As the group continued walking along the summit, weary of the fight against Blueblood earlier, they continued on. When the ponies and dragon reached the bend, they all stopped and stared in awe at the sight: along the side of the cliff, several thousand bodies were embedded in the walls, almost like fayth, a pillar of water rising up from the small lake down below. The fayth were all glowing a blue aura, almost as if they were in use, but what it was summoning was a mystery.

"Wow. Are these all fayth?" Fluttershy asked.

"That's way too many fayth to summon one aeon," Pinkie said, looking over at Rarity. "You know anything about this, too!?" The unicorn remained silent, refusing to speak. "Hey! Stop hiding secrets from us!"

"If you want to know, seek the knowledge on your own, not on another's. Sometimes, you may get the wrong answers from an unbiased source," Rarity said, only irritating the others.

"Stop speaking in riddles! I'm bad at them, and I'm confusing enough as it is!" Pinkie whined.

"She's right," Rainbow said, surprising the others as she walked up to the wall. "...This is our...No. This is my story."

Now the pegasus was confusing the group, Rarity giving a smirk as she used her own words. Rainbow reached out to touch the fayth, finding their presence somewhat familiar to her. As soon as she touched one of the pony statues, she suddenly felt ill, her legs giving out on her as she collapsed to the ground, unable to hear everyone panic as she passed out.

Rainbow Dash woke up from unconsciousness, finding herself back at the dock of her home in Zanarkand. She stood up, looking around at the evening sky, the city in the background lit up like it always was when the sun completely set.

"Back here again...What happened?" She headed for her boat home and walked inside, stopping at the doorway when she spotted the same boy she had been seeing several times in the past, including back in Bevelle. His hood was off, revealing his black scaled face, looking at her as if he knew she would come. Though it was hard to tell, his eyes were bloodshot, almost as if he was tired. "You!?"

"Welcome home, Rainbow Dash," he said, walking over to the fridge to pull out a bowl of sapphires. He sat down at the table, where the pegasus slowly approached him and snacked on a small sapphire. "I know you remember me. We met back in Bevelle."

"Yeah, along with the several hundred times I saw you back in Zanarkand when I was a filly!" She stood over the calm dragon boy as he munched on some more sapphires. "You're some kind of fayth who was spying on me from a thousand years in the past? Who are you!?"

"I'm Bahamut, the fayth of Bevelle, and the massive dragon aeon Lady Fluttershy summons when she needs my aid." He held out the bowl of sapphires to the pegasus, only to have them slapped out of his claws. Bahamut sighed, licking his claws of the residue from his gem snack. "Before you lash out like a toddler, like you always do, I've known about you for a long while. Longer than you may think."

"...So do I somehow...What's happening to me, kid?" Rainbow asked, wanting answers from the young dragon.

"Rainbow Dash, wake up!" Applejack said as a ghostly image of her appeared behind Rainbow Dash for a moment.

"Dashie, now's not the time to sleep! You were already doing that after fighting Blueblood!" Pinkie shouted, her voice almost directly in her ear as her image appeared behind Bahamut for a few seconds.

Rainbow looked around her home, realizing now she was asleep and dreaming, or seeing things. "...Is this a dream?"

"Yup." Bahamut got up off his seat and began heading toward the door, only to be stopped by Rainbow Dash.

"Hey, you're not going anywhere! I want answers from you, you brat!" she shouted, getting in the dragon's face.

Bahamut let out a fierce growl, far deeper than what she expected him to sound like from his age and size, making the pegasus back away in fear. "You should learn about patience and respect those who are far stronger than you, Rainbow Dash. You do not want to cross the youngest and most powerful dragon in the history of Spira." She didn't want to believe this small dragon was powerful, but that feral growl he gave changed her mind in an instant. Bahamut sighed, rubbing his tired eyes. "Besides, you're not the one dreaming. YOU are the dream."

"...W-What?" Bahamut walked out of the boat house, leaving Rainbow Dash to process what he meant. She hurried after him, running outside but seeing no sign of him on the docks. Hovering in the air, she found him standing standing on the railing on the upper deck, overlooking the city. "Hey, what did you mean!?"

"Long ago, there was a war that waged between Zanarkand and Bevelle," Bahamut said, ignoring Rainbow Dash's questions. "Bevelle had more advanced machina than Zanarkand, and they were assured that their victory would end everything from the very beginning."

"Are you going to answer my-!?" She stopped as Bahamut gave her a terrifying glare. "...I'll shut up now."

"Your questions will be answered with this tale. Everything about you, Zanarkand and Bevelle, and why Sin was created." With the pegasus now silent, he continued telling the history lesson. "Anyways, Bevelle's machina could have torn this world apart if they could. The summoners of Zanarkand were doomed, as well as the city itself. This is why we tried to preserve Zanarkand, if only by memory alone."

"What do you mean?" Rainbow asked.

"The remaining summoners and ponies that lived in Zanarkand that had survived the slaughter all became fayth. Those fayth are the ponies you saw on the walls of Mt. Gagazet's cliffside that you touched." The pegasus stared at the dragon in shock.

"...Wait...So, those ponies...Is Sin a massive aeon?" she asked.

"No," Bahamut said as he shook his head. "The fayth keep this Zanarkand alive. Their dreams are what made this Zanarkand, your Zanarkand, keeping the memory of the buildings and ponies that lived here over a thousand years ago."

Rainbow Dash stared at the young dragon in horror. "...Y-You mean...I'm a dream?"

"Exactly. You, your mother and father, the ponies you knew growing up, your home, every single inch of Zanarkand is dreamed up by the fayth. And, if we stop dreaming..." Bahamut slowly dragged his claw across the air, the landscape changing and only terrifying Rainbow Dash even more.

Zanarkand was completely gone, nothing but fire and a gloomy sky where the city once stood. The only thing that was left of her home was the dock and her boat house, warped and surrounded by fire, almost as if it's slowly dissolving until there was nothing left. She began to panic, afraid she might end up disappearing, not wanting to die and be a forgotten memory.

"No! NO! Bring it all back!" Rainbow begged, practically on her knees before the young fayth. "I don't want to see this anymore! I don't want to be a dream! I'm real! Not a figment of somepony's imagination!"

Bahamut brought Zanarkand back to the way it was in the dream, easing the pegasus's fright, but the thought of what she really was still scared her. "You are a dream, there is no denying that. But you, Rainbow Dash, are manifested into reality by one connection; Sin. Both you and your father have been touched by Sin, the being that Spira revolves around in the spiral of death. You two have come here, to Spira, becoming more than a dream." Bahamut suddenly yawned as he sat down on the railing, rubbing his bloodshot eyes. "We've all been dreaming for so long, and we're so very tired."

"Rainbow Dash, wake up! Please wake up!" Fluttershy appeared this time, greatly worried as she seemed to look like she was trying to shake Rainbow Dash awake.

"...Maybe we can hold out just a bit longer." Bahamut leapt down from his railing, looking up at the distraught pegasus. "You just might be the dream that can end our dreaming."

He walked past Rainbow Dash and disappeared down the docks, leaving her more confused, and more worried than ever. She was a dream, made by the fayth, the Zanarkand she knew was a dream, her life is supposedly nonexistence, yet she's real. Nothing seemed to make sense to her anymore. She began to wonder what will happen if they do kill Sin for good. Will she disappear? Will it feel like dying in an unimaginable fashion? Will her friends remember her if she goes?

Rainbow opened her eyes as the dream began to fade, but everything Bahamut told her about her true self stayed with her. The moment she woke up, Fluttershy pulled her into a hug, scared out of her mind.

"Are you ok, Rainbow?" she asked, nuzzling her. "I thought you weren't going to wake up."

"...Yeah. I'm fine," Rainbow assured, though she really wasn't. She stood up, hiding her fear as the others seemed to worry about her health. "I must have gotten hit by Blueblood harder than I thought."

"You sure you're alright?" Twilight asked. "You just passed out for no reason. Fluttershy's magic healed all of us after Blueblood's powerful magic spells hit us. There's no way you should have blacked out."

"Maybe I'm not good with magic hitting me?" Rainbow said, trying to sound convincing.

"Yup!" Pinkie said, pulling out a sphere showing everyone's stats. "Dashie is not good with magical defense. She's all about speed and decent physical attack and defenses. Not that good with magic. We can fix that if she ever decides to go along Fluttershy's or Twilight's sphere grids."

"...Right...Let's just keep moving." After making sure Rainbow Dash was perfectly ok to keep going, the party headed onward through Gagazet as they were about to enter the caverns, where more powerful fiends will await them. The cyan pegasus lagged behind as Bahamut's reveal of her destiny, her life, kept lingering on her mind. "...Why does everything in my life have to be complicated? Especially with me being...a dream..." Next Chapter: Chapter 39: The Trials of Gagazet Estimated time remaining: 4 Hours, 32 Minutes