know you from your friends, the Cutie Mark Crusaders.”
“Oh.”
“You sound less than excited. Your friends spoke highly of you.”
“Was that all they did?” Diamond’s voice for a moment was oddly desperate. Pleading.
Luna slowed her flight through the realm of dreams and came to a halt. She looked back at Diamond Tiara.
“You’re afraid they told me you were a bully, are you not?”
Diamond Tiara winced and looked away.
“Child. Look at me.” Luna waited for her to do so. “Do you think I, of all ponies, would look down on you for having a troubled past?”
“I mean—”
“Diamond Tiara. I will ask you to strongly consider if I, Princess Luna, of all ponies, would be able to judge you, a child, for picking on other children?”
And that’s when the other horseshoe dropped in Diamond’s mind.
“Oh. Ohhhh. Oh, I’m sorry, Princess, I—”
Luna turned into a corkscrew dive, cutting her off. When Diamond yelped in surprise, Luna laughed, leveling out and gliding onward.
“I am sorry, are you not having fun?”
“I—no!” Diamond shouted, her cheeks red.
“Then I shall stop my teasing and fly more steadily.” Luna looked back at her and grinned. “Needless to say, though, you have no judgment to fear from me, Diamond Tiara. You speak of Nightmare Night, but I am almost certain you first met me when I stormed into your town hall and declared the doom of eternal night upon all the world.”
Diamond Tiara, for the first time since Luna had put her on her back, relaxed.
“Yeah, okay, I guess that is a little worse than being the schoolyard bully.”
“I should hope so! I would be deeply concerned if schoolyard fillies had the ambition and skill to blot out the sun.”
“Maybe if Cheerliee stiffed me on the extra credit…” Diamond Tiara gave a smug grin.
“A terrible crime, to be sure.” Luna nodded sagely. “One worthy of vengeance.”
“Not as bad as some filly not giving me her lunch money!”
“For that I’d say you’d plunge the world into chaos!”
“Nah, that feels more like a ‘steal all the magic’ kind of mood.”
“Ah, truly. Would you use a ritual, a cursed staff, or simply inhale it in your rage?”
“Pfft, as if. I’d just corner the market on an essential good or service, drive the price way up, and then open up a business that exchanges magic for gold!”
Luna gasped.
“You monster!”
“What can I say? I’m Daddy’s Little Filly!”
Luna was now looking back at Diamond with a look of concern.
“Too far?” Diamond asked.
“No, I just have many questions about your relationship with your father.”
Diamond Tiara laughed.
“You said you saw him ride a money wave off into the sky.”
“I guess that’s true…”
Luna shook her head.
“Ah, well, so, Diamond…”
“Mmm?”
“Would you perchance wish to learn to fly?”
“So, just close your eyes, and imagine you are on a slide—”
“This didn’t work the first two times—”
“Trust me.” Luna said, softly. “Just let yourself imagine.”
“I just don’t—”
And then Luna threw Diamond Tiara up into the air, cutting her off.
Diamond Tiara howled in surprise and peddled her legs uselessly before going straight into freefall.
“Imagine a slide! Close your eyes! Let yourself bank and glide!”
“Easy—” Diamond rolled end over end “—for you to—” she righted herself flailing her legs “—saaaaaay!”
Diamond screwed her eyes shut and tried to get a handle of the situation. She heard the wind whistling past her ears despite knowing, objectively, that there was no air here and her mind was filling in the blanks.
Breathe. Breathe. A slide. A stupid slide. Stupid princess and her stupid—
Diamond cut herself off, shook her head, and tilted her body forward, stretching out her hooves.
A slide. I’m on a slide.
She imagined the warm metal sliding under her belly. She imagined the banks of the slide against her flanks. She imagined her friends cheering her on.
“There’s a bank to the left, ahead!” Luna shouted from somewhere far away.
Diamond saw it in her mind, and on cue, she leaned into, banking up and to the right as the imaginary slide caught her and shot her to the left.
“It’s going to loop around and go up over a hill! Be ready!”
Diamond saw the upward slope appear under the bank she’d just made. She sailed up it effortlessly, catching a moment of hang time as she cleared it before going back down again.
She let out a whoop as she did so.
“Very good! Now, get ready, there’s a turn to the right.”
Diamond followed along, visualizing this comical super-slide in her head along with Luna’s suggestions. More curves, hills and banks came to her, and after a while, she took them with ease.
“Diamond.” Luna giggled. “Open your eyes.”
Diamond Tiara did.
There was no slide.
She was flying.
She screamed in panic and started falling. Luna laughed.
“Close your eyes! Imagine the slide!”
Grumbling and spitting half-muttered curses, Diamond complied, and eventually got back on mentally-suggested track.
It took a few more tries, but Diamond eventually got used to the sensation (and idea) of flying on her own terms. Luna was ecstatic, cheering her on, until Diamond was soaring loops around her. Diamond finished her final demonstration with a flip before doing a 2-point landing on one of the floating dreams. Luna clapped and cheered.
“Very good! You took to it well!”
“Hmph! It was a piece of cake.” Diamond Tiara gave a smug grin, before cheekily opening one eye slowly. “Did I learn faster than the Cutie Mark Crusaders?”
“Oh! I never did this with them.”
“Wait, really?” Diamond rocked on the sphere. “I figured you had to.”
“Not at all.” Luna flew over to where Diamond was perched. “You’re the first filly I’ve shown all this too.”
Diamond sat back like a cat and puffed out her chest.
“Of course! Only the best for Diamond Tiara!”
“Of course.” Luna giggled. She leaned in and whispered. “Don’t tell anypony this, but you’ve taken to this better than my sister did.”
That caught Diamond off guard and she almost tumbled off the dream.
“I—what—no way!”
Luna giggled and mouthed ‘tell no one.’
Diamond nodded, her eyes bright with amazement before pantomiming zipping her lips sealed – plus a whole elaborate charade Luna assumed she had picked up from Pinkie Pie.
“Say,” Diamond said, standing up and looking down at the little sphere she was perched on. “These are dreams, but how do you get into them?”
“Like everything else in the world of dreams, you just have to believe you can.”
“Oh,” Diamond looked down at the dream under her, “...huh.”
And then with a slormph she disappeared inside of it.
Michael was having a terrible time. He was late for class. His project was late. His homework was late. His test was late. He had forgotten he was taking the test. He had forgotten to do his homework. He’d forgotten what time class was. He’d forgotten where his class was. He was going to fail the test. He’d forgotten he even had that class. He had never attended. Finals were due. He was going to fail them. He was going to fail the class. He was going to fail. He was going to fail. He was going to fail fail fail fail failfailfailfail—
And then a pink pony in a tiny tiara plopped onto the pavement in front of him with a poof.
He screamed.
Diamond Tiara screamed.
The person in front of her was an absolute wreck. Wild haired, red eyed, and a face stained with tears and snot. They looked like something out of a nightmare. Which, Diamond would later realize, they technically were.
There was a loud thoomp of a pair of great wings flaring open.
“Be not afraid!” Luna shouted as she descended onto the scene. Both Diamond Tiara and Michael stumbled back and fell silent. Luna landed and looked down to Diamond Tiara. “Are you alright?”
“Yeah, yeah, I—” she stood, brushing the dust off of herself, “I just got surprised, is all.”
“Right. I am sorry, Diamond. I should have considered what even an errant thought in that position could do. I did not mean to let you wander in on your own.”
“It’s fine, I’m fine, I’m…” Diamond trailed off, finally noticing the haggard creature whose dream she had crashed into. He was staring at Luna and her, slack jawed and in amazement. “Uh, sorry, hi?”
“Oh crap.” He said, breathless. “Oh crap, you’re real!”
“Uh, yeah?” Diamond said, eyebrow quirked.
“I mean, of course – yes, you’re real. The book. The book! Right! But you’re here… does this mean… oh crap.” He looked straight into Luna’s eyes, gobsmacked. “You’re in my dreams!”
“You realized this quickly.” Luna said, quirking her own eyebrow.
“I mean,” Michael let out a quiet breathy chuckle. “This nightmare is an old classic of mine, and you’re in it now, and there’s the book! It isn’t hard to piece together!”
“You could have dreamed us up.” Luna mused, slight grin on her face.
“I never have dreams as nice as this.” Michael replied instantly.
Luna’s grin faltered, but Michael barely noticed, turning to Diamond Tiara.
“And… you’re here.” He said, blinking. “That’s different.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Diamond snapped.
“I mean, it works! I totally felt like you two needed an episode. Hell, DT, I honestly felt like they did you dirty. You needed way more episodes!”
“What’s an—”
Luna stepped in between Diamond Tiara and Michael. “Child, perhaps, while we are here, I can help you.”
Diamond Tiara watched this stranger seem to shed some unseen weight they were bearing. To her alarm, they started crying.
“Yeah, okay,” he said, tears rolling down his cheeks, “if you’re here, why not?”
Luna had told Diamond she was free to wander off and explore while Luna talked with Michael. Diamond hadn’t, not sure what to do in this strange, barely-realized concrete place they were in, although as the conversation went on she regretted not giving it a try.
Michael was wracked by nightmares of his time in school. Of all the effort he had made, and how it had come to nothing. Diamond did eventually find somewhere else to be once he started talking about his parents.
Luna had eventually found her. The two of them bade Michael farewell, although, for some reason, he insisted Luna say 'the fun has been doubled.' For whatever reason, her doing so seemed to make him happy, although Diamond Tiara couldn’t help but notice how tired she seemed behind her smile.
The two of them flew through the dreamscape in silence for a time.
“Diamond Tiara?” Luna asked. “I must apologize.”
“Huh? Why?”
“I admit, I never did explain why I wanted you to travel with me tonight, and I worry my negligence led to you being exposed to something distressing.”
“I mean, that was a bummer, yeah.”
Luna a small laugh.
“To some degree, yes. Hence the apology.”
Diamond shrugged.
“Accidents happen.”
“Still, I should have been more careful. I was caught up in the fun of our time together. I forgot what had been on my mind.”
Diamond Tiara slowed and looked over at Luna.
“Are all their dreams that bad?”
Luna grimaced.
“No, but… I don’t think their world is a happy one.”
“Geez.” Diamond Tiara looked back ahead, and frowned. “You were lonely, huh?”
Luna sputtered.
“Oh, come on.” Diamond Tiara rolled her eyes. “It’s not that hard to figure out, Princess.” She grinned. “You were out here, not a pony you knew in sight, surrounded by dreams like that, yeah, of course you wanted somepony to hang with.” She shook her head and stuck out her tongue. “Duh! It’s not that deep.”
Luna was blushing.
“You are an observant child, Diamond Tiara.”
“Well of course.” Diamond preened with faked vanity.
“I mean it!”
“Keep telling yourself that, Princess.”
Luna guffawed, and Diamond Tiara laughed, going into a loop-de-loop.
“Well, what now?” Diamond asked, settling back aside Luna.
Luna’s face settled into a frown.
“Perhaps it would be best if I returned you to your drea—hey!” Luna almost squawked when Diamond Tiara banked into her.
“Oh, come on,” Diamond Tiara gave a sly, baiting grin. “You dragged me all the way out here because you wanted to hang and now that we’ve seen one sad dream you wanna be a responsible adult? Come on, Luna! Like I’m gonna let that happen!”
“I am a responsible adult.” Luna huffed.
“And I’m sharper than the average filly,” Diamond Tiara winked, “You even said I was observant!”
Luna opened her mouth to speak, but closed it, considering.
“Come on, Luna, us bad girls gotta stick together.”
And then Diamond Tiara winked.
Luna huffed and rolled her eyes. She looked ahead for a long moment before smiling and turning back to Diamond.
“Very well, Diamond Tiara. For tonight, I shall allow you to be, how do they say, my ‘sidekick?’ ”
“Hey, I’m way more than the sidekick!”
“I don’t know,” Luna said, singsong, “I did have to teach you how to fly.”
“I just started!”
“Right, which is why you are a sidekick!”
“Ugh!”
Luna giggled.
“If you are to journey with me this night, you shall follow my lead,” Luna began, becoming a bit more somber. “Dreams are delicate things, and as we have already seen, potentially distressing. I need to know that you will do as I say, for your safety as well as the dreamer’s.”
Diamond Tiara nodded.
“I will.”
“Very good.”
“So… what now?” Diamond asked.
“Well… let us find a proper nightmare.”
Audry was running for her life, and the terrible thing gave chase.
Every corner, every opening, she tried to escape through, but the thing would not relent. A shape of claws, and black fur, and red eyes, and teeth, it would pour itself through any crack or turn. Nothing she could do could shake it, and every time she looked back, it was just that much closer.
Until the final time, when, to her utter bewilderment closing in behind the monster, was a tiny pink horse, riding a larger, blue horse.
With a hearty thwack the tiny pink horse broke the stick she clutched in her teeth over the back of the werewolf’s head. With a whoop, the tiny pink horse spat the stick out and offered out a hoof to Audry.
“Get on!”
Without a second to think, Audry did so. Without missing a beat, the blue horse flared her wings and carried the three of them up and into the air.
Audry sat in stunned silence before looking down at the tiny pink horse in her lap.
“Yo, what the—”
“That was rude!” Diamond Tiara whined, sailing in loops around Luna. Luna giggled.
“A little. She did eventually calm down.”
“Yeah, and then gushed all over you!” Diamond threw her hooves up in frustration.”Did you see that swing?! Not even a thank you!”
“She was simply recovering from her distress. She did thank us later.”
“She thanked you.” Diamond muzzle scrunched up. “She just pinched my cheeksseeifIeversaveherfromamonster…” Her muttering trailed off.
“Well, I am the Princess!” Luna arched an eyebrow and spoke through a decidedly smug grin.
“No you’re not! You retired!”
“But still, it would be wise not to try and take too much glory from me. I have been known to set a sun or two if I am not sufficiently groveled to!”
“You can’t just threaten to destroy the world to win an argument, Luna!”
“How do you think I win them against my sister~?” Luna said with a singsong voice, before laughing and flying on ahead.
“Hold on!” Diamond Tiara dived onto the bed while Luna dived under it. “We’ve got you!”
“The monster!” The child cried out in alarm as the bed bucked under the two of them. “It’s gonna eat us!”
“No it’s not!” Diamond Tiara pleaded with the child. “You gotta listen to me!”
“It’s gonna get us!”
The bed bucked under them again as blue light flashed from beneath it, nearly sending Diamond and the child flying over the side. The child wailed in terror, and Diamond wracked her brain for something to calm them down and then shouted the first thing that came to mind.
“What if it’s more scared of you than you’re scared of it?!”
And just like that, the room fell still and silent.
“Very clever!” Luna beamed as they sailed along.
“I just said the first thing that came to mind!” Diamond’s tone was as bewildered as it was relieved.
“The power of suggestion is important to consider in the realm of dreams. That which we believe is true, or fear to be true, becomes truth in a dream.”
“Yeah, but why did that work out of anything I could have said?”
“A shock to the system? Perhaps a prior familiarity? Either way, what mattered is that you changed how the child thought of the dream, and thus, changed the dream.”
“Huh…” Diamond considered the scenario.
“Plus, it is generally better to have the dreamer reconsider how they relate to the dream to change it for good. Your outburst was doubly effective in that regard!”
“But it really was just the first thing I thought of!”
Luna sailed closer to Diamond Tiara and leaned her muzzle up to her ear.
“Take the compliment, dear,” Luna whispered.
And then when Diamond Tiara turned to reply, Luna winked.
This was another nightmare Luna had suggested Diamond Tiara busy herself with while Luna handled comforting the dreamer. After what had happened in Michael’s dream, she was more than happy to comply when it happened again. The things she heard…
Something was bothering her. She hadn’t meant to eavesdrop, but a detail she’d picked up had set off alarm bells. So she was snooping around this dream supermarket, looking for… evidence.
Finally, she returned triumphant.
“Hey, are these prices accurate?”
“Uh,” the lady seemed a tad taken aback. “Yeah?”
“So this bread is five dollars?”
“Yeah?”
“And this lettuce is three?”
“Yeah?”
“Tomatoes?”
“Like three bucks?”
Diamond went back and forth, listing off ingredients and confirming prices, getting more and more visibly irritated as they went on, before finally finishing.
“So, what you are telling me—” Diamond growled through grinding teeth “—is that it takes you three hours of work just to afford the ingredients for a sandwich?!”
“I mean, yeah, before tax.”
“What does tax have to do with it?” Diamond Tiara reeled.
“Sales and Income. Government takes 10% off the top when you get paid and whenever you buy something.”
“So you’re getting paid even less?!”
“I mean… yeah?”
Diamond Tiara looked ready to have a fit. Luna stepped in.
“Diamond—”
“Luna, I’ve been paying attention to how much things cost at this convention. The food in this dream is cheap in comparison. She is not. Getting. Paid. Enough. Especially when you consider things like keeping her house in repair!”
The lady gave a bitter laugh.
“Bold of you to assume I can afford a house, kid.”
“Then where do you live?”
“I rent a place—”
“You rent your home?!”
“Yeah…?”
Diamond reeled. Luna opened her mouth to speak, and Diamond held up her hoof, cutting her off.
“You need to get paid more.” Diamond finally said, still shaking her head.
“You think my jerk boss is gonna raise me off minimum because I cried to him?” The lady had bitter tears in her eyes.
“I’m not saying you need to beg your boss for a raise.” Diamond Tiara’s voice was rising with every word. “I’m saying you need to form a union!”
The two drifted through the dreamscape in silence for a brief span. It was Luna who broke it.
“That was… edifying.”
“I’m sorry.” Diamond Tiara half muttered.
“I think things worked out.” Luna assured her.
“I still didn’t follow your lead.” Diamond replied, looking away. “I just got so mad when I heard the way she was treated.”
“Frankly, if I had known about your… extensive expertise in economic theory and labor management, I might have involved you sooner.” Luna’s expression was considerate, if surprised.
“Dad might be greedy, but he didn’t raise me to be a cheat. Granny Smith would be wearing his hide for her bunny suit at Zap Apple harvest if he tried half that!”
Luna, perhaps wisely, chose not to follow up on any of that.
Dreams lazily drifted through the hazy void of the dreamscape. Nothing disturbed this tableau for a long stretch of time, until, suddenly, there was a pop, and out of an innocuous-looking dream, Luna and Diamond Tiara appeared.
The two of them got their bearings and flew straight ahead. Their eyes were wide, and faces expressionless. They did not speak a word for a long time.
“I’m sorry,” Luna said, finally. “I should have been more careful studying that dream before going in.”
“It’s fine.” Diamond Tiara replied, a hair too quickly. There was another long stretch of silence. “We’re never telling anypony about this.”
“Agreed.” Luna said.
Neither of them had changed expression or stopped staring straight ahead.
“I’m never gonna be able to look at a pool noodle again.” Diamond Tiara whispered, her voice and eyes filled with dread.
Luna finally closed her eyes and shuddered.
Luna raised her eyebrows, her face twisting into a frown as she spied a dream up ahead.
“Follow me, Diamond, but be careful. This dream shall be… fraught.”
“Gotcha, Princess.”
The two of them banked toward the dream in question, and slipped right in.
They found themselves in what looked like a school cafeteria, but the scene before them was not one of amiable mealtaking. One of the students towered over the others, her face split with a wicked grin, eyes glowing red.
“Come on, piggy, don’t you want to eat?”
The student the monster-girl loomed over muttered indistinctly.
“Now, now, a growing girl needs her calories!”
And then the monster-girl slammed her victim's face into the tray.
“Eat, piggy, eat!”
The students around the two of them started chanting along.
“Eat, piggy, eat!”
Luna stepped in and flared a wing blocking the cowering, crying child from the monster.
“That’s enough,” she said, and then to Diamond’s shock, “you don’t have to do this anymore.”
Diamond looked up at Luna, but her face wasn’t defiant or angry like when they’d confronted nightmare monsters in other dreams.
It was a look of pity.
The monster-girl took a step back, her face wide with shock.
And then, suddenly, it wasn’t a monster anymore. It was a woman. Her shock was rapidly becoming fear, and then shame, and then despair.
“Oh no,” she muttered, covering her mouth. “Oh no, oh no.”
“It’s alright.” Luna stepped forward, offering her wings in a hug. “You don’t have to be afraid. We’re here to help.”
Luna pulled the woman into a hug, and she began sobbing into her shoulder. After a moment she looked down at Diamond Tiara and gave a rueful smile through the tears.
“Had to be you two, didn’t it?”
The three had broken off and moved to sit at one of the tables. The students became indistinct phantoms, milling about at the edges of perspective. Luna had started to tell Diamond she could leave when the woman, Sarah, interrupted and said she could stay.
“Why?” Diamond asked, quirking an eyebrow.
“I mean, you’re my favorite character.”
Sarah didn’t notice the twitch that nearly broke Diamond Tiara’s look of skepticism. Diamond Tiara didn’t notice the flash of concern when Luna did notice.
“Sure, why not,” Diamond flicked her mane with a look of practiced self-satisfied smugness, “I am the best.” With a hop she leapt onto the bench and then placed her hooves on the table. “So, how can the Diamond Tiara help you overcome your nightmares?”
“Oh wow,” Sarah gave a halfhearted snort of laughter, “this is wild.” Her good cheer was then marred by an embarrassed quirk of her lips. “Sorry you had to see that.”
“It’s alright, we came here to help.” Luna said, softly.
“I mean, I didn’t ask,” Sarah said, rubbing a tear from her eye. “It was just a stupid dream.”
Diamond Tiara winced.
“You may not have asked, but we chose to help anyway.” Luna reached a wing around Sarah’s shoulders. “What troubles you?”
Sarah gave a soft laugh and looked away.
“I mean, isn't it obvious? I used to be a real piece of work. Regular Regina George. Plastics. The whole bit.”
“I am sorry, I do not understand what those words mean.”
“Right,” Sarah rolled her eyes. “You’re magic book ponies. I was a bully. A mean girl.” She looked at Diamond Tiara. “You get it.”
Diamond Tiara’s eyes went wide with panic. Luna leaned forward, placing herself between the two of them.
“Are you still one, Sarah?”
“I… no.” Sarah leaned back, looking exhausted. “I just… you never get to take that back, you know? Hell, I never got to apologize to half the kids I tormented. Even the few I did track down… some of them, you know, you could see it in their eyes. The fear. The anger. Saying sorry just isn’t enough sometimes.” Sarah’s eyes were wet.
“Is this dream how you see yourself?” Luna asked.
“I mean, sometimes, yeah.” Sarah laughed. “I didn’t have fangs or claws, but I did way worse than shove people’s faces in plates. Words hurt. Sometimes they do worse than hurt.” Her eyes were haunted. “I mean, my mom never hit me, and look how I turned out, yeah?”
Diamond Tiara's eyes were wide and her breathing shallow.
“Yet you’ve changed.” Luna observed, speaking softly. She looked exhausted herself.
“Yeah.” Sarah started sobbing again. Luna pulled her in for a hug again, rubbing her back with a wing. “You know, I kind of owed half of that to you guys?”
“Oh?” Luna asked. She didn’t seem surprised.
“Yeah. I mean, by college I had sort of grown out of the stuff, but, like, the show healed me, in a way, you know?” Sarah turned and gave a teary smile down at Diamond Tiara. “Especially you, kid.”
“Me?” Diamond Tiara’s frowned.
“Well, you and Sunset Shimmer, but you hit closer to home.” Sarah shook her head. “I was a pink bully, not a bad girl bully like her.”
“I mean…” Diamond Tiara drifted off and Sarah kept talking.
“Yeah, we were birds of a feather. Rich, spoiled, self-absorbed, little hanger-on bestie. I’d say it was like the writers knew me if I wasn’t such a stereotype.” Sarah shook her head. “I thought I was over it, you know, but the episode where you got redeemed messed me up.”
“‘Redeemed?’” Diamond Tiara almost hissed. Luna opened her mouth to say something, but Sarah kept going. It was like she was in a trance.
“Yeah, like, when the Cutie Mark Crusaders got their cutie marks. I just,” Sarah gave a half laugh between the tears, “you got to have the childhood I never did.” She laughed again. “Someone told you straight and you told your mother where to shove it and you got better. I never did. Not as fast, anyway. Hell, I needed a stupid pony show to sort my stuff out! I don’t think without your story I would have realized how messed up what I did was–”
“SHUT UP!” DIamond Tiara shouted.
The silence hung in the air between the three of them.
“I’m not—” Diamond Tiara sputtered, tears boiling at the edge of her eyes. “I’m not some story for you to feel good about!”
“Kid, I’m sorry—” Sarrah began.
“NO!” Diamond Tiara stomped a hoof into the table, causing the trays and silverware to rattle. “I’m not some story, and you don’t know me!” The tears were coming in earnest, now. “And—and if you did… you shouldn’t have ever looked up to me.”
“Diamond—” Lune reached out a hoof, but it was too late. Diamond Tiara lept from the table and fled the dream.
Luna found Diamond Tiara perched on top of a dream, sobbing.
“Diamond… I am sorry.”
“Not this again…” Diamond Tiara muttered.
“Diamond—”
“You know, the third time you apologize for the same mistake, maybe you should consider that you shouldn’t have made it a second time.”
Luna’s wince was quick, and Diamond never turned to see it, but the silence said enough.
“It’s not fair.” Diamond whispered.
“What isn’t fair?” Luna asked. She sounded exhausted.
“Why… why do they get to know me? Know all about me at my worst? Them and their stupid, horrible world?” Diamond Tiara turned to Luna. Her eyes were wide with confusion and fear. “Why do they like me?”
“Child.” Luna swept Diamond Tiara into her hooves and pressed her against her chest. Diamond Tiara let it all out, then, and Luna held her through it.
“That’s why your nightmare was a mirror, wasn’t it?” Luna said softly, after some time.
Diamond just nodded into her chest.“I…” Luna trailed off, thinking on her words. “I brought you along with me for many reasons. You were correct, the… strain of these new peoples’ stories wore on me, and I wanted some familiarity with me this night.” She clutched Diamond Tiara closer. “I also knew from your dream that you had not been forthright. That you were still troubled. I had hoped you’d open up to me over time. I… had rather wished it had not been in this manner, though.”
Diamond Tiara gave a snort of laughter.
“I also admit, there is a simpler reason that threads the prior two together, Diamond Tiara, and that is that I simply enjoy your company.”
“What?” Diamond looked up at her.
“Oh come now, you are supposed to be a rather observant filly,” Luna teased.
“Yeah! I’m an observant filly, and you’re a princess!”
“Ah, yes!” Luna grinned. “The princess who nearly destroyed the world! The princess who spent every moment before that point being reminded by her dear sister how useless she was. The princess who came back from the past and terrified children and spoke like an imbecile! The princess, so consumed with self pity, that she birthed a god of horror and evil that nearly destroyed the world a second time!”
Diamond Tiara starred in dumbfounded shock.
“I didn’t think I was that bad.” She whispered.
Luna laughed.
“Ah, I’d apologize again, but I should try, as you said, not to make mistakes.” Luna looked down at Diamond Tiara. “I was merely explaining that we are both ponies who have made mistakes, Diamond Tiara.”
“Ohhh…” Diamond Tiara nodded. “Okay. Now I get it.”
“Right, perhaps I could have been a tad more clear.” Luna put Diamond back down on the dream she had been perched on. “You are a clever and charming little pony, Diamond. I also feel a kinship with you. We are, ah, ‘birds of a feather’ as Sarah said.”
“Oh, right.” Diamond’s expression fell and became one of concern. “Is she okay?”
“She was distraught by your reaction, but understood that I needed to attend to you. I do think we should return, though, at some stage. So she can apologize at the very least.”
“Ugh, I’ve had enough of apologies.” Diamond Tiara rolled her eyes, but her expression settled into a frown. “I still don’t get it, though. If they know me, how can they even like me? I was the worst.”
“A question that haunts me as well…”
“What?”
Luna twisted her face into a sardonic, exhausted frown. “I am, apparently, ‘best pony.’ ”
“No!”
Luna gave a tired sigh. “Yes.”
“Is that why they keep asking you to say that stuff?!”
“‘The fun has been doubled!’” Luna’s expression was wide eyed and exaggerated as she wiggled her hooves in mock excitement. “I do not even remember saying that!”
“Oh wow!”
“It is good to be adored but also…” Luna’s shoulders slumped, “exhausting.”
“I know! They keep asking me for autographs and for me to insult them!” Diamond Tiara said, exasperated. “A crowd of them wanted me to make this weird face, too!”
“What face?”
Luna watched as Diamond Tiara pulled her entire head save for her snout into her neck in a look of open mouthed contempt. Luna laughed.
“It’s not that funny!”
“ ‘Tis, though!”
“Apparently I made it at the Cutie Mark Crusaders once and it was the funniest thing.”
“It may be one of the funniest things…”
“Oh, shut up!”
Diamond Tiara hucked a passing mote of dream mist at Luna’s face. Luna laughed and flapped her wings, backing away.
“But, still, like, why us?” Diamond Tiara asked. “I’m a spoiled brat, and you’re…” Diamond Tiara looked askance at Luna, “I mean, you’re great, but I bet you think your sister or Princess Twilight deserve a bit more limelight, don’t you?”
“The thought has crossed my mind…” Luna drifted next to Diamond Tiara, looking out across the dreamscape. “I was not entirely honest with you, earlier. I knew from your friends that you had been a bully, but I also knew that you had changed. That you had stood up to your mother, and saved their friend in spite of her cruelty towards you. They had asked me to watch over your dreams. I did so for a time, but saw nothing amiss. Other things came up and over time I stopped my vigil.” Luna glanced down at Diamond. “Another mistake, it seems.”
“Oh…”
“You were very brave.”
“...I just wanted to stop being afraid.”
“Some ponies never have the strength to face their fear like that.” Luna looked back upon the dreamscape. “I wished I had, when I was younger.”
“You?” Diamond Tiara looked up and Luna, confused.
“Your mother and my sister were once not that different.”
“Princess Celestia?!”
“She is kind and understanding to a fault.” Luna’s expression darkened, “Lessons she paid dearly to learn. Not unlike my own lessons in self-control and accepting myself.”
“Wow…” Diamond turned and looked out at the dreamscape herself. “Is everypony screwed up?!”
“A wise pony once told me wisdom is just the pinnacle of the mountain of one’s own mistakes.”
“Who said that?”
“Starswirl, after he nearly destroyed the Elements of Harmony because he could not find it in himself to consider how he had hurt his own friend.”
Diamond Tiara stared at Luna, dumbfounded.
“You know what? No. Not even gonna ask.”
“Ah, see, you are becoming wise.”
Luna was met with another hurled tuff of dreamstuff for her trouble.
“But, yes, Diamond, you were brave. You were brave in a way I could not be and my anger and pain consumed me for it. Brave in a way Sarah could not be.” Luna scanned the dreams around her, her expression solemn. “Brave, in a way, I don’t think many of these people have had the chance to be.”
“That’s why they look up to us?” Diamond asked, softly.
“In us they see themselves, and they see hope, I think.” Luna’s smile was sad. “They see they can be forgiven, that they can achieve their dreams. That they can love and be loved.”
The silence stretched between them for a while, each considering what had been said.
“...what does it mean, though?” Diamond said, quietly. “That we’re a story? Are we… even real?”
Luna drifted next to her and wrapped a wing around her, tightly.
“I think for them, we’re real enough. Real enough to learn from, to take comfort in, to respect and admire.” She tightened her grip. “And I think, at least for now, we’re real enough for each other.”
The two leaned into each other, then taking what comfort they could as the dreams of strangers swirled around them.
The two of them sailed through the dreamscape, returning to Sarah’s dream to make sure she was okay.
Diamond Tiara was frowning.
“This is dumb!” She finally said.
Luna looked over, raising an eyebrow.
“What is dumb?”
“I… this!” Diamond Tiara said, shaking her head. “We’re just gonna go on back with our tail between our legs and say we’re sorry you had a sad life! Try to buck up and be better?” She shook her head again. “I don’t think so.”
“I mean, I do intend to do a bit more than that.” Luna said with a wry grin.
“We can do a lot more than that!” Diamond turned and looked at Luna, her expression determined. “You know where her dream is, right?”
“Yes?”
“Can you find other dreams? Of ponies you know?”
“Yesss?”
Diamond Tiara looked straight ahead, a determined, scheming grin stretched across her face.
“Let’s give these people a story to remember!”
Sarah blinked and realized she was in a place she didn’t know. She was alone, sitting on a chair in a dark room, an unseen spotlight overhead illuminating her and her alone.
“Uh,” she looked around, “Uh, hello?”
“Hey.”
Sarah looked down.
Diamond Tiara looked back up at her.
“Oh, hey! Kid! Look, I’m so sorry—” Her eyes lit up as launched into her spiel.
“Nope.”
“‘Nope?’”
“No more apologies. Done with that today.”
“I mean, I freaking trauma dumped on a 12 year old because I had a parasocial relationship with them.”
“I don’t know what half of those words mean, and I don’t care!” Diamond Tiara closed her eyes and flicked her mane out. “We’re done with apologizing. We are moving forward… now!”
“Okay… where are we moving to?”
“To make your dreams come true!” Diamond Tiara raised a hoof to her muzzle and said, in a sing-song voice; “Luna!”
And at that, the world was filled with light.
Sarah blinked, trying to focus on the sudden brightness. She slowly started to realize there were shapes in that light, and voices, softly chattering.
Slowly, as she blinked, the world came into focus.
And it was filled with ponies.
Sarah stood, slack jawed, as all her favorite characters shouted “SURPRISE!” in unison.
She swept Diamond Tiara up in a hug.
“Thankyouthankyouthankyou!”
“What are friends for?!” Diamond Tiara muttered as she was swung around, helpless.
Sarah waded into the crowd. She smiled, she laughed, she cried, she screamed with joy. They were all here. They were all here for her.
They stayed as long as they could. Promises were made to find her at the con the next day if they could, but she was just the first stop of the night.
Diamond Tiara and Luna, and all of their friends, had a lot of dreams to make real ahead of them.
Author's Note
This story started life as a question about what relationship a real person can have to a fictional character. It seemed a natural question to ask in the greater context of the story of Ciderfest, where a magic book made the stories within it real. Unfortunately, or, perhaps, fortunately, this story took a detour in the final hour before I began writing it. See, with Scattered Pages we wanted a diversity of characters, so there was a First Come, First Serve list, and Twilight, Luna's original partner for this conceived venture, was taken.
In many ways I feel this was a fortunate roadblock. Diamond Tiara, a choice made partially out of spite for the show never giving us the Luna/DT teamup episode we deserved, did make the story less philosophical, but also more character focused, raw, and personal. Plus, I still feel like the answer Luna gives to Diamond Tiara at the end when she asks that question is the best possible one I could maybe ever give without writing an essay no one wants to read.
