Airmail was fuming. Actually, fuming was an understatement. Having been processed by the Manehatten police ponies that had arrested her on the subway platform, she was stood at the pay phone in a quiet part of the station, absolutely beside herself with anger and rage.

Thankfully, as ever, Tempest’s level head was proving her salvation as, on the way in the back of the police van, she had taken Dusk Melody’s number from her phone before it had been confiscated from her. With Serenity by her side, she was debating just who to call. She wanted to call Luna, but she decided against it, as she really wanted to remain friends with the Princess after this was all put to bed.

That left her with just one option. Dusk. Her ‘lawyer’, as Tempest had cryptically called him. She didn’t want to call him, either. While she did like the young royal, right then she could’ve happily placed a bullet between his eyes with as much remorse as one flicks on a light switch.

Airmail settled for punching the wall next to the payphone so hard she cracked the wood. With a disgruntled sigh, the forty eight year old lead editor dumped several large bits into the coin slot of the payphone and dialled Dusk’s number. “He better answer.” She spat to nopony in particular, though Serenity beside her just smiled. “Last pony I want to call is Luna.”

Serenity nodded her head. She didn’t even attempt to comfort her lover and herd-mate with empty platitudes, for she knew enough to know that such a gesture would be pointless in the extreme. “I think that it is wise to leave Mistress Luna out of this.”

As the dialtone sounded in her ear, Airmail let out another sigh. “I just want to know what went wrong, okay? I thought they resolved this.”

Just when Airmail thought that nopony was answering, it had been several rings, Brush Stroke’s voice came down the phone line. His Manehatten accent as distinctive as his paintings. “Hello?” the mid blue earth pony asked, as the contact information just said ‘withheld’. This wasn’t good when he was answering his mare’s personal phone. “This is Brush Stroke, may I ask whom is calling, please?”

“Airmail,” the azure blue mare replied tersely, “I need to speak to Dusk, now.”

“Airy, good afternoon,” Brush Stroke caught the tone of Airmail’s voice and it threw him for a loop, he’d never heard her sound like that, though admittedly he hadn’t known her very long. “Dusky's taking a nap, I'll just go wake her.” His hoof-steps were loud enough, on the hardwood floor of his Ponyville cottage, to be heard on the other end of the line. “Is everything alright?”

“Oils.” Airmail started in a very harsh tone indeed – the absolute last thing she wanted to do was swap pleasantries – before Serenity placed a calming hoof on her shoulder. Getting angry and shouty on the phone would just result in her being placed back in her cell. And solve nothing. She took a very deep breath. “I've just killed a pony and I need Dusk to explain why I needed to do so.”

Brush Stroke almost dropped his mare’s phone. Whatever he had been expecting, it wasn’t that. “Oh my stars...just a moment, Airmail, please.”

For the next few seconds, there came down the phone the unmistakeable sounds of one pony waking and jostling another who did not want to be woken up and jostled. “Huh...wha...Ivory no! Not again…hey...l-love!” Dusk’s voice was quickly silenced by her coltfriend’s.

Brush Stroke’s good humour was gone from his voice. “It's Airmail. It's bad. You need to take this call, Dusk.”

‘Dusk?’ the midnight blue pegasus was extremely confused. ‘Dusk?’ he couldn’t remember the last time Brush Stroke had called him Dusk instead of ‘Dusky’. “Uuugh...A-Airmail...” he knew instinctively that it was serious, but if he sounded like he had been up all night, it was because he had.

As Night Wing, he had paid a fatal visit on behalf of the Night Watch to Yakyakistan, to silence an uprising before it began. “Wh-What's happened?” he asked, trying and failing to rub the sleep from his pink eyes.

“Autumn Leaves.” Airmail stated without preamble. “What does that name mean to you?”

“Um...nothing, nothing at all,” Dusk shook his head and scratched his charcoal grey mane which was still tied up in its ponytail in an effort to dredge the name up from somewhere. Try as he might, he couldn’t place it or put it with a face. “Why? Should it?”

Airmail didn’t know if he was lying or not. Especially when beside her, Serenity shook her head with an apologetic look on her face. The Prince was way outside the range of the quine truth machine. “I killed her less than an hour ago. She was in the process of hurting Wildfire badly. She worked for Amethyst Glory.”

“What‽” Suddenly, with the mention of Amethyst Glory, Dusk was very, very much awake. Unbidden, the image of his first kill came swimming back across his eyes, her taunting, defiant look, the flash of his wingblade, her head leaving her shoulders, the fountain of blood shooting from her neck, the tang of copper in the air… “But...that means she was a warden at Helping Hooves! We got them all, I know we did!”

“Unicorn, mare, brown mane, and dull orange coat with a cutie mark of three brown leaves wrapped inside a dark brown circle.” Airmail described her latest kill down to the last detail, though she suspected the dark brown circle was actually a coiled whip, on reflection. “Wily knew her by the sound of voice alone.” Now, she almost lost her temper. “How. Could. You. Have. Missed. Her‽”

Dusk had a faraway stare on his face. He could see that Thursday when he closed his eyes as clearly as if he was still standing in the care home. He could still hear and smell it, too, no matter how many times he talked with his therapist about it. Ruby Tuesday tried to help, as best she could. “There were no ponies there matching that description, Airmail. Mom lined up the Wardens we found, twelve in total. I'll never, ever, ever forget it. I promise you that pony wasn't there…”

“Did you check her employment records?” Airmail asked, harshly cutting across the young Prince and interrupting him. “My mission today should have never happened and I nearly lost Wildfire because of some screw up!”

“We tore that place apart!” Dusk insisted, his hackles raising as he defended him and his mother’s actions. “We went over every piece of paper we found. There was no mention of an Autumn Leaves. Either she wasn't on the books, or...or...or she saw me visiting Wily in the home and stayed away.”

That was a possibility. One Airmail didn’t want to countenance. She wanted somepony to blame. “By Celestia's sainted snatch I'm not letting this one go. I want answers Dusk, and Wildfire deserves them. I thought it was over and told her so...” she cried, fresh hot salty tears running down her cheeks. She was amazed she still had tears left in her to cry at all. “I almost lost her today!”

Seeing as Airmail was now crying so hard she was struggling to speak in a coherent sentence, Serenity helpfully took the receiver of the payphone up in her hazel magical aura. “Hello, Prince Dusk, this is Serenity.”

“I promised her it was over...” Dusk Melody mumbled quietly before he realised it wasn’t Airmail on the line, though he could hear her sobbing nearby. “Serenity,” he’d recognise the teal unicorn’s soft melodic voice anywhere. “Hello, ah...how's Wily? Airmail said she almost lost her.”

Unlike her herd-mate, Serenity was the very epitome of calm and, well, serenity. “Miss Airmail is with me at the police station. They are deciding if charges are needed. Middle Pet has been taken to the hospital with Miss Tempest and Mistress. She...” it was only now, that she was talking about Wildfire directly, that her voice wavered and cracked. “She has lost her grasp of reality. Her injuries would have been very tasty.”

With the last sentence she spoke, Dusk fancied he could hear her drooling and, disturbingly, a longing to experience the same. “Lost her grip?” he couldn’t help but sound worried, for he recalled as clearly as everypony who had attended the BDSM night at Caffeinated’s ranch just what Wildfire had endured to be able to stay in Manehatten. “How? Serenity, what's happened to her?”

“I cannot say.” Serenity stated firmly. “I arrived after Miss Airmail and Miss Tempest. The evil pony had her neck twisted completely around. It would have been a glorious death to witness. Middle Pet was bleeding from several long gashes on her flanks and her chest, and her wings were broken. When Mistress got there, she made Miss Airmail leave and I'm keeping her safe.”

Dusk couldn’t believe it. He didn’t want to believe it. His very best friend in all the world, and he had failed her. Again. Still, whether he wanted to believe it or not, it had happened. Now, he had to do…something, anything. “Oh...oh no...oh sweet mother above...I-I'll look into this, you have my word. Anything you need, I'll take care of it, I-I'll be over by tonight. I need to sort this.” He was extremely grateful he had his coltfriend and his Master’s comforting hoof on his shoulder.

Serenity, for what it worth, believed him. She didn’t need her magical talent. She knew what Wildfire meant to Dusk. She could tell by the tone of his voice that he was cut as deeply by what had happened as Wildfire had been by the evil mare’s whip. “Thank you Prince Dusk. Middle Pet is at North Park Hospital, but it may not be wise to see her right away.” That advice wasn’t because she was worried what the blind mare would do, more she didn’t want Tempest to launch herself at him and share a cell with Airmail. “Oh,” she added, almost as an afterthought, “one other thing you should know about Middle Pet.”

Dusk felt like he was in some sort of twisted daydream. “North Park...I know that one...that was the one I was doing the royal duty at, the reason why I was in Manehatten in the first place, remember? When you see her, look up Eirene, the chief nurse. She cared for Wily back in Canterlot, before the care home.” It was only then that Serenity’s last caught up with his brain. “And...what? What do I need to know?”

He dreaded to hear it. He didn’t think he could take any more.

“The reason for Miss Airmail agonizing over this is because Middle Pet was impregnated at Ms. Belle’s house over the weekend.”

Forget the daydream. Dusk was in a nightmare. “Oh Tartarus! Please, Serenity, pass on my apologies.” He didn’t know what else to say. What could he say, to that? He knew he had to do something. To put it right. “I mean it, absolutely anything you need, anything with the police at all, I promise I'll deal with it, I'm on my way right now.”

Serenity believed him, knowing him well enough that she was willing to take him at his word. “Good bye Prince Dusk. I do hope you can. Miss Airmail is going back into interrogation, I must leave you now.”

“I will. Leave that to me.” He hung up the call, determined that whatever strings needed to be pulled, he would personally see to it that Airmail would walk free. Dusk Midnight Melody resolved then and there, on his bed as he was hugged by his lover, that nopony else would suffer for what Amethyst Glory had done.

“I need to go to Manehatten.” Dusk said to Brush Stroke in an unusually authoritative tone. “I may be gone a few days. Love...can you make sure Ivory Wind gets to school?”

~ ~ ~

"How long can you get off work?" Mapper - looking up from the two months old gossip magazine she was reading - asked Tempest, the two herd-mates having finally separated from their hugs an hour previously, they were sat side by side on the two seating pads, maintaining their vigil while Wildfire slept.

Tempest, who had been amusing herself by drawing moustaches on the faces of ponies in an even older issue of MyStable, shrugged her shoulders. She didn't look up, because if she did, she'd look at the hospital bed and start sobbing again. She was through with crying. "As long as needed, I have the vacation time."

"You sure?" Mapper asked, tossing aside the magazine in favour of a periodical from MiAC. This wasn't much better though as she already had most of the whips, crops, gags and floggers that they offered. Tempest nodded in response to her herd-mate's question, though she still didn't look up. Both mares had bags under their eyes from their tears. "I am my own boss," the pink mare mused, thinking of the carnival stall. "And can take more time off than you, Stormy."

"I know, but..." Tempest sighed, pausing after she had drawn her latest beard on a high society Canterlot model. "Yeah, you do have a better handle on her." She hated to admit it, but Mapper was everything Wildfire needed right now. "I just want to..." she sighed again, "I just want to beat some sense into her."

Mapper nodded her agreement at that, such was the role she had taken. A frustrated little sigh escaped her lips. This MiAC catalogue had nothing she didn't already own. She was sure she could set up her own store if she wanted. "As do I, but it is far better if I do so than you."

"Coffee?" Tempest couldn't argue that. Moreover, she didn't want to argue that.

"You know me so well." With that, Tempest nodded and she left the fifth floor hospital room on her noble quest.

"Hmmm..." as Tempest left and closed the door behind her, Wildfire murmured and tossed on the bed, the little blind mare in a half-asleep / half-awake state. Apparently, her dream was not a pleasant one. "N-No...please...please don't...NO! N-Not that...I tried! I tried...I was good!"

Mapper, alerted instantly to her herd-mate's anguished, mewling cries, was by her side, gently stroking her black mane. This however did nothing to assuage the young mare's fretting and turning. With every passing second she was getting more and more agitated in her sleep. "Please not that no! No! NO!"

That last scream did it. With a snort, she bolted upright into a sitting position, her forelegs feeling all around her at full stretch, anxiously trying to persuade and reassure herself that she wasn't locked in the box. Reflexively, Mapper placed her hoof on Wildfire's chest, firmly pressing her back to the bed. It took all the love in her heart to assume her 'Mistress voice'. "Didn't I tell you to sleep, Pet?"

Wildfire did not fight the push of the hoof upon her chest. Like a good, obedient slave, she laid back down. "F-Forgive me," she whimpered, her heart hammering very hard in her little chest.

"I will have to think about it." Mapper was eminently grateful that Wildfire could not see her face, that she couldn't see the tracks of her tears on her pink fur. All she had to do was disguise her voice, and if there was one thing she was good at, it was using her voice to get what she wanted. "Does my naughty Pet want a coffee? Maybe with two sugars?"

"Yes please, Mistress, thank you Mistress." Wildfire answered almost robotically, her tone emotionless and void of feeling. As she was talking, she was constantly feeling all around with her forelegs, all the time reassuring herself her world was larger than two foot by three foot. She panted in an effort to get her breathing under control. "I'm not in the box..."

"You are not. Do you want to be?" Mapper asked sternly just as the door opened and Tempest walked in, carrying a tray bearing three coffees in her mouth. Instantly she saw Wildfire was awake and, knowing she was about to say something, Mapper held up her free hoof for silence. She never once took her eyes off of her Pet. "Do you want to be?" she repeated her question.

"No!" Wildfire's squealed response was immediate. "Oh please, no! Mistress I'll do anything!" violently, she trembled all over. "Not that!"

Mapper wanted to be physically sick. 'How anypony can do 'this' to another and still call themselves equine?' As a dominant who truly loved her herd and her Pets, she was beyond disgusted. She was revolted that a pony could take pleasure in harming another to this degree. Just for bits. "Then..." she had to really focus on her role, now. "You will drink this coffee without spilling it." She held out her free hoof and, once Tempest had placed Wildfire's coffee in it, Mapper held it to the blind mare's hoof.

Wildfire took a long moment to steady herself before she took the black coffee and lifted it up to her lips. "Thank you, Mistress." As she held it under her nose however, something didn't add up. 'Oooh coffee!' that thought, that ever so simple thought, triggered a series of flashbacks to Caffeinated's coffee shop, to the Friendship Express, to Canterlot and, finally, to sharing coffee with Airmail and Tempest. 'Th-That's not right...'

Mapper took her mocha from Tempest with a grateful smile, joining her herd-mate in a long sip. "I think my Pet will like her coffee with two sugars."

"Yes, Mistress, thank you." Wildfire answered without thinking, though as she took a long sip of the fresh hot coffee, swilling it around her mouth before swallowing, her scattered thoughts became ever more uncertain. 'Th-This just isn't right...not right at al...wh-where am I? Who is this?'

"You didn't get this at the cafeteria." Mapper had tasted enough institution grade coffee to know the difference between the cheap and nasty vending machine rocket fuel and the hoof-ground nectar she was drinking now.

"No," Tempest smiled proudly, "It's only two blocks to the coffee shop by the MiAC store."

Of course, Mapper knew the coffee store in question. They had stopped off there after their visit to the MiAC store on that Saturday when they had all gone shopping together. "Oh, yes," the pink mare smiled, her thoughts turning to a more palatable topic. "That brings up something interesting. I took a peek in my Pet's saddle bags."

As Mapper lifted out the contents of the saddlebag that wasn't ripped, showing off the slave clothes, the adult books and the cowbell, Wildfire recited aloud from her memory one of the dark poems. "These books for example..." Mapper started, paying the dark and sad poem little mind as she hadn't heard it before. She paused however when she saw the look on Tempest's face. "Love, what's wrong?"

"That poem she said," Tempest whispered, looking like she had seen a ghost and been slapped very hard at the same time, "It was from..."

Suddenly, sternly, Mapper interrupted her herd-mate. She knew where this was going. That thrice-damned unicorn, again! Oh, how she regretted not meeting her for a 'chat'. A chat that involved dropping a mountain on her. "With Mistress Glory." Tempest's nod was all the confirmation she needed. "My Pet must learn that I am the Mistress now!"

"You...you aren't Mistress Glory," Wildfire held her half-empty coffee cup in barely stable hooves as she turned her head from one voice to another. She recognised those voices, she knew those voices. It confused her though because if she was in Doctor Mindbender's surgery, these voices couldn't be here. "Pl-Please...wh-where am I?"

For a moment, Mapper wanted nothing more than to hug the poor little pony. Thankfully, Tempest's hoof on her foreleg gave her the courage and strength to continue. "You are where I told you to be, Pet. In a bed." The pink mare blinked, totally NOT blinking away tears. "Amethyst Glory was no Mistress. I am a Mistress." She put a heavy emphasis on the word 'I'.

'Mistress M-Mapper...' the realisation slowly dawned on Wildfire. It was Mistress Mapper. That meant she was safe, right? She should be safe. 'The bed...it's a safe bed, a comfortable bed...' Certainly it was far more comfortable than anything she laid on at the home. "Wh-why...I'm, I don't know where I am..."

"You are where you need to be, my Pet." Mapper cut across her, silencing Wildfire's tremulous voice. "Drink your coffee and no more questions for now." With that, Mapper opened the pink package while Tempest, trying to shake the memories of that poem, set aside the three books in braille and ran her violet hoof over the Pony Sutra.

Wildfire contented herself with listening to the other two mares in the room, listening and sniffing all the time as she quietly drank her coffee, taking one small sip after the other. Slowly, their words began to sink in, gradually filtering through the fog in her head. 'Where I need to be?' she thought over and over, 'But...this isn't the home...but...that's Mapper, and Tempest.'

"Pet," Mapper's voice bought her out of her reflections. "You may answer this question. Why are there only two slave outfits in your package?"

Wildfire wasn't thinking of the care home when she answered. "On the way to Trottingham, Tempest said she would like Airmail and myself as slaves, to re-enact the dream she had when Mistress Luna merged our dreams."

Tempest coloured up, her violet face erupting in a bright red blush. "Yeah, I'd like that." The weather pony shuffled her hooves, suddenly unable to meet Mapper's face, for she could feel the smirk from where she was sat. Instead she asked, "Why was it wrapped in pink?"

"Because I couldn't decide whether it should be purple or blue, so I went with a neutral colour."

Tempest giggled then, completely unaware of course that Bridle Way had only offered Wildfire a choice of three colours. "Least neutral pony I know is pink." She did look up then, just in time to give her a picture perfect eye roll.

Mapper carefully selected eye roll number three, one that she knew Tempest knew well. A quick glance over at Wildfire sat in the bed gave her hope that she was at last reaching her Pet and herd-mate buried deep in the psychological mess of a pony they had been left with. "I could be the Queen and Middle and Senior Pets my slaves!" Just as Tempest was about to agree to that, the pink unicorn let out a deep troubled sigh. Serenity had just told her, via their mental link, what she feared. "They are keeping Airy over night for a psych eval."

Before she could comment, Tempest's phone rang. "Hi Requiem," try as she might, the violet pegasus could not keep the sadness from the defeated tone of her voice. "Yeah, I just guessed that. Ser let Maps know. Okay, see you when we can."

Unfortunately, the exchange had not got unnoticed.

Wildfire, setting her coffee cup down on the little table that extended over the middle of the bed, had her ears pricked up, catching every word. "Ai-A-Airy isn't coming?" She had just accepted too that she was not back in Helping Hooves care home. Now, she sounded like a scared little filly frightened to leave her mother on the first day of school.

Mapper facehooved so hard she almost gave herself a black eye. How could she have been so stupid to say that out loud? They had their private language for a reason. She didn't even shoot Tempest a look when she slapped upside her head. Quickly, she tried to cover herself. "I told Airmail she had to take care of the paperwork, because I wouldn't be bothered with it. You will stay in that bed until she comes."

Sadly, as fast as Mapper thought and spoke, and she could do both pretty fast, it wasn't fast enough. Damaged though Wildfire might be, she was by no means stupid. "Oh...but, I-I want Airy..." she let out a loud anguished sniff, her whole aspect wanting to cry, which she couldn't do.

"Do not whine at me, Pet!" Mapper cut her off, though she ground her hoof into her face. 'Stupid, stupid, stupid!' she cursed herself. "You may have Airy when I think you have behaved as a good Pet, and not before. Understand?"

"Yes Mistress." The damage done, Wildfire laid back down on the bed and she sniffed loudly, 'crying' into her hooves. She had to get the emotion out somehow. As she curled up, thoughts began swirling in her head like dark rain, poisoning her mind. 'Airy isn't coming...just like Raid didn't come...Autumn said my shadows wouldn't come...she was right...'

Utterly stricken, Mapper looks at Wildfire and then at Tempest. Her herd-mate just shook her head sadly and settled down on the second seating pad, the Pony Sutra forgotten on the floor. Just like Mapper, who put away the MiAC costumes, she wasn't in the mood anymore. "Sleep Pet," she commanded softly, "show me you can be a good Pet."

Wildfire, however, didn't hear. She was lost in her own little dark world of hopeless despair. 'She'll leave me, just like mom left me, like Raid left me...like Dusk left me, just like everypony leaves me...' Silently, with those insidiously poisonous thoughts running around in her head, she rolled over on her side. Five more minutes and she was snoring softly as she entered Princess Luna's Dreamscape.

Mapper whispered, wiping away the latest of many tears she had shed that day, "I thought I almost had her then, too."

Tempest snorted, not caring to whisper. "Hmph! Weeks of work undone in a few minutes!"

"It will be different." Mapper laid her wet tear-stained hoof on Tempest's foreleg. "We love her now, as she is."

Thankfully, Wildfire's tumultuous presence in the Dreamscape had not gone unnoticed. Ancient and timeless turquoise eyes saw her nightmare and Princess Luna resolved that no, this time, she would not fail her subject. This time, she was determined, it would be different. Smiling grimly, she steeled herself and lit her horn.

~ ~ ~

“Say, Tavi, what do you think about a picnic in the royal gardens?” Luna asked her wife, though it was something of a half-hearted question. Laid as she was on her huge bed in her sumptuous quarters, snuggling in close to Octavia’s warm, old – beautiful – body, she was more than happy where she was.

Octavia took a moment to lift her head up from her beloved’s midnight blue fur. Everything seemed to take her a ‘moment’, these days. The elderly mare just happened to catch a glimpse of the warm and sunny late spring afternoon through the ornately carved windows. “I say it's a beautiful day for it, Mistress.” As nice as snuggling was, it did look like a pleasant day.

Luna tapped her chin thoughtfully, as half-hearted as the offer had been, now Octavia had moved and taken with it the warmth of her body, she was up. “Do I have the staff prepare a basket, or shall we do it ourselves?”

“I'm sure they can cope,” the old grey earth pony giggled, brushing aside her now faded charcoal mane. “You remember how, yes?”

“Of course I do!” Luna beamed, instantly foal-like in her glee, “I pick up the phone and tell them to pack a basket!”

Octavia burst out laughing. Of all the things to fascinate her wife since her return from the moon thirty years ago, the advance in technology amazed her the most. Things like telephones, televisions, computers, there had been none of that. In her time, only the richest had indoor toilets, after all. “Make the call, you know they'll have the basket ready by the time we get downstairs, especially with how slow I am today.”

“True, that last orgasm you gave me took forever!” Luna giggled as her wife stuck out her tongue at her. “You old tease.” With that, she lit her horn and she levitated the phone from the bed side table. Sh did so love playing with these modern gadgets! The way the unicorns and earth ponies collaborated to create these wonders of the modern age simply staggered her. Twilight Sparkle had attempted to explain to her how they worked, but that had just given her a headache. “Picnic basket for two please.” She requested to her staff, “No, we'll pick it up. Oh, please make sure there is some rhubarb pie in it. Thank you.” Carefully, she set the phone down. “Please bring your cello, love.”

“Not my fault!” Octavia protested with very convincing faux-indignance. “You seem so distracted of late, it was a wonder you came at all.” She leant in and nuzzled the lunar alicorn’s cheek, loving the way her ethereal mane stroked her face. She had a fairly good idea just what was distracting her wife lately, especially today of all days. The clue, were it needed, was the pie. “You know I love to play for you. Might I suggest we go and keep Sky Dive company? I'm sure she'd love the picnic.”

Luna nuzzled her wife’s old cheek. “You've read my mind, and I'm sorry.” It was uncanny how the earth pony could read her like one of Twilight’s books. She’d rather be read like one of Cadance’s books. Far more fun, although Twilight had come on leaps and bounds since she had gotten with Rainbow Dash. “Anniversaries do that to me. Your love means more to me than the loves of my past.”

“It's her birthday, isn't it?” Octavia asked, gently kissing Luna’s nose before rolling off of the huge bed and walking over to her cello, resting in its case on the display stand.

“As if you didn't know. Thank you, Tavi, for putting up with me.” In a matter of seconds, the tall midnight blue mare was at her wife’s side, delivering a very deep kiss, her wing stroking her belly.

Octavia made sure to hold the kiss until she needed to breathe. “Somepony has to,” she smiled. Though she had her cello in its case in one wrinkled, arthritic hoof, in the other, she held her dark blue leash out for her Mistress.

Luna simply smiled and, although she took her Pet’s leash in her magic, she used her hooves to fasten it to Octavia's collar that was a perfect match for the colour of her coat, it even had a little silver tag engraved with her cutie mark. As if anypony didn’t already know who owned her. “Come along, my dear, we have a basket to collect.” As she had done countless times over the past twenty-nine years, Luna held her end of the leash in her turquoise magical aura.

“Yes Mistress.” Octavia chirped, as lively as ever she did before, though she was walking rather slowly, in spite of efforts to keep up with her dominant wife. She was about to curse her old hooves, when she noticed Luna was walking at her pace. Her long slender legs taking tiny steps so that nothing seemed rushed. She was grateful, for that courtesy. Nodding to each and every guard they passed, the earth pony walked with her head held high.

Including the necessary stop at the kitchens to collect the picnic basket that was ready and waiting for them, it still took them almost half an hour to navigate the palace’s corridors. Luna however, would not be hurried. She was assured by the chef that the rhubarb pie was inside the basket. As her Pet was carrying her cello, she held it in her magic as she continued the sedate pace out of a side entrance and into the royal gardens.

Shortly after arriving in the royal gardens, Princess Luna took a moment to nod politely to the groundskeeper, a truly ancient looking earth pony stallion as she led her Pet through to the very private section that was supposed to be reserved for access. With her eyes closed, she stopped and bowed to the white marble statue of a prancing pegasus. Though the gold inlay of her mane and tail had faded over a thousand years, her likeness and cheeky smile remained forever Sky Dive.

Using her magic, Luna laid out the large red and white checked blanket, as well setting the basket down, too. The last thing she did was to unclip Octavia’s leash from her collar. “Eat first, you may play later.”

Like a well-behaved sub, Octavia waited until her Mistress was seated on the blanket before she too sat down. No matter how much her hooves hurt, it wouldn’t do to sit first. “Yes Mistress,” she smiled, flexing said hooves. “You know, you only ever request rhubarb pie today.”

“It was Sky Dive’s favourite pie.” Though Luna felt sombre, her tone was light as she kissed her wife’s lips. “You are all of my life right now, but the past still haunts me. I'm at peace with my past, but you, my love, are my future.” Magically, she laid out the food that the chef had prepared for them.

Octavia giggled and she kissed Luna’s cheek. “I think, when I pass, I should like to be remembered by a coffee cake with coffee ice-cream.”

“It will have to be coffee cake then, my love.” The Princess helped herself to a paper plate full of cucumber and watercress sandwiches. “I'm unsure if I can remain faithful to having coffee ice cream but once a year.”

“I can live with that.” With a giggle, Octavia loaded her plate with daisy sandwiches and rose heads, taking a large bite out of her first sandwich.

“I have learned my lesson. I'll mourn your passing, but I will live.” As they ate their picnic, both mares shared the warm afternoon sunshine and loving nuzzles, which warmed them more than the sun ever could. “I wish to keep you with me forever, just as I keep Sky Dive. My heart will always be a home for you.” Luna finished her fourth sandwich. “Let us eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow is always in front of us!”

“Good,” Octavia kissed Luna’s lips, treating her to an intense daisy flavoured tongue battle. Which of course, the earth pony lost. “If you don't, I'll haunt you and play modern noise on my cello.” She then smiled and rubbed her belly, rubbing her old hoof over her faded fur. She knew, though it had only been a matter of a few days, there was a filly growing inside her. “I trust Midnight to keep you on your hooves.”

Luna smiled and kissed her wife’s belly. “I'm sure she will work to keep you with me a bit longer, too. It wasn't long ago that I would chastise you for your fear of growing old. Now we can enjoy that together. I will be with you always, unlike another…” with that, the Princess cast a sad, sorrowful look up at the statue.

Octavia laughed brightly, sounding like a filly a tenth of her age. “You and Mapper both helped cure me of my growing-old-itis.” She was extremely pleased that the mirror room that she had been forced to endure was now a nursery. Far better use for it. “Fearing the inevitable doesn't change the fact I have fewer days ahead than behind, I just learned to enjoy those that come.” That said, as soon as she noticed the sad look on Luna’s face, and where she was looking, she scooted a little closer and playfully, she swatted her ear. “Stop it, Lu.”

Somewhat reluctantly, Luna looked back down at Octavia. “I'll try.” As she kissed her once more, she reflected that it was one thing to be at peace with her past, but quite another to forgive herself for what she had done to her beloved Sky Dive. “Ready for desert? Chef even packed a wine for it.”

“I'm ready, Mistress.” Once she was sure Luna was in fact alright, she was ready to use the honorific. Despite her arthritic, shaking hooves, she was determined to pour out the wine. Pets served their owners, after all. She did, however, allow Luna to hold the glass steady for her. Once the wine was poured, and none spilled, she laid an old hoof on her midnight blue foreleg. “Lulu, she forgave you, in the end.”

Luna nodded, “And I forgave her, that was the easy part. Forgiving myself, on the other hoof, was a harder lesson.”

Octavia decided on a different tack as she took a large and unrefined bite out of her slice of pie. It was, after all, supposed to be a celebration, Sky Dive’s birthday, not a maudlin experience. “Tell me again how you met. I do so love hearing that story. It always makes me laugh.”

“I think you just wished I had ran you over in a hallway after what happened at the Grand Galloping Gala.” Luna laughed, she knew she liked the story as much as they loved winding Dusk up with the questionnaire story. “Well, as I recall, I was just minding my own business flying around at night looking over an empty city under my moon's glow.” The lunar alicorn could see it even now, after all this time, in her mind’s eye. “Busting clouds was an effective way to relieve stress. Imagine my surprise when a busted cloud starts yelling at me!”

“I forgave Pinkie Pie...last week, finally...” Octavia sniffed and giggled. That had been a meeting and a half. Sat in Sugarcube Corner, with Luna by her side and Rarity sat by Pinkie’s, she had at last buried the long-standing grudge she had nurtured towards the pink earth pony. It had been a freeing experience. “As I understood it, you were in a bad mood, sulking and then you were being yelled at by an angry white mare with a very yellow mane. Tell me, had anypony dared yell at you before?”

Luna rolled her turquoise eyes. “Yes, they have, when I was young and my sister and I tried to unite Equestria. A lot of ponies yelled, but we had each other. Later, ponies avoided me. I'm not sure if it was because I was associated with the night, or my sister took on more and more of those upset with what we were doing.”

Pausing to eat her pie, which was of course excellent, just as Sky Dive liked it, with extra rhubarb, she sighed. “When Sky Dive yelled at me, my first thought was to laugh at her. After all, she was a commoner, how dare she yell at me? Besides, it wasn't my fault that somepony would be out enjoying my night. That stopped me, that somepony was out, enjoying my night.”

Octavia shot her wife and Mistress a coy look. “She didn't just enjoy it. She loved it, as I recall you saying, many times.” Playfully, she kissed Luna’s nose. “I still remember how pleased you were when she said she hated the sun.” Now, she kissed her lips. “The benefits of the sensitive skin condition she had, burning so easily like that.”

Luna chuckled. Her wife was right, of course. Selfishly, at the time, perhaps, she had been pleased to hear that Sky Dive couldn’t go out in the sun. Nowadays, in these modern times, the doctors had developed drugs and treatments for such conditions, but a thousand years ago, such things were unthinkable. “She was not the only one to be burned by my sister's sun. Now ponies only yell behind my back about the life I live.”

Another thing that Luna had found changed after her return. Same sex partnerships were no longer outlawed. Indeed, same sex partners were not only accepted – except for Canterlot – they were allowed to marry! Luna had even heard tales, mostly in the news, that there were ponies who changed their gender, through surgery, and still had all legal rights and such. This completely boggled the Princess’s mind, though she suspected Cadance’s influence on these matters.

“Oh, Mistress, pish and posh!” Octavia lifted up her shaking wine glass for a toast. “I love the life you live. It gave me you, and the best years of my life.”

Luna gently tapped their glasses together. “We have given to each other.” She sipped her wine and, with her mouth full, gave Octavia a wine flavoured kiss.

Octavia enjoyed a very long, very hot kiss. A kiss that she did not want to break, but for the need to breathe. “I love more today than the first day I met you, but less than tomorrow.”

Luna giggled, “I'll be a day sexier tomorrow, so that I do understand. Pie was nice.”

“Yes, it was. We both enjoyed it.” Looking around the very well-kept royal gardens, she patted her belly once more and kissed Luna’s cheek. Of all the things she had experienced in her life, from performing at the Grand Galloping Gala to selling out Carneighgie Hall, she knew that this, right here, would be the thing she missed most when she passed on.

Lovingly, Luna rubbed the faded fur on Octavia’s belly. “Someday, a long time from now, Midnight Symphony and I will enjoy some coffee cake out here. I know you've said it in the past, but you also know I wasn't listening. Your statue will be right there.” As she pointed to an empty place to the right of Sky Dive’s marble statue, she stuck out her tongue.

“I hope you enjoy the cake with whomever your wife will be, on that day long from now, too.” She smiled and stuck her tongue out. “Now, that we have eaten this fine meal, I wish to play for my Mistress. Do you have a song you wish to hear?”

She did. One that suited her mood. “Behoven's Alegretto, Symphony number seven, if you please, my love.”

“At once, Mistress.” On the second shove of her hooves, Octavia was up from the red and white picnic blanket. In but a moment, her cherished instrument was out of its case and, standing by Sky Dive's statue, the elderly earth pony gave her audience of one the same stately bow she used to audiences of thousands, and she began to play.

As she listened to the sombre, reflective piece, Princess Luna, alicorn of the night and guardian of dreams, reflected on her life and the choices she had made. It was impossible not to, the way her wife played. Her turquoise eyes drifted over Octavia as she played. She saw what the advancing years had done to her body – in no way diminishing her physical beauty, at least not to her.

Luna was wholly at peace with her world. The beautiful music in her ear and her sister’s sun at her back, she gazed at the marble statue before her. Idly she wondered who had sculpted it, for it really was a masterpiece of craftsponyship. Had she not known better, she would have believed it was Sky Dive herself, the victim of a cockatrice. It was that lifelike. The more she looked, the more she could hear the pegasus’s laughter, hear her voice and feel the touch of her lips on hers.

Yes, Luna was happy. Truly, absolutely happy. She allowed her heart to remember the joys they had, as well as the joys she still had to this day. Octavia, standing by the statue, played her piece as well as she physically could do. She did drop a couple of notes on purpose, in an effort to get her wife’s attention, but more than a few were completely accidental, due to her arthritic hooves.

Listening, Luna heard the few notes that were out of place. She didn’t look however, but she reflected that time was mercilessly robbing her beautiful wife of her extraordinary talent. A talent she so dearly loved, but nearly as much as she loved Octavia. Still looking at Sky Dive, she imagined the statue framed by her night's stars. Playfully, she thought about making the moon a little more full, and what havoc that would cause. Luna smiled.

Six minutes into the eight and a half minute piece, Octavia noticed that her wife and Mistress still wasn’t looking at her, even though she was doing what she normally did to get her attention. In the back of her mind, she knew why. Due to her arthritis, it was no longer unusual to hear a missed note. Extremely annoyed, the old mare lifted her tail and with a smirk, she began to pee, aiming her golden yellow stream at the pedestal of the statue.

Luna, lost in her imaginary stargazing, was rudely shaken from her reverie by the sound of water spattering of something. She blinked in the late afternoon sun and looked around, at first wondering whom was spying on them. Then, with very wide eyes, she saw her Pet pissing on the base of the statue, playing on as if she was doing nothing out of the ordinary. “TAVI!” she shrieked.

Octavia had a remarkably serene look on her face, like she's doing nothing at all. “Yes, Mistress?” she stopped playing a few seconds later. ‘At last she notices me…’

“By my sister's left forehoof!” Luna exclaimed, “What in Equestria do you think you're doing?”

“Urinating, Mistress,” she replied, just as her long steaming stream finally ceased and died out, dripping onto her inner thighs.

Luna's turquoise eyes narrowed dangerously. Had almost anypony else done that, well…she didn’t know what she would do. It had taken all of Octavia’s diplomatic skills, not to mention the skill of her tongue, for her to not banish Air Raid to Mount Aris and have Novo imprison her there when the lime green mare had gotten so drunk that one time that she had made out with the statue. “You are so in trouble…”

“I understand, Mistress.” Said Octavia, the barest hint of a smile playing across her face.

“Really?” Luna tried her very best to keep the disgruntled look from her face as she lit her horn and magically gathered up all of the picnic things back into the basket from whence they came. A multitude of punishments ran through her head, from making her lick the pedestal clean to not allowing her to pee for a day or three. “Really, Tavi, why?”

Octavia shrugged innocently. “I thought all pegasi enjoyed a bit of yellow rain…” she trailed off, however, when she saw the unusually severe look on her wife’s face. “You were ignoring me, Lu!” she exclaimed, stomping her hoof into the ground and immediately she winced as the pain shot up her leg all the way to her knee. “Even when I missed the notes, your ear didn't even flick!”

Luna facehooved. “Octavia Melody.” She was sure to use her full name, though it was incredibly hard to remain angry with her wife when she saw the pain – however momentary it was – on her face from her hoof stomp. “You are never far from my thoughts. Even looking at her,” she pointed her hoof over the earth pony’s head, though her voice softened. “My thoughts were on you. Still, that is no excuse, and still, you are in trouble!”

Defensively, Octavia rubbed her belly, “I don't think Midnight is in trouble, Mistress.”

For a moment, Luna looked long and hard at her wife, who so pointedly reminded her of just how much punishment she can give. Dangerously, the Princess smiled. “Oh yes she is in ‘trouble’, as you put it. Besides, I don't think a little more nutrition will hurt her.” With that, she took up the basket and the leash in her magical aura. “Put away your cello, Pet. After all, I do remember where that funnel is kept.” She turned on her hoof, her smile turning sinister. While she wasn’t sure of much in this modern world, her wife’s hatred of electronic music was one of the things she was sure of.

Mistress Moonbeams would have fun this night.

~ ~ ~

Wildfire didn’t know where she was going, at first. It took her a moment of walking along the tree lined avenue, with the warm sun at her back before she recognised the route she was on. Sure enough, when she turned a corner, she saw her old primary school. For a moment, she was confused as to why she was back in Canterlot and here, of all places.

A split second later however and she didn’t care why she was here. As she got closer to the ornately carved gates, she saw a sight that made her want to cry with happiness. Standing in the morning sun, just like she had when she had taken her to school was her mum!

Only, Silverbolt was not stood alone. This particular morning, as parents took their foals into the school, the tall yellow pegasus mare brushed aside her flowing crimson mane and smiled down at the pale blue unicorn colt, his mane pure white. Wildfire stopped dead in her tracks when she saw her mum stood there. “M-Mum...mum‽” Disbelievingly, she buzzed her yellow wings and galloped over to her. “Mum!” With a warm smile, Silverbolt hugged her daughter while the colt just looked at them both. “Oh mum!” Wildfire hugged her so very tightly. “I'm so glad to see you!”

After a few moments, Silverbolt pulled away from the hug. “Just me?” she asked, her warm smile disappearing from her face.

The moment her mother said that, Wildfire looked down, she saw the little pale blue unicorn patiently looking up at her. Realisation dawned upon her as she knew who he must be. “Oh wow, you...you must be Chill Wind!” she knelt down, though as she was so small it wasn’t a long journey, and she ruffled his white mane.

Silverbolt let out a disappointed sigh. “That's part of the problem, Wildfire, you hardly even bother to acknowledge your brother.”

“Mum...” Wildfire stood up, puzzled as to why her mother would say that, “I didn't know about him till last week!”

“See,” Silverbolt continued, the disappointment starting to show on her face, “It’s like he isn't even here, and that's not even the worst of it.”

Wildfire was confused, now. She hated that look on her mother’s face, even more so that it was directed at her. “Mum, hey, that's not fair...y-you never spoke about him, how could I dream about him?”

Again, the older yellow mare sighed. “Yeah, a dreamer that is you. What is worse is how Cold Front has done me and Chill Wind wrong in so many ways.”

“Mum, what do you mean?” Wildfire sat on her haunches and she held her hoof out to Chill Wind, hoping that her little brother would bump it. He did not. The little colt just huddled in closer to his mother’s side, out of Wildfire’s reach, away from his big sister.

“You don't get it, do you, Wily?”

“Get what?”

Again, Silverbolt sighed, deeply, the look of disappointment turning to disgust. “When I look at Chill Wind I see myself. When I look at you, all I see is Cold Front.”

“Mum...” Wildfire looked and felt like she had been physically slapped across the face. Utterly shocked, she took a step backwards. “How can you say that? I'm nothing like dad!”

Without another word, Silverbolt crouched down low and, once Chill Wind had climbed up onto her back, she again turned that look, that revolted look, on her daughter. “It's not working Wildfire.” She said sadly, “You're better off with your father. Better off without us.”

Wildfire couldn’t believe wat she was hearing. Surely it was a mistake, a practical joke, some sort of twisted prank. She didn’t think her mother was capable of something like that. “Mum...no, please no!” she begged, “Don't leave me please!”

Silverbolt just looked at her daughter long and hard, almost looking through her. Disgust and revulsion had given way to undisguised contempt. “Have a good life with Cold Front, while we try to start over somewhere far away.” She spread her yellow wings wide, preparing to take off. “Somewhere away from you.”

“Mum, no!” desperately, Wildfire lunged forwards, trying to grab hold of her mother’s crimson tail, grabbing, clutching at any part of her mother’s body she could reach, just as dark grey class ten storm clouds began forming over the school. “I won't let you go!” she screamed, only now noticing as the black clouds blotted out the sun.

Disdainfully, Silverbolt just looked at the scrabbling pegasus and then, with a powerful thrust of her wings, she easily broke Wildfire’s hold and she shot shoots upwards into the stormy sky. Being the amazing weather pony she is, she quickly ascended into the clouds without looking back at the distraught mare she had left behind.

Seconds later, just as she entered the cloud with Chill Wind on her back, there was a blinding flash of lightning. “Muuuuuuuuum!” The white blinding flash of light grew and grew until Wildfire couldn’t see anything at all. Her vision was so overwhelmed, everything went black.

The world went dark and quiet. All she could hear was the beating of her own heart.

Then, hoof-steps echoed on a tiled floor. Hoof-steps that came closer, but she couldn’t see the pony they belonged to. She couldn’t see, but she could feel the bed she was sat in. A horribly familiar bed. Then, she realised there were bandages wrapped around her head. She recognised this place. “For the love of Celestia,” came a voice in front of her, “What happened to you?”

“R-Raid!” Wildfire frantically turned her head this way and that, though she was enveloped in pitch darkness. In the distance, she could hear the beeping of hospital monitors. The old, familiar ever-present pain in her face told her everything. “What happened? Air Raid? Where are you?”

“I have a career, I have sponsors,” Air Raid’s voice was derisive, snide and nasty. “I have an image to maintain.”

“Raid please...not again!” She couldn’t believe this was happening. She had just lost her mother and brother. Now this, again. “Stay with me!” Desperately, blindly, she held her hooves out, the bandages over her face slipping down, her ugly acid scars visible. “I need you!”

Snorting through her nose, Air Raid callously slapped away Wildfire’s grasping hooves. “You look like some demon spawned straight from Tartarus! I can't be seen with you!”

“I'm still Wildfire!” she pleaded, sniffing loudly, her ears slicked back. “I'm still your Wily!”

Air Raid turned around, her hooves clopping noisily on the tiled floor. “You were fun, that is true, but now you're nothing.”

“No! Don't leave me Raid please! You said you'd always love me!”

“Did I?” Air Raid asked as she walked away from the blind mare on the bed who was still holding out her hooves for her, in the misguided belief she would run to them. “Maybe you can find a care home, because I'm not going to be your foal sitter. It was good times, I'll try to remember those.”

“AIIIIIIR RAAAAAAID!” Wildfire screamed as her marefriend slammed the door behind her.

Again, the world shone an incredible, impossible, bright white, a bright white light that swamped everything and made it impossible to see anything at all. Suddenly, the light vanished as quickly as it had come, to be replaced yet again by pure, all-engulfing, oppressive blackness. “Wildfire...”

Wildfire snapped her head to the sound of Airmail’s voice so fast she almost gave herself whiplash. “Airy...oh Airy is that really you?” she didn’t even try and hide the relief in her voice. Whatever madness was happening, she knew deep down that now it would all be alright.

“I'm sorry.”

“Sorry?” Wildfire asked, wondering why her fiancé’s voice sounded so distant and deadened. “What for?” she held her hooves out towards the sound of Airmail’s voice, all the time she was sniffing for the comforting jasmine scent.

“I'm a killer.”

“I know, you told me, Pretty it's okay.”

Airmail did not move any closer to the blind mare sat on the bed. “I'm old.”

“I know!” Wildfire exclaimed frustratedly, all she wanted was a hug. Why wouldn’t Airmail hug her? She could make it all okay if only she would wrap her up in that feathery hug of hers. “Please, Pretty, give me a hug, I need you so much!”

“I'm losing control, Wily.”

“Airy please, just hold me, please…”

“I'll kill you someday,” Airmail continued in that same cold, deadened voice, “And I don't want to kill anymore.”

Wildfire was stunned. She was still struggling to take in everything that had happened to her in the space of moments. Her brain refused to compute what was happening. The more she tried to process it all, the less her brain seemed to work. “P-Pretty...what are you saying?”

“I don't want to kill you so there is only one pony left I need to kill.”

“A-Airy no!” Wildfire felt a cold, hard metal ‘something’ placed against her muzzle. With a deep sense of dread she knew what it was. How could it be anything else? “Please, oh dear Luna no! Our wedding! Think of the wedding! Please, I love you...”

“Me.” As Airmail said that, the cold metal of the gun barrel left Wildfire’s face. “Goodbye, Wily.”

“STOP!” Princess Luna called out, her Royal Canterlot Voice ringing out in the inky blackness of the void, her voice as loud as a gunshot.

“AAAAaaAAAGH!” All Wildfire heard was the ringing, echoing gunshot. She let out the very terrified, very real and very genuine scream. She didn’t hear the alicorn’s voice at all.

“Wildfire!” Luna stepped forwards, her silver shod hooves clopping on the tiled floor of the dream hospital room. It was remarkable to her that Wildfire had managed to recreate the room almost exactly to the last degree. It was almost a carbon copy of the room she had visited five years ago. “Look at me!”

Frantically, Wildfire turned her head blindly to the sounds of Luna's loud resounding voice. “Pr-Princess?”

Slowly, with her ethereal mane and tail billowing in an invisible wind around her, Luna stepped forwards until her hoof was resting on Wildfire’s shoulder. “Open your eyes and LOOK at me!”

Suddenly, just like that, Wildfire realised she had eyes. “Princess?” Looking around, she saw she wasn’t anywhere. Where she was, if it was a place at all, was an inky black void, full of muted purple swirls of colour, interwoven with bright blues of every conceivable shade. Everywhere about her, were billions of lights, looking like a sky full of stars in the void. Most of them were bright white, while some, a small amount, were glowing red. “What's happening?”

Luna floated - there was no better way to explain the movement, for she didn’t flap her powerful wings nor did she light her horn – over to where Wildfire was hanging in the nothingness. “What do you see?”

Wildfire was looking around the ether, amazed at the bright lights all around her. One not far away turned bright red, and she saw Luna’s ear flick. “I see...I see you, Princess.”

Luna smiled, sending a tiny part of her consciousness to the newest red light. “Wildfire, you're blind, how can you possibly see me?”

“I...I um...I...I'm dreaming...I am, right?” Realisation dawned slowly upon Wildfire. “I’m dreaming?”

Now she was by Wildfire’s side, Princess Luna laid her wing over her subject’s back. Except, Wildfire wasn’t just a subject to her. She was her son’s best friend. Luna knew her, personally knew her. She owed this little pony a debt she could never, ever repay. “I'm sorry I was slow. Last time you brought Airmail into your nightmare to end it. I failed to realize you brought her into this one to continue it.”

Wildfire instinctively nestled into the alicorn’s much larger flank. “My nightmare...nightmare... ha ha...it’s Dusk's fault my nightmare's continuing.”

That cut Luna to her very heart. “Fault lies in many places, but you didn't dream of my son.”

“He lied to me!” the little pegasus flapped her wings, though it wasn’t necessary in the Dreamscape, until she was eye to eye with the lunar alicorn. “You said it was over. You said I was safe!”

Luna, to her own credit, did not flinch from the accusation. “I did, and I was wrong, but you didn't dream of me, either.”

“Give me time,” Wildfire snorted, in a tone that she never would’ve used in the waking world. “I'm sure I would've got to you.”

“No, Wildfire.” Luna said quietly, drawing upon her resolve to put right the wrongs done to this little mare. “You could have dreamed of me, Dusk, or both of us on trial…you could have charged us with high crimes, found us guilty and even had us executed. I would not have interfered in that dream.” She couldn’t believe she was opening up like she was. “Now I have interfered, you are avoiding your nightmare.”

Princess Luna lowered her voice until it was almost inaudible. “If I had given you time, you would have followed Airmail.”

Wildfire knew deep in her heart that she was right. “Princess...I'm sorry...I dreamed of my mum because I wanted her. I dreamed of the ponies I wanted to hold me and love me. Instead they all just left and abandoned me.”

“All? Did they?” Luna mused, almost to herself. “In your dream you said you never saw your brother.”

“I never knew he existed ‘till last week.”

Again, Luna draped her wing over Wildfire’s back. She wanted to call her a friend, and in a way she was, just not in the same way that Airmail and Mapper were her friends. “Did your mother stop at the school to say ‘goodbye, I'm not coming back’ before she flew into that lightning bolt?”

Wildfire shook her head, she didn’t want to be facing her demons like this, but she didn’t pull away from the embrace, either. “She said she saw my dad in me, and that she was starting a life far away from me...she hated me.”

“Silverbolt was a hero.” Luna stated definitely. “She earned that Equestria Star. Is that the Silverbolt that said she hated you? Or is it a memory of a pony you loved that died and left you living that said she hated you?”

“How should I know?” Wildfire asked, all defensive, “It was a long time ago.”

Luna chuckled. “That is easy. I could think thousands upon thousands of ponies die to get away from me, or I can be honoured to spend a very small part of my life with what may have been the majority of their life with them. It is a hard lesson, but in the end, did your mother love you, or hate you?”

Wildfire knew the answer to that. In her soul, she knew. “My mum loved me.”

“Yet she did abandon you.” Luna pressed her point. She had to make the blind mare see. She just had to. “She died. Chill Wind died. They are together and you are not with them. Such is the way of ponies. Do we scream and shout at death? For death cares not about the living.”

“Yuppers, she loved me so much she left me with dad.” Wildfire shot back, her voice just a little bitter. “She got off light.”

“Life has never been, nor will it ever be, fair.” Luna snorted, “You are among the living, still.”

Now, it was Wildfire’s turn to snort. She did, however, note that the light that had been red had just turned white. With it, there was another flick of the Princess’s ear and a new star in her ethereal mane. “In spite of the living's best efforts.”

“Really!” Luna laughed out loud, her laughter echoing somewhere in the swirling mass of colour that was the Dreamscape. “So, would you choose the path you made Airy choose?”

“Yes...no...I don't know anymore...no, no I wouldn't.”

“You have shown wisdom, for that is the cowards way out. Is Airy a coward?”

“I'm not a coward!” Anger flashed across Wildfire’s face and, as she flapped her wings again, she placed herself in front of the alicorn. It was funny, the way she stood up to her was almost comical, for she was so small in comparison to the much larger mare. “And neither is my fiancé!”

Luna nodded, hearing the truth in Wildfire’s words, didn’t back down. “Yet you allowed death for her to abandon you. Just like your mother abandoned you. Did your mother kill herself with that lightning bolt?”

“I...I don't know why, okay?” Wildfire asked, she felt a new swimmer thrown into the deep end of a pool. It was a struggle to keep her head above water. She was amazed she wasn’t drowning. “It's just...Autumn, and what she did, and what Airy did, I don't know!”

“Ponies die. Airmail will die. You will die. You could die next year crossing a street.” She rested a hoof on the smaller mare’s shoulder with a smile, for she knew that she was pregnant with her foal. “Will Fireflight think you abandoned her, or will she know you loved her for all of her life?”

“I sincerely hope for the latter, Princess.”

“That is up to you, Wildfire. Airmail could die tomorrow. Do you think she hated every moment you spent together, or loved you more than life itself for those very moments?”

“I...I know she loved me more than she loved breathing, Princess.”

“Which brings us to the middle of your nightmare.” Luna said, bringing the rather unorthodox intervention almost to a close, “You think Airmail is no better than Air Raid.”

“I...I don't know...I'm scared, okay?” Wildfire spluttered defensively, though she knew the Princess was right in what she said. “I'm having trouble knowing where I am, at the moment, if I’m honest.”

Luna nodded. Fear was an entity she knew only too well. “I understand fear. I have no words of wisdom for that. Only believe in yourself, and in those you love.” She released her hoof from the mare’s shoulder as she lit her horn. “Wake up Wildfire, those you love are worried about you, even if they don't seem to show it.”

As the light from Princess Luna’s horn grew brighter and brighter, the Princess herself faded from view, as did the Dreamscape itself. A second later and the light was all encompassing and all consuming.

“Wake up!”