After the blur, the dream continued.

".........s......f...er will take several minutes. Just try to relax, and please be kind to her. None of this is her fault, any more than it is yours. And try to avoid paradox, Twilight Sparkle; I trust you are mindful enough to do so."

"Who? What paradox?" I asked, but Luna had disappeared.

I sat there all alone on the clouds and brooded quietly. (Mostly I was thinking about what had just happened with my parents, but I don't want to write anything more on that topic.)

After what seemed like the better part of an hour, I started to hear the softest whispering sound, and the cloudstuff beneath me jiggled. The sound was swooshy and staticy like a rush of wind, or maybe a waterfall; at first just a tiny breeze, but then louder and louder and louder until I had to hold my hooves over my ears. The clouds began to shake violently like an earthquake, and just as the cacophony hit its zenith, I felt my body being yanked painfully apart from all sides...

And then, everything had changed.

I was standing in the middle of a clearing in the Everfree Forest, and the sun was shining. I haven't seen any place in the Everfree like this. It made the forest seem far less dangerous. But, this was a dream, after all. Next to me was a large stump that had been polished smooth, like a table. I heard the sound of hoofsteps, and noticed somepony trotting toward me from the treeline.

To my surprise, it was Princess Luna once again. She was wearing armor, like a royal guard. She walked up to the stump and removed first her helmet, then her barding.

"Luna? Did something go wrong?" I noticed my horn was intact again, and it was working. I was tempted to try to eject myself from the dream at that moment, but curiosity got the better of me: I decided to wait and see what Luna would do.

"Forgive mine manners. We art Princess Luna. Thou wilt be one hight Twilight Sparkle, and thou wot of us, we see," said Luna. She knelt on the other side of the stump, leaving on her shoes and replacing her crown (it had been mounted oddly on her helm).

"What... is going on?" I said. I was starting to get a really creepy feeling about this.

"Nothing dost go. Ye are mine charge," she said. "We wilt remain in slumber for a nonys at length, for reasons of charm. We kan ye are a beldams, forthy thou certes wilt be familiar with such wight." (Rough translation of that last sentence, since the reader might not know Middle Equestrian: "I know you're a mage, so you are familiar with how magic works.")

"Luna, do you understand what I'm saying?" I asked. I stopped short of pointing out that she was speaking archaically; partly because my Middle Equestrian is decent enough to follow most of what she was saying, but primarily because I had the feeling this was more than an act.

"Ay. Thy tongue is queer, but not beyond mine ken to rede," she answered. "We wast warned artow hie from a strange land, nathelees would be gentle. We wast not quod artow princess; al be that stands to thy sooth as beldams. Merry meet, Princess Twilight Sparkle." Princess Luna smiled gently.

I sat there with a puzzled expression for a moment before it dawned on me. I was in a dream, but something more was going on.

"Princess Luna, what year is it?" I asked.

Luna furrowed her brow. "By which calendar, seistow? Queen Platinum's?"

(That was all I needed to hear.)

"This... is impossible..." I said, stunned. "I can't be in the past, can I? I know you can't be in the future..."

Luna appeared very concerned. "Time asterte within a dream? Curious, this cas. Hastow..." she said, then paused in thought.

"Wait... Luna! I have to warn you about the future," I said. "After you return to Equestria, th—"

My warning was cut short by Luna's magic causing me to no longer possess a mouth on my muzzle.

"Weylaway! We art sorry, Princess Twilight Sparkle," said Luna. "We hast konne from Star Swirl the Bearded to noot soothfastnesse yet to come. Maystow not seye a word."

Yes, I know better than to try to change the future through time travel. I've already learned it's essentially impossible, and as Luna said earlier, there's a reason Star Swirl's Wing is guarded day and night. But in this case, I didn't really care. I wanted the situation to change, and I was willing to try anything to do it.

I tried to use my magic to return my mouth, but I didn't really have an appropriate spell for it, and my ability to control dreams pales to Luna's. Naturally, my attempt failed. So I decided to abort the dream by casting a wake-up spell.

Nothing happened. The spell responded as though I wasn't asleep. Actually, it was more eerie than that. It responded as though there was no target for the spell. It was like I didn't exist at all.

But this shouldn't have surprised me, because I was in a dream in the past, back when I truly didn't exist. So it seemed that Luna's convoluted plan had worked perfectly. Here I was, trapped in a dream world incredibly far from my body, with old-timey Luna as my jailer for as long as she could maintain the dream. Certainly it could be long enough for the vamponies to locate my sleeping body in the warehouse, or at least long enough for the infection (which, at the time, I didn't even know I had) to complete its course. There wasn't a damn thing I could do about it. I couldn't even try to convince Luna that she was making a mistake by warning her about the future.

But to my surprise (my surprise as I remembered the dream, I mean), I came up with a clever idea or two. Not yet, though. I'm getting ahead of myself.

I lay on the grass, and I started to cry. Luna looked mortified.

"Prithee, le ve Twilight, weep not," she urged, and walked over to me to embrace me. It felt nice. Very nice, actually. This Luna wasn't my enemy, of that I was certain. This Luna had no idea what she was doing. I'm not sure how Present Luna convinced Past Luna to do her bidding, but judging from her reaction it was some sort of trick (I mean, this Luna didn't know I came from a different time period until I told her).

I shivered at first, but then leaned up against her. She took off her shoes and tiara (I've never seen her without her tiara except when she was replacing it just a few minutes prior), and she held me close. I could hear her heart beat, and feel the warmth of her breath and the chill of her mantle on my withers. I relaxed.

"Poor lite pony," she cooed, and kissed my cheek. I blushed. I'm sure this wasn't sexual to her; it felt more motherly than anything else. But it was affecting me, so I suppressed the feeling as best I could. We lay there in quiet together, in a half-asleep state within a dream, for what must have been hours. It was the most comforted I've felt in a very long time, and I almost didn't care anymore that I was being held until the Order could sink its fangs into my vulva again. At least it would all be over. I knew she wasn't responsible, not here at least, and I loved her for what she must have thought she was doing to protect me (my best guess; who knows what Present Luna told her or even how she told her).

After hours of rest, my thinking had cleared. I didn't want to leave Luna, mind you. To be honest, I wanted to stay there with her forever, cuddling close, my fight against the Order be damned. I wanted to wait for both of us to be taken together. But my subconscious refused to stop working, and then the first epiphany hit me.

The interesting thing about epiphanic moments is that the final moments before the realization hits you always happen at the subconscious level. There's been psychological research on the topic, actually. Ponies are asked to solve a simple puzzle requiring insight or linguistic memory, and after they do, they're asked to recall what they were thinking along the way. Usually they can describe everything in detail up to the point where the epiphany happens—and then there's this gap in memory where all the thinking is below the conscious level.

It's hard to put together what I was thinking even before I came up with the idea, though, because although the memory of the events is now crystal clear, the memory of my own thoughts seems more cobbled-together or reconstructed from beneath. But it probably went something like this.

I needed to warn Luna, I realized. I needed to change the future, even if it weren't possible. Even if I couldn't prevent the Order (though I knew even less about what the Order of Spring was back then), if I could only get Luna on my side, I might still have a fighting chance. But all the events I've experienced would still have come to pass: Luna wearing the ounckse, her guards being at the genesis of this 'Order' thing, Luna herself admitting she's a party to it...

And that's when it hit me.

What if it was all an act?

I mean, what if Luna was pretending to be part of the Order? But there wouldn't be a reason for her to do that, even if I modified past events and sent a message to her.

That is, unless the reason itself were an ontological paradox.

I know that ontological paradoxes exist, because I created one a year or so ago when I warned myself about the threat I was warning myself about (which was the warning itself). The threat had no source in the time-stream, you see. It had no beginning: the warning I gave myself created itself out of nothingness, a self-created loop in time. I've done this thing before. It exists.

Could I do it again, I thought, only retroactively? Would it be possible to send Luna a message telling her to pretend to be part of the Order, in order to pull her actions into a temporal loop?

Well, yeah. It would be possible. But even if I had a way to send her a message, it wouldn't be probable. Luna seems to have every reason to join the Order (okay fine, you can't 'join' it, but whatever it is she has reason to support it). She's like, the first pony I'd expect to go along with it, even as bright as she is, and even as resistant to confinement as she is; everything else I know about her fits too-perfectly hoof in shoe. She's from an archaic time when the Order might have made sense if they'd had the magic and technology to restructure society (or whatever they're doing, I'm still not entirely certain).

But I figured I might as well give it a go. It might be a long shot, but there's no reason not to roll the dice. So I made a very strong effort of dream control to pop-into-being a scroll and a quill, and I began writing on the scroll. Luna didn't notice at first, because her eyes were closed as she held me. But she must have heard the scratching of feather to parchment, because she stood up shortly after I began.

"Twilight Sparkle, we cannat rede thy scroll ere sooth," she said, stepping back away from me. "Prithee, cease thy writ and hold gentle to mine bosom?"

I looked up to her and shrugged, and continued writing. I expected she would destroy the parchment, but I wasn't about to stop my plan. (Truth be told, that was the heaviest shrug I've ever made in my life. I would have done nearly anything to return to cuddling with that kind mare. Dammit. Why couldn't I have found this kind of comfort before everything turned into sex-related nonsense? Can't I have this kind of wonderful closeness without all the disgusting... I'm so ill-prepared for this mission. I'm the worst, ugh. Sorry, this is way off-topic. I'm done.)

Luna sat on the other side of the stump from me and simply watched me write. I kept the paper at an angle so she couldn't see the words, in the hopes it would delay her attempts to destroy them. I was feeling pretty emotional. I sniffled and tried not to cry as I hastily transcribed the detailed message on what to do and when and why, faster than I've written anything in my life (thank goodness for this journal, it's really helped me improve my speed at this sort of thing).

She looked ready to reach out and stop me, but I had finished. I rolled the scroll up and set it on the stump, then walked up beside her and leaned against her. She seemed to relax.

The second epiphany was how to escape the dream, and that came to me while I was writing the scroll. I didn't like it, but it was the best chance I had. I had to get Luna herself to throw me out, and I could only think of one way to do it.

"Ommm fshooolleeee," I said through my nose, looking up at her with sad eyes. She knew something was very wrong, but I couldn't give her time to react. I reached back behind her and placed my hoof (which I had carefully kept clean) onto the smooth surface of her vulva, and I firmly pressed down and inward.

I've never felt anything like this before, because I still have my hymen, and even if I didn't I don't know if I would be comfortable hoofing myself. It was so moist, and smooth, and warm. Like a strong, hot hug of some sort, and it felt very intimate even though I know it was rape. It felt wonderful, and that made me feel even worse about what I was doing. I pushed my hoof deep up into her as she gasped, eyes wide, staring back at me; and I cried. I went slowly, because I couldn't forgive myself if I'd hurt her, and at some level I wanted her to know I cared about her. I could feel it flexing around me, involuntarily causing her pleasure, and the dream world around us began to jerk and shimmer.

Quickly, I grabbed the scroll with my magic and slipped it up into her mane. I doubt she noticed, and I doubt even more that the scroll continued to exist after I'd left. The chance my plan worked is miniscule, I know. But at least the plan to wake up worked. Princess Luna was blushing like fire, she saw me crying, she must have felt terribly violated nonetheless... and she lost her hold on the dream connection. As I'd hoped, the temporal junction required her direct involvement to maintain (even if she didn't know it for what it was). Painfully, I felt myself jerked repeatedly backwards through deep darkness, and that's where the dream ended.

I don't recall anything more from the potion experience, but if my theory is correct and there are no further holes, that should be the point where I woke up in the warehouse.

I feel absolutely terrible about what I did to escape the dream. I don't know if my actions were remotely justified. I don't know how I can face Luna again. I'm sorry, whoever reads this. I don't expect forgiveness, but just know that I never wanted any of this to happen. Please.

Okay, so... that's that.

Pinkie Pie returned to the library a minute ago, so I'm going to find out what the deal is with everypony now.

I need to add something here (admittedly, it's been a few entries since I wrote this one and I've had a lot of time to mull this over). I still struggle with what I did to Luna, and I'm not entirely certain it's fair for me to beat myself up over it. If I had punched her in the ribs to wake me up, it wouldn't weigh on me, even though that would have hurt her rather than pleasured her. I'm sure she wasn't traumatized by it based on how she reacted. Why are the 'rules' always so different, so much more strict, for anything related to sex? Are ponies actually that fragile? Wouldn't that mean I'm already screwed up for life based on all the trauma I've endured lately? I feel terrible after everything, but I don't feel screwed up for life. That seems defeatist and wrong to me.

The way I'm horrified by what I did here doesn't make sense to me anymore, and I fear that means the Order may be winning my heart. I mean, I really don't think the Order is winning, but the fear is there. And even though I still feel awful, I'm uncertain why I do, and even why I should.

This thing I'm fighting is so difficult, I can't express it with words.