Mirror: Book I - Mind

David opened his eyes. The cold was over, the icy castle walls were gone, replaced by the familiar architecture of his room. He laid on his side, eyes strafing past rows of silver-white light from the moon outside.

He had woken up. It was over, then. He had failed.

Incalculable amounts of rage and fury flurried from within, his body springing from his bed in quick response, hands to his hair as he gripped about madly and ferociously. He knew he was close, he knew he was but only a few steps away from discovering the truth of it all, and he had blew possibly his one and only chance. Every bit of desire to scream and shout and curse riled up wildly from deep within, and thus he chose his target so.

Fist raised, fingers clenched and teeth to a tightened grit, he pulled back with all his might, and watched as his entire arm phased through the panel as though it were never there.

A blue, ethereal ring encapsulated at the point in which his arm passed through. Slowly, he drew back, shocked and amazed at the strange glow surrounding every inch of his body. He ventured to describe it as though he were a blue, transparent ghost. Only then was he reminded of the mirror over the back of his door, and he looked to find that he bare no reflection whatsoever. The only reflection the boy could give was his own body, laying asleep in his bed. Yet there he stood, mere feet away from the bed, watching his own chest rise and fall as his slumbering breath went on.

What is this? A side effect of the spell? He wondered, attempting to educate himself. No, there’s a term for this sort of phenomenon. This must be an out of body experience, and that could only mean…

Astral Projection. For this was the true goal of the spell, not to discover the secrets from within, but the very you that existed within you. The true nature of the mind. David only wondered then, just what could he accomplish with these new found powers?

The walls and corridors of the great, crystal castle swam past and around his sights like thin veils of silk and grain, the boy effortlessly floating through in his ghost-like state. Deep down he knew he couldn’t deny it, but he was rather enjoying himself. Stories of lucid dreamers and other out of body achievers began to fill his memories as he recalled how excited some casters would get, so much so that they would jump themselves from their own focus, thus spoiling their chances of achieving an astral means for quite some time. Some astral achievers would go further than their homes, above and beyond, to the great expanses of the stars and seemingly infinite cosmos in a mad, curious search of just what might be out there. David trusted that this was indeed the real world he was wandering about, that this was indeed Equestria, and the castle was all but open for him to freely roam. It was only then that a familiar figure soon came into his view.

As he passed through the walls from one room after the other, there in his sights the unicorn laid upon her bed. Starlight Glimmer, slumbering peacefully into the night. The only signature the boy failed to place was the strange, shiny white bubble rippling and glinting around the mare as though it were a protective shield of some sort. David suspected as such, knowing the unicorn and her preparedness of such things, but was astounded all the more at achieving such spells even in her sleep. The young oneiro descended to the floor and dared a step or two closer, reaching out with a hand to test and see the effects the supposed, protective bubble around the unicorn might have had. Alas, no ripple nor spring of action arrived, but instead a blinding white light filling his vision whole. David guarded and clenched his eyes tight, only to open them again and find that he no longer lied within the pony’s room, but instead a grassy plain of serenity and beauty set before his sights.

The boy scanned the horizons and soon came upon the unicorn in question standing in the far distance. Starlight was humming happily to herself, a spool of wire surrounded by her levitation as a lead went from the spin and traveled skyward to a stark-blue diamond kite soaring high into the sky. He gave the unicorn a quizzical glance before tightening a shrug and training a gait towards the mare.

“Starlight?” He called, an arsenal of questions at the ready. “What the heck is going on? Where are we-?”

“GAH!” The unicorn twirled and sprung backwards, flaring her horn to lethal, hot teal. “What in Equestria are you?! A demon?” She snarled, muzzle tightened. “Who sent you here?”

“Take it easy, Glimmy, this is no time for jokes.” The boy cautioned.

“Neigh, I won’t be tricked!” She dug a hoof into the dirt and readied a charging stance. “Have at you, beast!”

Not a word escaped his lips before the pony shot a sharp, lightning blue bolt to the earth at his feet, jumping out of the way just in time. David wailed desperately for the pony to cease her hunting season on humans, asking if it was something he did or said to anger her so. Alas, the unicorn kept her eyes tight and focused upon her prey, missing one bolt of magic after the other. Lucky as he might have been, the boy found it extremely odd that Starlight of all ponies was missing her shots left and right. It was incredibly unlike her, and thus his questions seemed to gain their answers as the skies and the earth all around them began to crumble away. Crackles reverberated through the earth, the clouds shrunk into the dimming gray and black, and both the pony and the boy feel into the deep, voiding abyss that promised no bottom.

In the midst of their timeless and soundless free fall, the boy was thrown back onto Starlight’s wall, and the unicorn jolted awake. She rose from her bed, sweating and glancing around her chambers with fright and wonder. Quickly, David rose and attempted to gain the unicorn’s attention.

“Starlight! Listen, I can explain this.” He fretted.

“What in the world just happened…?” She mumbled to herself, leveling out her breath.

“It was an accident, I swear.” He pleaded.

“What a crazy, stupid dream.” The unicorn muttered and quietly tucked herself back beneath her covers.

“Dream…?” The boy drawled.

Silence followed, the pony slowly shut her eyes and fell back into a stilled, soothing slumber. With that calm and simple gesture, the boy felt that he finally understood. For this was the true power that which an oneiro possessed. This was the power of a dream walker. Only then did his mind wander to the one and only other pony sleeping peacefully within the castle library.

The ethereal, teal outline of his figure filtered and phased through the walls of the grand athenaeum, his form floating about the black-blue crystalline surfaces like a ghost forgotten to the failed reflections. This ghost in particular had his mind set on one objective and one objective alone, and his sights to the very pony that rested in the center of the dimly lit library. Beneath the benevolent and undisturbed light was the purple pony, the Princess and the Alicorn. Twilight Sparkle. Sure enough, just as his other companion had been in the midst of her slumber, a silvery-white bubble shrouded over the sleeping pony. It was only when the boy came upon the very doorstep of such opportunity, to be but a single step away from unlocking the secrets, did hesitation waver over his hand.

This was undoubtedly an invasion of privacy in some form, was it not? Not only that, but to search into the pits of another’s mind, it not only instilled a dreadful sense of psychiatric manipulations and perhaps even brain-rewiring or something other, but this was indeed an act of dishonesty. Though these were answers waiting to be filled into the blanks of the questions left to linger, he also knew in the pit of his consciousness that this was Twilight. She was his friend…was she not?

For a final time, his hand lingered over her bubble, and he felt as the motion to tap into her dream slowly grew stronger and more tempting…