It was still night when Twilight Sparkle stepped from the Mirror Pool cavern and into the cold air. Immediately upon glancing around the empty forest, she was alarmed to see a large lack of foliage on the Everfree Forest trees...it was as if the seasons had suddenly changed in her absence.

Which, she later found out as she entered her library in the dwindling hours of the morning, they had. She had returned to her Equestria five months earlier than when she had left, courtesy of Nightmare Twilight.

Spike had been quite upset when she entered, but Twilight could tell he was genuinely relieved to see she was alright. Fortunately for her, it was still dark when she entered the library, and he did not seem to notice the patches of black burn marks on her mane and her horribly scratched sides. In only two days, her past self would also return from their Equestria's neighboring reality, and she knew it would be vital she was gone by then. She would have to find someplace peaceful to wait out the five months until she was back to the present. Hopefully her friends would not notice the fact that she had aged an alarming five months in mere hours.

Slipping out of the library like a ghost after Spike had returned to sleep, Twilight Sparkle quietly fled from her own town, nodding a respectful farewell as she temporarily left her life behind.

At precisely the same moment, five months later, Fluttershy jolted awake from her peaceful slumber and stumbled into her pristine kitchen. In the other room, Summer Sun was snoring loudly, and Fluttershy smiled at the sound, feeling some of the horror of her nightmare seep away as she listened to the familiar, comforting noise.

What a dream she had just waken from.

Pouring herself a tall glass of water, Fluttershy grabbed the cup in her left wing, making a mental note of the feathers that fell as she did so. Perhaps it was once again time to preen her wings.

Carrying the cup with her, Fluttershy silently opened her cottage door and set it down on the picnic table outside, the freshly painted wooden structure already looking completely at home on the newly growing grass. The sky above was a brilliantly shimmering celestial sheet of stars, the moon having already descended underneath the horizon closer to midnight.

Fluttershy thought about her strange, fantastical dream as she listened to the soothing sound of crickets in the cool night air. Twilight Sparkle had been there, and she distinctly remembered speaking to Celestia, too. Could Celestia dreamwalk now, too? Princess Luna would be more than happy to know that.  

There was more too her dream, too. To the best of Fluttershy's knowledge, it was absolutely impossible, but it seemed as if she had gained almost a month of new memories in the span of one night's dream. Although they were not necessarily memories Fluttershy would like to have had. She remembered fleeing a burning Equestria, battling ferocious alicorns, and saying a sorrowful goodbye to the friend she had left behind half a year ago.

In the end, however, Fluttershy decided it was all simply a wild, incredibly vivid fantasy undoubtedly caused by too much cider or too little chamomille tea. Nothing more than a particularly exciting dream.

Nevertheless, she knew even then she would never forget that dream for as long as she lived.

It was slightly uncustomary for the Princess of the Night to sleep during her own half of the day, but for Princess Luna, a nocturnal lifestyle occasionally needed a bit of readjustment. Especially when her services were needed both under the sun and moon, since she had exclusive reign over Equestria.

However, the second Luna felt the softness of her pillow as she lied down in her makeshift bedroom in one of the few completed spires of Canterlot City, she simply let her worries fade away and her mind to drift to sleep, knowing full well the dawn was mere hours away.

Normally the dreams of the Princess of the Night were a simple, ghost-town version of Equestria which Luna found quite disturbing and void of life. The dreams of other ponies were much more interesting.

However, upon reaching the realm of dreams, Luna was utterly shocked to find a visitor in her subconscious.

"Hi, Luna." Celestia said casually, sitting on a wooden chair in the corner of Luna's mirrored dream version of her bedroom.

"I...you...WHAT?" Luna screamed in surprise upon seeing her sister for the first time in more than a thousand years. "Sister! Is it really you?!"

"Of course it is, Luna. Why would it not be me?"

"How?!" Luna exploded, pacing back and forth in confusion.

"You taught me...?" Celestia said, as if it were a perfectly reasonable explanation. "Oh my! You don't remember, do you?"

Luna simply blinked in bewilderment, stepping forward and poking her sister with a trembling hoof. Celestia shimmered and lost her form temporarily, which Luna knew only ever happened to external visitors of a dream. Projections of the subconscious were never this imperfect. The only possible explanation was the one that made no sense: that Celestia really was sharing a dream with her.

"Well, I'll tell you all about it, sometime. For now, I must inquire...how fares Equestria?"

"It...it's fine..." Luna stuttered. The state of Equestria had done nothing but improve ever since the sun had first risen. The morale of her subjects had skyrocketed, plants and animals repopulated and began once again spreading across Equestria's surface, and Luna herself had grown increasingly comfortable with raising and lowering both the sun and moon that it was practically second nature to her.

"That is good..." Celestia said with a smile. "Everything on my end is quite good, too. I have even made a new friend in a certain magically talented purple unicorn. She is slightly insolent, and ever so cross with you, but I feel she has great potential, as well. You probably know her as 'Twilight Sparkle.'"

"You're really here..." Luna muttered, Celestia's words flying completely over her. Luna's whispered words came as a flurry of disbelief and unparalleled joy, as she continued gawking at her long lost sister.

"Yes." Celestia chuckled kindheartedly, moving closer to her sister and nuzzling her gently. "And I promise to never go away again. We may not both be alive, but we will always be together. I am only ever a dream away, sister."

The two alicorn Princesses conversed for what Luna initially thought was several minutes, but in reality were the span of several hours. They spoke of everything and anything, Luna's joy and surprise only growing as she recounted more than a millenniums worth of her life which Celestia seemed to already know all about somehow, but allowed her to explain it nevertheless.

Outside the realms of Luna's dreams, the time for the sun to rise was quickly approaching, and even Celestia could feel the end of night swiftly approaching. Luna simply did not want to return, for fear of loosing Celestia once again...part of her wanted to believe that Equestria could wait, that this might be the last dream she might ever have, and if she were to wake back to reality than this precious reunion would be all but forgotten.

"A few more minutes." Luna said simply, noticing Celestia's glances out her window, at the sun rising even in her dream world. "Please...tell me more about..."

"Some other time, Luna." Celestia promised, pointing out the window at the glowing orange of the clouds overhead, the sky turning a bright red hue in the growing dawn. "For now, Equestria is calling. Your Equestria. I'll see you soon."

Nodding sorrowfully, Luna closed her eyes as if falling asleep, when in reality she was forcibly destroying her dream world as she prepared to return to her real world. After all, it was just another day in Equestria, one that Princess Luna would make sure was just as peaceful and hope-filled as the last.

She owed her subjects that much.