As you can probably guess, there was a lot of explaining to do. Not only to Gilda and Halfy about what happened after they left but also to Chrysalis. Of course, we had to deal with a couple of things before we could fill her in. For one, we had to wait for her to uh... 'deal' with the guards that Gilda had caught.

On a related note, I made sure to give Gilda a high five for that one. I also swallowed my pride and promised to preen her wings for her later to make up for the bruises she had gotten while wrestling with the two pegasi.

Back on topic, changelings apparently were very good at other ways of deception besides just changing their forms. Illusion magic, hypnosis, and - most importantly - memory manipulation. Now, it's not anything large-scale. They can't just completely wipe something's mind to make it so that they can't even remember their own name or anything like that, but they can look through recent memories and change small details about them. Things like, say, where it was that we were hiding out. Or even the fact that they had seen us. Instead, those memories could be tweaked just enough to make them believe that they had lost track of us not long after we left the restaurant. And that the reason they took so long to report back was that they were thoroughly searching where we had last been seen just in case they had missed something.

Pretty nifty. Obviously, the ethics of messing with people's memories was more than a bit questionable, but I couldn't exactly find that little bit of mercy there might have been in the back of my head to any member of Celestia's guard. Not after everything.

This brings us to the other thing that Chrysalis had to do once she finished messing with the minds of those ponies and sent them off to give out false information—immediately soaking Nightmare Moon and me in ice water upon seeing us. She didn't question how we got away, what had happened, or anything like that. Nope, she just fired up her horn and made me regret even bothering to wear dry clothes at any point in my life. Nightmare Moon wasn't particularly happy about being soaked either, but at least she was able to dry the two of us off easily enough with a quick spell of hers that was the equivalent of being sprayed by a hundred hair dryers at once.

She yelled at us for a bit, unsurprisingly, and I did my best not to ask her to shut the hell up before I buried her in the backyard to see if a bitch tree would grow... Look, I had a really bad headache, okay? Obviously, I wouldn't have just randomly thrown that at her.

Nonetheless, I managed to keep my mouth shut long enough for her to go through her entire spiel and eventually ask for details on what had happened. She had a general idea from looking through the memories of those guards, but she wanted us to fill in any gaps there might have been. So, once she turned me back into a human, I indulged her. After I rushed to the bathroom and puked my guts out from the combination of migraine and nausea that came from the forcible change of my anatomy, that is.

This was the only time I was not happy to see Cheese Fries again.

A couple of aspirin and some generous rinsing of the mouth later, Chrysalis was caught up to speed, as well as Gilda and Halfy who had by now come down to join us. We mentioned Celestia's sudden appearance, that fact that she instantly saw through the disguise Chrysalis had provided me - which she was apparently not happy about from a pride standpoint - and even the supposed 'negotiations' that had taken place.

Nightmare Moon was all too happy to talk about how we shut down Celestia's attempts at a friendly facade while Gilda was plenty pleased with herself when it came to recounting how she brought down the pegasi in detail. Side note: She was apparently being rather kind with how she went about doing so, considering talons tend to be something that can easily cut wings off. Yowch. Halfy, for her part, was actually rather silent. She was more focused on the ground than anything else we were saying. I chalked it up to the fact that she was in shock from everything. Not like I could blame her.

By the time we were done, Chrysalis had an expression that I could only really identify as that of a person rethinking a large variety of things. As to why? It turned out that it was because of more than just what we had told her. Something she had seen in the memories of those guards was bothering her.

Evidently, they hadn't received the information on where we would be, as well as the disguises we would have, from Celestia. Rather, they had gotten their orders and briefings from Luna. I didn't really know why this was important. I mean, sure, it turned out that Luna was helping her sister. That wasn't exactly all that much of a surprise. Nightmare Moon, however, suddenly got very quiet.

"Whilst we were at the diner," she mentioned, "there was a stallion claiming that they were having nightmares for the past week."

Again, I was clueless why this was important. Chrysalis, however, looked as though she had just been slapped in the face.

Which somehow all lead to where I was now. In bed. Chrysalis sat on the floor to my right and tapped her hoof impatiently against the wooden tile while both Nightmare Moon and Gilda were to my left, with the previously stated alicorn leaning somewhat onto the mattress. Her weight caused the mattress to shift, but it wasn't really enough for me to notice. Instead, I was more focused on the fact that her horn was glowing ever so slightly, as well as the focus she had etched across her features. Halfy was getting some drinks for us downstairs at Chrysalis' request.

"... So, why the hell are we doing this again?" I asked unceremoniously. Gilda seemed to share the sentiment, shrugging her shoulders before she leaned an elbow against the wooden headboard of the bed.

"Yeah, what the hay are we doin'? You guys didn't really say anything. You just scooped the big guy up in your magic and tossed him into bed without saying a word." She looked directly at me for a moment. "Last I checked, trying to drag him into bed was supposed to be my shtick." I pursed my lips at this, raising a hand and quickly flicking her in the beak without a second thought. She flinched at this, shifting the yellow protrusion on her otherwise white-feathered face before giving it a couple of sniffles.

I could practically hear Chrysalis rolling her eyes this time around.

"Weren't you paying any attention?" She snarled. I just gave her a deadpan. We both just stared at one another for a bit, waiting for the other to budge. Whether it was due to sheer stubbornness, or just Chyrsalis's lack of care for the matter, I ended up winning out as she ended up all but slamming her hoof into her head. "Why am I not surprised..."

"Can't say there's much I could have missed. The big white sun horse doesn't like us. The moon horse doesn't like us either. Kinda self-explanatory." I retorted. Nightmare Moon's expression of focus shifted ever so slightly at this, a brow of hers raising in my direction. I realized my faux pas rather quickly. "The bad moon horse, of course." She blinked, only somewhat sated in her curiosity.

"We were aware. We were more curious as to why you refer to either of them as 'whorses'. Unless more has changed in the past millennia than we had believed, members of royalty rarely took consorts. In fact, we do not believe Celestia has ever had a lover of any kind. Even less so did they indulge in carnal matters of the flesh with such frivolity and leisure as to earn such labels." She stated, as though it was the most typical point of conversation in the world. I had forgotten that the closest word to 'horse' meant something entirely different around here.

"Wait, so you guys, like, never got laid as princesses?" Gilda restated in her own blunt and simple way. I, in the meantime, really wanted the subject to change. Thankfully, I wasn't the only one.

"Focus!" Chrysalis chided, stomping a hoof onto the floor. "Yes, 'moon whorse bad', 'sun whorse bad', whatever! The important thing is that the guards got their information about us from Luna!" Once more, I just stared at her.

"And?"

"And Luna has the ability to look through dreams!"

"Still not getting it..."

"Urgh!" Chrysalis gave out a roar of frustration, both of her forehooves covering her face before slowly being dragged downwards. Nightmare Moon took the opportunity to be the adult in the room. She moved one of her hooves just to my side, gaining my attention while she looked at me with a gentle expression.

"Sir Jeremy," she began, "dreams are a rather complex concept. While many believe them to be nothing more than haphazard amalgamations of thoughts and memories, they serve a different purpose altogether." She reached a hoof behind her, gesturing to some invisible object of sorts as she spoke. "They are much more akin to gateways. Entries into the minds and psyches of others. What is seen in a dream is often just a representation of those minds and psyches that create them. Their emotions, their hopes, their despair, their memories. All of these make up the realm of dreams and the many that find their solace in it."

She looked at me questioningly, checking to see if I understood what she was saying so far. I nodded my head, albeit a bit slowly. She continued shortly after.

"As we mentioned before, one of the duties of the princess of the night is to survey the dreams of others. However, when one does so, it is done at a surface level. Typically, we do not scratch beyond that surface, instead seeking nightmares to dispel at a glance, lest we begin to find ourselves deeper and deeper in the minds of those dreaming. Furthermore, such deep dives into the mind are... inefficient." She looked somewhere off to the side of the room as she said this. I took the opportunity to raise a question I had.

"Inefficient how? If you can look through the minds of other folks, wouldn't it just be easier in the long term to find out what was causing the bad dreams and just-" I gestured a hand emptily, looking for the right word I could use for the situation. When I came up with nothing, I just used the same buzzword most ponies used when I asked about stuff from their world. "magic it away?" Nightmare Moon simply shook her head.

"Nay. While one can dream walk along the surface level with as much ease as one would breathe, sifting through the complexities of the mind can be difficult. Time-consuming. By the time one finds the cause of one's nightmares, the night might as well be at an end."

I chalked another point for the 'don't bother trying to explain Equestria stuff, otherwise, you'll look stupid' board at that. At that point, the board might as well have been a solid black from all the tallies I had marked, but I digress.

While it was nice to get a bit of a better idea regarding Equestria and how some of the things here worked, I still wasn't really sure why it was important. Yes, you could look into another person's mind if you really wanted to while looking through dreams. Great. But I had no idea how that applied to anything. Until Chrysalis decided to enlighten me, albeit rather patronizingly.

If ponies were still having nightmares, then that meant that Luna was probably looking deeper into someone's mind. So, she didn't have time to help others. Plus, all the information the guards had been given was rather limited. Even more significantly though, Luna was giving said information out during the day, when she would normally be sleeping.

Now, let me just really get the idea nailed down here. Because believe me, I wish I had been able to understand this as easily back then. What Luna and Celestia apparently knew about my disguise was something only a certain amount of people knew. Halfy, Gilda, Zecora, Nightmare Moon, Chrysalis, and I. And of those people, two apparently couldn't have their minds looked into while they were dreaming. Not while they had magic, at least. So that left Zecora, Gilda, Halfy, and I. Zecora was miles away. There's no way she would have known that we were going out tonight. So she was out. And, finally, Gilda and Halfy both still at least tried to get some sleep at night. They had been trying to adopt a more nocturnal lifestyle, with Gilda having much more ease than Halfy, but they still weren't quite as nocturnal as I, Nightmare Moon or Chrysalis were.

That only left one on that list. Or rather, more precisely, one person.

"She's looking through my fucking head?! While I sleep?!" All things considered, I reacted better than I thought I would.

The concept of someone going through someone else's head was already weird enough to wrap my mind around. But the fact that they were actively doing so in my head not only made it seem all the more real, but it also added a level of creepiness to it that I just couldn't describe if I tried. I mean, fuck, not even being able to have your own dreams be private, but instead work as a door to the inner parts of your mind for someone to look through like a filing cabinet. I don't understand how ponies, or anyone else in Equestria for that matter, sees that as normal. I get it, a different world, different culture, but fucking hell my skin was crawling at the time.

" 'Tis just a theory at present, Sir Jeremy, unsightly as might seem." Her ears twitched ever so slightly. Evidently, I was not the only one who was just a wee bit stressed about having my inner thoughts looked through. I found my fingers at my temples again, my headache suddenly feeling like I was being stabbed against the right side of my skull. Stress, evidently, was not helping with the situation.

"And how exactly does dragging me to bed deal with this? Shouldn't I just, I dunno, stay awake or something?" I queried. I wasn't bothering to try to hide whatever frustration I felt anymore.

"Hardly. Not even mentioning the fact that you can't exactly stay awake during the day anymore," Chrysalis scoffed, "all that the princess would have to do is spend some time adjusting whose dreams she searched for. Eventually, she would find another of us whose dreams she could worm her way into."

"So I just have to deal with the fact that Luna is stalking my memories from inside my dreams from now on?" I deadpanned. At this, Chrysalis looked me dead in the eyes. The slits in the seas of emerald green that were her eyes thinned as she gained a look of focus and confidence.

"Only for one more day. Then, we turn the tables on her." I raised a brow at her words.

"And how exactly do we go about doing that?" Rather than respond with her words, Chrysalis simply gained a wry grin. She bobbed her head slightly across from her, straight towards where Nightmare Moon still sat, not having lost either the glow of her horn or the concentration on her visage.

"Why, using the only other alicorn that's an expert in dream magic, of course."

And there was the crux of Chrysalis and Nightmare Moon's reason for dragging me to bed. Evidently, I had forgotten that Nightmare Moon had technically been Princess Luna at some point. Meaning she had the same memories, same expertise, and same magic as the lunar diarch. To a point, obviously.

Still, it wasn't exactly a flawless idea. I had no clue what to expect, and Nightmare Moon was no better. Something about the dreams of humans being an entirely different ballpark than what she was used to. Add that to the fact that she was more than a little bit rusty with not just her dream magic, but a good portion of her magic in general, as well as the fact that Luna probably had much more practice and time at her hands to familiarize herself with all of these things that Nightmare Moon hadn't...

All of these were concerns. Very god damn valid concerns. And I was more than willing to make them known. At least until Chrysalis cheated.

"Surely, you can't tell me you don't have faith in her, can you?" She teased, leaning ever so slightly closer with an expression of faux surprise. I made sure to give a very pointed, very slow blink to her as she did.

"... Oh, fuck you."

"Not before me, you won't." Gilda instantly chimed in. I was a little less gentle than I was with my urging of her to shut up this time. Rather than flick my fingers against her beak, I reached up and smacked her upside the head.

That had been strike two.

Once I was done, I allowed myself to fall back onto the mattress, as well as the pillow that awaited me.

"Fine. Fuck it. Why not? Seems just as crazy as anything else we've done in the past few weeks." I muttered just loud enough to be heard. My palms rubbed against my straining eyes as I struggled to keep my blood pressure in check. Even if I couldn't see it at the moment, I could practically hear the self-satisfied smirk on Chrysalis' face next to me.

At that time, I could swear that this land of ponies would be the death of me.

"Can't start a hive without losing a few drones, as they say."

All I could wonder was who the hell said that.

"Thou'lt kindly do us the favor of never uttering such a coarse turn of the phrase again." Nightmare Moon chimed in, disgust evident in her voice.

I allowed my arms to relax, splaying them haphazardly to either side of me on the mattress. I found myself staring at the ceiling for a moment, wondering what turn of events possibly could have led my life to this moment. Outside of the obvious, that is.

"So you just expect me to fall asleep while knowing what's waiting for me on the other end?" I sighed. Chrysalis leaned forward and closed her hooves against one another.

"If we want to get rid of a possible threat to our continued freedom." She gave a slight shrug. "Otherwise, we might as well just walk up to the palace and say 'we surrender' in broad daylight." That earned a frown from me.

No pressure then, clearly. All I had to do was allow myself to lose consciousness and have dream magic used on me to look inside my head where there was already someone using dream magic to look at me. Yeah. Perfectly natural. In fact, the entire thing was like a lullaby.

"Can't either of you just use a spell and put me to sleep?" I asked hopefully. Unfortunately, there would be no such luck.

"Nay. Rest brought about by spells is typically dreamless."

"And we can't just use that so I can sleep and not have Luna look through my head?"

"Doubtless, our former selves have already created a path straight through your psyche in her machinations through your mind. Even without dreams, she would still find you in times of rest." It was worth a shot. Also, Gilda mirrored my thoughts quite effectively.

"Yikes. That's just downright creepy." She said. I could not agree more. "Whatever the case, if the name of the game is getting you to go to sleep..."

The mattress shifted next to me once more. I didn't even have to look to know what expression was likely on Gilda's face. Not like it would have been a bright idea anyways, considering how close she got to my ear. Her breath was warm as she took a second just to breathe against me. I felt goosebumps climb up my whole body, and for all a moment my headache was forgotten. Up until I heard her whisper huskily into my ear.

"I've got a great way of tiring you out." I could swear I felt something warm and wet very lightly make its way across my ear.

And that was strike three.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Just outside of the bedroom, a mare could be seen making her way toward the door. On her back, she balanced a small wooden tray, upon which sat four glasses of water. As she had been requested to do by the changeling monarch, she had fetched the drinks she had been asked for. However, her pace in doing so was slow. Even now, as she walked to the bedroom, she could easily be seen making half-progress as she moved.

It wasn't particularly that she was tired, or unwilling, or anything like that. Rather, something was weighing very heavily upon her mind. Something that she had seen not so long ago.

Her gaze on the wooden floor, her eyes furrowed ever so slightly as she mumbled to herself.

"It just doesn't make sense..." She thought, going over her memories again and again. Yet, no matter how often she did so, the same answer would come up.

As much as she would like to believe otherwise, she was certain of what she had seen before. That particular trait of hers was never wrong. Not even once. She was well enough aware of it by now to say that without a doubt. Yet now it ate at her like a gnat did a plant root. Small nibbles, never quite enough to terribly destabilize the plant, but just enough to cause issues if left unchecked.

How would she bring it up? Could she bring it up? Would she bring it up? It was all so terribly troubling.

Perhaps, if all went well, there would be no need. Yes, that was something to hope for. That everything would go well. She should not trouble herself with such negative thoughts. She should try to focus on the now. On the pleasant thoughts.

She had fun with the others when they went out to eat. Perhaps it had ended poorly, but it was nice to do activities with friends.

It was nice just to have friends.

The mare took in a breath, calming her nerves ever so slightly as she focused on the positives. Her gaze shifted forward, to the door that was just a few inches ahead of her along the wall. She wondered, ever so vaguely, just how those friends were doing.

And much like anything else within the land of Equestria, she was given an answer by the most impractical, yet effective means possible.

The muffled sound of stomping could be heard, alongside the weak vibrations that went along the floor to follow them. Halfy rose a brow as she sensed this, barely having even a moment to register these noises before the door to the bedroom was kicked open. Halfy gave a silent thanks to the fact that she locked up in response, frozen in fright on this occasion, believing she would very likely have caused quite the spill had she so much as flinched while holding the wooden tray on her back.

The foot of Jeremy stayed there in the air for a moment, right where it had kicked the door inwards, before slamming down onto the floor. He took three loud and steady steps forward, jerking around as he did so. His eyes were blank, no visible emotion upon them, as he looked straight forward to the wall opposite his bedroom door. To his side, he held the impressive form of Gilda, now reduced to the equivalent of a stray cat being kicked out by animal control. One hand of his held onto the scruff of her neck, just where the feathers of her head met the fur of her body. The other held firmly - white-knuckled even - onto the base of her tail, using it as leverage to lift her bottom half while his other hand lifted her top.

Gilda, for her part, was as mobile as a statue. She dared not to move. Dared not to breathe. Dared not to so much as blink, for risk of having Jeremy possibly rip her tail off where it was. She knew he wouldn't, he wasn't that type of person, but her natural instincts were all too happy to disagree.

"Batter out..." The human mumbled to himself quietly as he very pointedly sat Gilda down on the floor. Halfy had no idea what he could possibly have meant by this, but then again this probably wasn't the time to ask questions. She just watched as Jeremy placed the griffon down, spun her around so that her back was to the wall, moved her talons so that it looked like she was holding an invisible object between them, then - with a surprising amount of grace - reached over to where Halfy held the glasses of water. He didn't spare a glance, eyes more focused on what he was doing, as he placed the glass of water into Gilda's apparently waiting talons. Still, she stayed still, accepting her fate of being manually posed by the human before her, even long after he had let go of her.

Jeremy took a step back, crossing his arms and simply taking a moment to admire his work before he gave a curt nod of self-satisfaction and turned back to his bedroom.

He took barely so much as a step before he paused and finally looked toward Halfy. The mare was in her own state of following the teachings of the Great Statue Sensei, not really sure how to go about approaching... whatever was happening right now.

Jeremy didn't seem to acknowledge this, giving her a quick thumbs up before taking the tray that was on her back and finally making his way into the bedroom, closing the wooden door behind him.

Mare and griffon were left in the hall, one with more water than they had begun and one with less, both simply registering what had just transpired. There was a deep moment of silence as they just stood and sat there, inclined more to focus on the quieting creaks of the floorboards beyond the door.

Before long, as though waking from a trance, Gilda stiffly rose the glass up to her beak and loudly took a sip.

"... Dang it."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Griffons aren't as heavy as you'd think, oddly enough. For a while, I figured it was because of 'magic', as per usual. Turns out, that's more the explanation for ponies. Griffons just have naturally light yet flexible bones and body masses. Add to that the wings that are about as big as your average alicorns, and, well, you can do the math as to how they fly so well.

Back on topic though, I was now face down on the bed, a newly added tray of water glasses resting upon the nightstand nearby as well as a newly added opened space in the room. I groaned ever so slightly as I did my best to pretend I wasn't aware that Gilda had just straight-up licked my ear while Nightmare Moon and Chrysalis were watching, as well as trying to figure out what that odd scent that was faintly embedded into my pillow was. I made a mental note to wash it later.

"I would call her forward, but that would be an understatement..." I also made a mental note to hit Chrysalis over the head with it later.

My anxiety about whatever the hell was waiting for me in my dreams, the fact that the other two were watching me, and the headache that was constantly serving to make sure that sleep wouldn't happen. I mumbled something into my pillow, vaguely aware that there was probably no way that either of the two next to me would hear. Something about asking if maybe just knocking me out cold with a hit to the head would work.

Before I knew it, an hour passed. And yet I was still right there, in the land of the conscious. Just as awake as ever.

By now, I had shifted my position in bed I don't know how many times. The glasses of water had all been emptied, left lonesome and used on the tray from before. Nightmare Moon hadn't so much as budged from her place next to me, that same look of focus never leaving her as she stood statuesque with her horn cascading with a thin veneer of sapphire magic. And Chrysalis...

"Go. To. Sleep."

Had lasted longer than I had thought she would.

"What the hell do you think I've been trying to do?" I retorted, covering my face with my pillow as I tried to put more force behind closing my eyes. By now, that headache had mostly subsided, but it was still causing some issues. I started to wonder if Equestria brand headache medicine was just a sugar pill or some magic whatchamacallit. Obviously, that wouldn't really make sense considering I had used it before to much greater success, but still.

"Well clearly, you aren't trying hard enough." She laid her front half across the foot of the bed, not that far off from my own blanket-covered feet, and glowered at a nearby wall. I was tempted to give her a light kick or two, but I figured that being covered in ice water wouldn't help me get some sleep either. This entire situation was a little more than slightly ridiculous.

Barely another minute passed before, finally, Chrysalis removed herself from the bed and gave out a grunt.

"Right then, extreme measures it is." I rose a brow beneath the pillow. I was starting to wonder if Chrysalis actually had heard me talk about getting knocked unconscious. If so, I was regretting it. Immensely.

The pillow started to faintly glow a dark shade of emerald, fighting against the weak hold I had of it before swiftly being yanked out of my grip and into the air. I took the situation as it came, taking in a breath through my nose and scowling before allowing my arms to fall to my sides and looking toward Chrysalis.

"And by that, you mean?" I questioned. For her part, Chrysalis simply rolled her eyes, as though I had asked the most obvious thing in the world.

"I mean I'm going to drain some of your love until you're so exhausted you have to fall asleep." My frown deepened at this. Partially because of the implication that I would have to kiss her again for that plan, but mostly because I remembered that the whole 'body feeling as though it's going through a hard reset' wasn't exactly a fun feeling. I heard a scoff come from next to me.

"Thou art certain thou does not simply wish to fill thine insatiable craving, changeling?" Nightmare Moon queried, doing very little to hide the sharpness in her voice. Chrysalis mostly ignored her, save for a momentary glance with daggers in her eyes. She took a few steps along the side of the bed, closing the distance between her and me. My heart thumped in my chest ever so slightly as she got closer, which I felt trace all the way up to my head.

It's likely that she saw me flinch, judging by the sigh that Chrysalis let out shortly after.

"Calm down already. I don't plan on taking a lot. And if it puts you at ease, we'll do this in small increments. Just enough that you'll be able to go to sleep." She assured me, which was different.

There was a lot about, well, everything, that I was against. The idea of someone looking through my mind, the idea of coming to Canterlot in the first place, the list went on. But just this once, on this very occasion, as I looked into Chrysalis' eyes and listened to her try to ease my concerns...

"If I feel a tongue, I'm having Nightmare Moon dump three buckets of water on you."

"We would prefer ten." Nightmare Moon quickly added in.

"Ten it is." Chrysalis clicked her tongue at this.

"Don't flatter yourself." She remarked. The bed shifted once again as she came up next to me and placed some of her weight upon it. Her forelegs sat folded underneath her chest as the distance between her face and mine shrunk. I found myself swallowing as my throat suddenly felt dry.

At this point though, I had a decent idea of what to expect from the prior two occasions Chrysalis and I had kissed. So when I felt the sudden sensation of warmth against my lips, I didn't have any real issues. Well, outside of the obvious, that is.

The kiss lasted barely a second. Hell, you could barely call it so much as a peck on the lips. Yet the effects were immediate.

It suddenly felt as though I had been awake for hours. It wasn't quite as extreme as it would have been before. My body certainly didn't scream for a quick ten-second coma like usual, but I certainly felt more fatigued. Even more interesting though was the fact that my headache was far less prevalent than before. It wasn't completely gone, but it had been numbed to the point that it felt like little more than a minor annoyance.

I blinked, ridding myself of some odd swirls of bleariness that wandered around the edges of my eyes. Once I did, I could see Chrysalis gain a bit of distance from me. Just enough that I could see her full face instead of the limited view I'd have while she was kissing me.

Her expression was odd. Her muzzle was wrinkled ever so slightly and I could see her slightly smacking her lips, as though an odd flavor was stuck in her mouth. Her tongue visibly ran over her own teeth as she somewhat reeled back from the taste.

"Well, that's certainly an... odd aftertaste." I heard her mutter, looking down at her own muzzle as she did so. I narrowed my eyes ever so slightly.

"One, the taste of cheese fries coming back up isn't nearly as nice as it is going down. Two, I did my best to wash my mouth out." Her look of mild dismay towards the taste on her lips turned into one of pure revulsion. She shuddered, giving out an odd noise that lay somewhere between that a whimper and a cry.

Her jaw tightened as she quickly gathered herself again, now glaring at me.

"Revolting of a thought as that might be to have now, that's not what I meant. The flavor was more akin to..." She waved a hoof in the air absentmindedly, rolling her changeling equivalent of a wrist as she searched for the right words to say. "Raw magic."

That woke me up from whatever fatigue I felt rather quickly.

"Magic? What do you mean by magic? I don't have any magic." I stated matter-of-factly. Chrysalis shook her head.

"Yes, you've been painfully clear about that in the past. Which is why it's so odd that I can taste it on you now."

A fair point. In the prior times that Chrysalis had taken love from me, she had never complained about the flavor. If anything, she was far too happy to express how much she enjoyed it. I wondered what had been different. What might have brought about this sudden change?

Nightmare Moon would be the one to give out a theory of hers on that.

"Mayhaps, 'tis residual magic from the vast quantity of spells that have recently been cast upon you?" Chrysalis and I both shifted our gazes over to her. She was still in that same position of focus as she was before, but now we could very clearly see one of her eyes opened in a thoughtful gaze somewhere far off. "Humans such as you seem rather prone to magical exhaustion compared to the average Equestrian citizen. 'Twould not be too far of an assumption to ascertain that you may also retain some of this residual magic for longer periods of time."

I could feel a frown make its way onto my face as she said this.

"And what would that have to do with Chrysalis taking love from me?" I asked. Chrysalis hummed for a moment before giving a slight nod of her head.

"Love is not something that is isolated. There's inherent magic to it, one that has an incredible amount of potential to it." She glanced behind her for a moment, gaining a sour expression. "Believe me, I know." She briefly muttered. I could only imagine she was referring to the incident back during the wedding. She shook her head, removing herself from her thoughts and continuing her explanation. "Despite that potential, the magic itself doesn't really provide much of anything to changelings."

"So, kinda like finding out your favorite food also gives you vitamin B?" I offered, trying to piece together what she was saying in my own head. Chrysalis shook her head, putting her hooves together as she gathered herself.

"It's more the equivalent of drinking unfiltered river water. The water is the part that is necessary, but one has to accept that there'll be at least a few contaminants within. Nothing major, but they'll be there nonetheless." Her gaze shifts back to me for a moment, a look of understanding dawning on her. "That's why your love seems so much purer than that I've drained in the past. Your species has no magic. Not even inherently. You're the equivalent of a perfectly isolated, perfectly clean freshwater spring." The pillow that was still in her magical grasp spun around a few times as Chrysalis fiddled with it in thought.

"In other words, magic affects you much differently than others. While other species already have those 'contaminants', meaning there's hardly too much of a difference if you were to add any more, your species does not. So even the slightest amount of contamination-"

"Seems all the more extreme." Nightmare Moon finished, nodding sagely as her gaze shifted to Chrysalis. "We must say, we are surprised to see that thine knowledge of magical theory is so in-depth."

Chrysalis didn't return the gaze, simply waving Nightmare Moon off with a wave.

"Don't patronize me. One doesn't retain their position as Queen within a hive without having at least some knowledge of magic and the potentials behind it." Nightmare Moon gave a faint chortle at this, closing her eyes once again as she returned to her statuesque state of focus.

I, in the meantime, scratched at my scalp as I looked between the two. Magic was very much not my strong suit. I had made that obvious before. And it certainly was showing now. Even with Chrysalis dumbing everything down, which I can only assume was for my benefit, there was still a lot going over my head. I resolved to just push this little detail to the side for now. For now, I could just focus on one aspect of this whole thing.

Chrysalis has a way of sucking love out of me. If she did that, she would also suck out any magic that might have been stuck there. IE, there might be a new way for me to deal with any more of those magical hangovers as they came. Of course, that new way involved kissing Chrysalis more than usual, but you know what that was a bridge I would cross when I got to it.

"Right... Anyways, I think I might be able to get some sleep now. My headache is almost gone, and I'm definitely feeling a bit groggy." Chrysalis finally seemed to snap out of her thoughts, looking towards me with a bemused expression.

"Hm. Not quite." She tittered. My brows knitted as she said this. "For one, I don't plan on waiting all day for Nightmare Moon to confirm or deny if Princess Luna has decided to invade your dreams after all. So I'm much keener on exhausting you until you have no choice but to sleep." She leaned forward ever so slightly, once more beginning to close the distance between us. "Furthermore, I now have this awful taste of residual magic in my mouth. So you will do me the kindness of washing it out for me with some more... 'refined' samples of love." Before I could so much as speak, she closed the last of the distance between her lips and mine.

Once more, she pecked her lips against mine. Then another. And another. Each time, I felt more and more tired, barely recognizing the low chuckle coming from Chrysalis as she continued. My neck was eventually no longer able to support the weight of my head as fell back onto the mattress. My eyes felt heavier and heavier as my body slowly went from drowsy to 'I've just worked for three days straight and the only thing I've had to eat is a single order of pancakes and coffee'. I vaguely made out the sensation of my head being lifted by magic while the cool sensation and softness of my pillow returned to its former position below me.

"There we go, that should do it."

"Was that truly necessary?"

"Of course it was. Magic tastes positively awful."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The princess of the night was tired.

Actually, that would be an understatement.

The princess of the night was exhausted.

For a little over two weeks now, the smaller member of the alicorn diarchy had been diving deep into the subconscious of the human known as Jeremy, at the behest of her sister. And in those two weeks, she learned many things. Some of his contacts, the occasional slip of a plan or two, some of the places he has been and things that he had seen.

With bags under her eyes, the lunar princess gave out a grunt as she trotted past a pair of her personal guards and into her room. She gave them barely a glance, not particularly having the energy for it. But what little they had received was enough. They knew that look well enough after serving under her for long enough. Even if it had been a little rough getting reacquainted with serving under her after her banishment.

It was a look that meant 'do not let anyone disturb me or I will find a battle axe'. One particular maid mare had made the mistake of slipping inside the room during one of these situations some months ago to get a jump start on the cleaning. One particular stallion guard had allowed her, having had a bit of a crush on the mare. On that night, the two ponies were fortunate that the closest thing to Luna when she was disturbed during one of these moods was a rolled-up newspaper of The Canterlot Times. Yet, somehow, the dents upon the armor of the guard after the incident was over proved that she may secretly be a grandmaster in the art of fly swatting if nothing else.

As the door closed behind her, enveloping her in the dimly lit sanctity of her personal quarters, she looked towards the faint shimmers of moonlight that flooded in from the balcony built into the side of her room. She grimaced, saddened that she would miss yet another of her nights so that she could wander through the dreams of the human during the day once again.

Nonetheless, with head held high and metal adornments clattering upon the floor, she made her way out into the balcony as she did every coming day. The cool night air glided against her fur, cascading through her wondrous mimicry of the night sky enchanted into her mane. She took the moment to greet this zephyrous visitor happily, breathing out a sigh as she simply basked in the wind.

Faintly, ever so faintly, she could swear she felt the wind shift ever so slightly, as well as the flapping of wings. Drawn from her thoughts by this, she opened her eyes. She had not even been aware that she had closed them.

Across from her, upon another balcony similar to her own, was her fellow ruler and sibling, Princess Celestia. Her wings fluttered and flapped for a moment as she gently touched down upon the marble flooring beneath her, before just as gracefully folding against her side. Celestia raised her gaze towards Luna, and Luna returned the gaze just as well.

A faint smile could be seen making its way onto Celestia's face. It wasn't one of happiness or joy, however. Luna could figure that out at a glance. It was a smile one would give a loved one when things were difficult. One that would hope to express some bit of optimism and hope into the situation, so that all does not fall into anything more than negativity and stress. It was a smile of levity.

Luna accepted this smile, mimicking the motion with a tired chuckle.

Despite the decent distance between the two's respective towers, Celestia began to speak. Yet Luna heard it as clear as her night sky was brilliant. A spell the two had cast some time after her return so that the two could always talk even when they were busy. All they would need to do was step out onto the balcony, and anything that they said would become silent to everyone else, yet perfectly clear to just them.

Luna would be lying if she said she wasn't fond of this enchantment. By now, she had held many talks with her sister. Some were based on current events, some based on the stresses of her and her sister's days, and others just simple conversations that provided some hint of normalcy through their hectic lifestyles. The last of the three was Luna's favorite. It was Celestia's favorite as well.

But unfortunately, there had not been an opportunity for such a talk in a while. And tonight would be no different.

"How goes the dream walking, Luna?" Celestia asked, a twinge of despondency in her voice. Luna picked up on this rather quickly.

"It is... proceeding, sister." Luna responded, glancing away for a moment as her eyebrows furrowed.

While she wished that she could have provided a better answer, there had been a lot of issues with looking through the subconscious of the human. Perhaps it was due to the fact that he was such a different species with such a different mind than that of any other creature in Equestria. Or perhaps it had to do with what Celestia had informed her about him some time ago.

Whatever the case, the information she has been able to gather had been sporadic. Still, it helped. It was through said information that she was able to have some of her detachment of guards make their way into precise parts of the Everfree to look for information and clues as to their plans. There was something else of interest that she saw in that forest, but overall it was somewhat tangential at best. It was also through that information that she was able to provide her sister with the approximate whereabouts of the human and their company on this night.

Information that Luna could already tell did not provide the results that the two had hoped for.

"The negotiations fell through, did they not?" The princess of the moon laid out bluntly, though she already knew the answer. Celestia stayed silent, electing only to nod her head ever so slightly. Luna barely withheld a sigh at this.

She had known that the suggestion her sister had made would never have worked. While she could not speak for the mentalities or motives of either the human or the changeling queen, there was one being among the company that she knew well of. One that she knew all about like the back of her hoof. Which was fitting, considering the two shared the same back of a hoof for almost millennia.

Nightmare Moon.

Just the name brought Luna's fur to stand on end. Not of fear, but out of anger, out of hatred, out of guilt, out of remorse, out of so many things. What was especially concerning was that Luna could never quite pin down whether those emotions were aimed directly toward Nightmare Moon, or towards herself.

The mare on the moon was not a being that could be reasoned with. It was a being a pure emotion and spite. A creature that lived only to cause nightmares and feed off of the fear of others to feed its endless hunger in some deprived form of jealous lust for power. A thing that only cared for itself and its own goals.

The fact that it had aligned itself with the likes of the changeling monarch and the human was likely due to Nightmare Moon finding the two to be pawns on some overly complex chessboard of political and magical stratagem. One that used the lives of thousands as pieces.

"I had assumed as much." She remarked, shaking her head as she did so.

Little more was said between the two as they both brought forth the magic from their inner wellsprings onto their horns. Ponies throughout the lands could witness the shifting of the moon as it disappeared beyond the horizon, only for the sun to take its place shortly after. Yet few ever saw this shift as the princesses did it. Fewer still ever witnessed them doing it personally. In a way, despite this being one of the duties that affected Equestria the most, it was arguably the one that ponies grew blind to the quickest, with how accustomed they would get.

"Worry not, Luna. We will have them apprehended before long. Our citizens will be safe once again, and we will be able to leave this all as little more than a bad memory." Celestia encouraged. Luna smirked, noting just how many of those 'bad little memories' the two of them shouldered nowadays.

"Then the Elements of Harmony?"

"The bearers of Magic and Laughter are still visiting their siblings. Honesty, Loyalty, Generosity, and Kindness are in Ponyville but can arrive within a moment's notice. At most, it will take them another week to be able to gather at Canterlot." Luna had suggested just teleporting them all to Canterlot prior, but Celestia was all too quick to remind her that the Elements of Harmony suddenly disappearing in front of their friends and family likely wouldn't do well to keep the whole 'avoiding a panic' situation going.

A yawn escaped her as the warmth of the sun replaced the cool night air against her fur. Her body was still very much used to associating that warmth with the signal for her to get some rest.

"Are you certain that you are still fine doing this?" Celestia's voice once again chimed in, this time with concern lacing it. "You can always take some time to rest normally if you wish. Or if you prefer, I can-"

"It is not necessary, sister." Luna interrupted firmly, raising a hoof up to rub at her sore eyes. Celestia had been plenty stressed, as of recent, though she did well to hide it behind the mask of royalty and professionalism that was expected of her as the princess. They both were. Luna did not wish to worsen such issues by having Celestia constantly worry about how she was holding up. And besides, Luna was just as invested in capturing or removing these threats to Equestria as her sister was. "I thank you for your concern, however, I cannot just stand idly by while my former self threatens to wreak havoc upon the world. I will not sit by and do nothing."

"You have done plenty, Lulu." Celestia soothed. "Without your contributions, we would not have nearly as much information to use as we do now."

"Thank you, Tia." Luna responded, a faint smile adorning her muzzle. This time, it was one of appreciation. Or rather, of gratitude towards being appreciated. An emotion she was happy to have learned. Even if it was a millennium too late. "We should get going now. You have day court soon while I must continue to seek information regarding the escapees."

"Very well. I wish you good fortune, sister."

"And I you, sister."

With that, the two walked back into their personal quarters, closing the balcony doors behind them and severing the enchantment that had allowed them to communicate with one another so easily.

Luna's eyes habitually shifted to her bed, the blue silk sheets and linens mocking her with their inviting gazes before she forced herself to look away. Instead, she set her gaze on a specially made vanity table and mirror that sat along the walls nearby.

Her eyes narrowed as she forced herself to focus, stepping towards the vanity with determination in her gait. She sat before the vanity, looking upon her reflection with the same resolution as it gave her.

Yet again, a faint glimmer of magic enveloped her horn. Shortly thereafter, a similar glimmer developed in her eyes as she slowly lost focus on the world around her.

No longer was she in her room, surrounded by her personal possessions, hobbies, and resting places. No longer were there her subjects to see. At least not on this occasion. No longer was there Equestria. Instead, there was only her and the vanity.

The mirror began to ripple, as though suddenly turning into liquid silver before the gaze of the lunar alicorn.

Normally, she'd find herself in a much more open and abstract landscape when she dream-walked. One in which she could freely catch glimpses and ideas of the citizens within Equestria's dreams. One in which she could snuff out nightmares with barely so much as a sniffle.

But for her journeys deeper into the mind of another, she needed to be more direct. Unless she was feeling inclined to make her way through the labyrinthine mind of the human every time she wished to look through his memories, forming this direct portal was necessary.

With a breath, Luna slowly blinked her eyes. The image of the vanity became blurred while the ripples of the mirror intensified. Again she blinked. Again, the vanity blurred while the mirror became more akin to a glass of water during an earthquake. Once more she blinked and finally, she found herself in a new place.

An odd yet open plain of colors and vague shapes formed no real concept of objects that anyone would be able to recognize. The skies were warped, seeming more like constant auroras of blues and grays. Occasionally, what looked like singular specks of snow would slowly fall through the auroras, towards the closest semblance to a ground that there was, and then just as quickly sink into the floor as if it had been made of liquid.

In the distance, flashes of images could be seen. Few were discernable. Even fewer still stayed around long enough to even seem discernable.

Luna grimaced at the sight, still not quite used to the stark difference between the subconscious mind of a human versus that of a pony. Still, she had a duty to fulfill.

Her mind set on what she had to do, she fired up the same spell she had been using to keep the human's mind as preoccupied and still as possible.

The human found himself lying upon a grassy hill, relaxing in the night as they stared up at the ever-watchful moon. Her ever-watchful moon.

It begins