“Snnrgghhh—gah!”

Button regained consciousness alone in the dark, and immediately realised that he was in the death-grip of a husk. He twisted and turned, kicking at his assailant, until the ground gave way under him and he fell.

“Oof!”

The impact sent his brain into hard reset, and he simply lay on the ground panting. He felt hot and sweaty, and it was because – and at that point, his brain finished its start-up routine – he was just tangled up in his blanket.

“Oh.”

He sheepishly squeezed out of the heavy fabric and felt his way to the bedside table. He clicked the lamp’s switch on, and groaned when he saw the clock. He then shambled over to the curtains and pulled them aside, revealing a deep blue sky that promised a sunrise within the next half-hour or so. Too early to be up, and yet too late to try to go back to bed because he was sure that peaceful rest would only be cruelly snatched away by his mom or the alarm clock the moment he fell asleep.

He sat on his bed and stared at the wall glumly, pondering his next move. Slowly, fragments of his recent experience came back to him and reassembled in his mind, until… Button’s eyes widened and he found himself grinning like an idiot.

“Best. Dream. Ever!” he cried, throwing up his hooves and flopping backwards onto his bed.

Unfortunately, whilst his brain was engaged in cataloguing every minute detail of his epic suicide mission for future replays, some sneaky part of his mind saw fit to remind him that today was Monday. That meant that school was going to happen. His smile wilted instantly.

“Aww… this is the worst day ever!” he moaned.

Button lay on his bed staring at the ceiling for several minutes, but when fate failed to provide a snowstorm or some other natural disaster to spare him from a day of cramming knowledge into his head, he sighed and hopped onto the floor. Since he was already up, he might as well do something before it was time to go to school. It was just a matter of deciding what to do.

He frowned and put a hoof to his chin as he surveyed his room. His Joyboy was sitting quietly on his beanbag, calling to him…

Button grinned and dashed towards it, but when he reached out with a hoof to pick it up and begin another epic adventure, something stopped him. Guilt. It was a feeling that had been growing in the past few days, and it was reaching critical mass. He didn’t like it. Although not debilitating, it was nevertheless a negative status effect that needed to be purged from his system before it reached too many stacks. The buff to Happiness that his Joyboy would provide could counter its effects for a while, but Guilt’s duration was practically infinite and seriously overpowered. He didn’t know who was in charge of tweaking real life’s settings, but he felt that whoever that was, he or she was doing a very poor job of keeping things balanced.

But back to the problem: what’s the cure?

He remembered experiencing something similar in his dream, and then… it clicked in his mind. Miss Cheerilee had announced that there was going to be a little in-class test on Friday. Although she’d used a less threatening term, the reality was that he was going to be examined.

I didn’t survive the mission because I didn’t prepare.

Although Button was pretty sure that the consequences couldn’t be that dire in real life, it wasn’t something he wanted to find out first-hoof. He gazed longingly at his Joyboy and sighed. Sometimes, he really wished that real ponies got to reload from checkpoints.

Squaring his shoulders, he marched over to his schoolbag and whipped out his textbooks. He’d treated Intellect as his dump stat for far too long. He’d come close to failing a few Knowledge checks in the last semester, and it would be a really bad idea to hope that things wouldn’t get harder as time went along. As Mom always said, “If life gets hard, it means you need to level up.”

It was time to do some grinding.

Princess Celestia allowed herself a rare yawn as she trotted through the palace. It was a little chilly, so she took a little detour to the royal kitchen and returned to her original course with the addition of a steaming-hot mug of coffee in tow. Her destination was the top of the west tower; sunrise was due within the next twenty minutes, and this morning she fancied a nice view of Ponyville as she raised the sun.

She savoured the bitter flavour of her drink as she ascended the tower on hoof; the dimly lit and undecorated stonework interior of the stairwell was wonderfully serene, and it was one of the few places where she truly felt alone with her thoughts, away from the servants and guards and even the comforts that ponies felt were their leaders’ due. Small wonder Luna spent so much of her time in this tower when she was keeping watch.

A stiff breeze blew into the tower when she opened the thick double doors to the balcony, which she soon realised was empty.

That is unusual, she thought as she trotted out. Luna was seldom elsewhere near the end of her nightly duties. Celestia was just about to head back in and try the north tower when she heard her sister’s voice.

“Up here, Tia.”

The tower’s roof was a sharp spire with one clerestory window jutting from it, and perched on her haunches rather precariously on top of the ledge provided by that window was her sister. She wasn’t making eye contact, and if Celestia had to guess, she was instead staring vaguely in the direction of Ponyville, far below. Between her knitted brow and the bright moon giving her a dark silhouette, she looked like a brooding gargoyle.

“Luna? What’s the matter? You look… conflicted.”

“I was just thinking about one of our subject’s dreams. It is nothing, never mind.”

“It can’t be ‘nothing’ if it’s gotten you into this mood.” Celestia went over to the balcony rails, sat down, and then tapped her hoof on the floor beside her. “Wouldn’t you like to talk about it?”

Luna hesitated for a moment, then shrugged and glided down to her. After taking a seat by her side, she asked, “What would you like to know?”

Celestia smiled. “Well, we could start with what’s bothering you. Did the dreamer react poorly to your presence? Was it a nightmare?”

“I am not certain if I should categorise this colt’s dream as a nightmare.”

“Oh? This is getting interesting. Do tell.” Celestia shifted closer to her sister and draped a wing around her. Then, after a moment’s consideration, she offered the mug to her. “Coffee?”

“No, thank you.” Luna shook her head. “One aspect of his dream was putting him in distress. I held his fears at bay for a time and advised him on how to confront them…”

“And?”

“He shot me with an M-22 Eviscerator,” Luna deadpanned.

Celestia felt her smile become a teensy bit strained. “That is… oddly specific. Care to explain what that is? It does not sound very pleasant, least of all something that a colt should have in his dreams.”

“It is a fictional weapon,” Luna replied with a grimace, absentmindedly rubbing her chest with a hoof. “A remarkably painful one.”

“I thought you can’t be harmed in the dreamscape.”

“That does not mean I cannot be hurt. The stronger the dreamer’s imagination, the more vivid the experience, and let me tell you, this colt has an imagination wild enough to temporarily convince my subconscious that he had given my lungs a new breathing hole.”

Celestia opened her mouth to say something, but after a moment of silence, all that came out was a thoughtful “Ah…”

“Ah, indeed,” Luna said wryly.

“Okay, I would then guess that you’re upset because he’d turned on you. But—” Celestia tilted her head and raised an eyebrow, “—wait, you’re smiling now. This is becoming a little confusing for me.”

“The colt faced his fears before waking, and he was… very mature about it. I should have realised that he simply needed far less help than I had estimated, and I should not resent him for that.” Luna rose to all fours, gently easing out from under Celestia’s wing and flared her horn. Once the moon had set beyond the horizon, she gave her a smile and said, “Thank you for that, Tia, I do feel better now.”

“Oh, you’re welcome.” Celestia got up and was just about to bid her sister good morning when she saw her leap onto and balance on the balcony’s broad stone railing with her wings spread wide. “Wait, where are you going?”

“To the training yard.”

“Goodness, why? Aren’t you sleepy?”

Luna grinned wolfishly. “I have just been treated to the spectacle of a colt leading his schoolmates on a suicide mission to assault the fortress of a dreaded enemy, slaying countless foes and barely escaping by the skin of their teeth before the fort is destroyed by an atomic inferno worthy of Discord himself. And it was glorious,” she declared, sweeping her wing out in a grand gesture. “And now that you have assuaged my disquietude, I am far too excited to go to bed. I could use some exercise, and the guards could use some training. A ten to one sparring match would be an adequate challenge, I believe. Good morn!”

And with that, Luna dove from the balcony and glided down towards the training grounds, leaving Celestia alone on the west tower. She blinked a few times, then wordlessly drained the last of her lukewarm coffee.

“Hmm. Mondays…” she murmured as she raised the sun.

Author's Notes:

The opinions expressed by characters in this fanfiction do not necessary reflect the author’s sentiments on the controversy surrounding the ending of Mass Effect 3. This is all in good fun.