As it lounged on top of Rarity’s cabinets, watching her pace back and forth around a dream facsimile of Carousel Boutique, Moondog reflected how bizarrely fascinating ponies were. Take the pony before it: she’d saved Equestria… a lot of times. What was it now? Six? Seven? She’d been captured by diamond dogs, then convinced them to release her through sheer persistence and whining. She’d been grabbed by a greed-swollen dragon without much fuss. She’d gone through worse without getting a curl out of place. And yet, here she was, fretting about making a dress so badly that her mind still dwelt on it while she was asleep. You’d think the mind would be less concerned about things like that after smashing down alicorns or Lords of Chaos or magic-stealing centaurs. Ponies were weird.

“Why didn’t you take her measurements, Rarity?” Rarity asked herself. “Why were you such a foal tripping over yourself with awe that you forgot- to take- her measurements?” She punctuated her words with vigorous stomps.

Moondog wondered if it was even possible for it to be dismissive of any anxiety dream. The dress Rarity was worried about wasn’t even scheduled for another two weeks. Yet Moondog truly thought the resulting dream just as important as the one that stemmed from Duchess Ponderosa’s massive conglomeration of troubles that included familial, monetary, and agricultural. Of course, what sort of arcanic machine would be allowed to be snooty about who or what it worked with?

“And you don’t even know where she is, so you can’t send a letter of apology begging for her measurements! Woe! Woe! WOEEEEEE!” She laid a hoof across her brow and-

dream.addItem(new FaintingCouch());

-collapsed onto a couch that certainly hadn’t been there half a second earlier. “My life is ruiiiined!” she wailed, flailing her hooves. “Part of my life! My reputation! Part of my reputation! Part of my reputation with a single pony! Part of my reputation with a single pony who has little influence on me beyond the next business transaction!” She paused. “My liiiiiiife is RUIIIIIIIIIII-HIIIII-HIIIII-HIIIIIINED!”

Even if it couldn’t be dismissive of dreams, Moondog couldn’t sit around and let ponies be miserable all the time, either. Time to actually do something. It flowed from the cabinet and reformed on the floor from the top down. It walked over to Rarity and stood over her, grinning. “Hi there! You look like-”

“Go away! I’m busy!” screamed Rarity. Still not lucid, she had no reaction to the alicorn standing over her. Instead, she buried her face in a pillow and waved angrily in something resembling Moondog’s general direction. “Can’t a lady have some privacy while she’s moping about in self-pity?!”

“Oh, sorry,” said Moondog, pulling back as if ashamed. Acting out the parts always made the dream feel more authentic. “Want me to come back in, I dunno, an hour?”

“An hour would be nice, yes,” whimpered Rarity.

“Alright. Have fun with your wallowing.”

Sniff. “Will do.”

advanceTime(TIME.Hour, 1);

“Okay, hour’s up,” said Moondog.

“It is?” Rarity reluctantly raised her head to look at the clock. “Oh. I suppose it is,” she said resignedly. “Well, a lady-” She stretched as she got up, arching her back. “-does- have- her responsibilities, most unfortunately.” She slouched off of the couch and levitated the cardboard cutout it now was out of the way. “And as much as I’d like to help you,” she said, turning to Moondog, “I’m afraid that’s simply not an option at the moment. I’ve just realized an important customer ordered a dress from me, only-”

dreamer.allowLucidity(TRUE);

“-to leave without me… getting…” Rarity blinked at Moondog and stared. “You’re… the…”

“Boo,” said Moondog, grinning.

Rarity shrieked and reflexively roundhouse-kicked it through the wall.

room.setWraparound(TRUE);

Moondog tumbled through the opposite wall, rolled, and landed on its feet in exactly the same position. Still grinning, it said, “So what do you do on Nightmare Night? Grab trick-or-treaters in a full Neighlson and suplex them?”

“Stay back, you troublesome Tantabus!” yelled Rarity, jumping back and raising her hooves into a fighting position. “I have sewing needles and I know how to use them!” Caught in her magic, over a dozen pins jumped from their pincushion to point at Moondog. Then the pincushion turned into a dozen more pins.

self.giveCraps(0);

Moondog’s grin didn’t waver an inch. “Hi!” it said, extending a hoof. “Name’s Moondog. Pleased to meetcha. Big fan of your creativity. Big fan.” And it was. Rarity had once made clothes out of a hotel room. Good clothes, even. As much as Moondog liked being able to tweak dream reality on a whim, a few limitations here and there definitely lent themselves more to creative expression.

“Oh, don’t for a second think you can-!” Then Rarity blinked and wrinkled her nose. “But… Luna… Waaaait, wait wait wait, Twilight mentioned you, didn’t she?” The needles clattered to the floor and wriggled away like caterpillars. “Something about… a magical… entity-”

“Protip,” Moondog said, projecting its voice to whisper in Rarity’s ear without moving from its position, “the word is ‘tulpa’.”

Rarity didn’t seem to notice. “-created by Luna,” she continued, frowning deeply, “to… assist her in her dream duties?”

“Which probably makes me Part-Time Princess Regent of the Dream Realm,” said Moondog, “but yeah.” It flared its wings and bowed. “Thankyouverymuch, lady and gentlemare, I’ll be here all week! And all subsequent weeks at no extra charge!” Did it even have a title? More importantly, did one of Mom’s titles relate to the dream realm at all?

“But then… if you’re… I…” Rarity looked at the holes in the walls and her eyes widened. “Oh, goodness, I am so sorry!” she gasped, putting a hoof to her mouth. “I don’t know what came over me-”

“Panic, sudden lucidity, impulse, honest mistake. It happens,” said Moondog casually, waving its hoof back and forth. (Rarity glanced at the hole in the wall at the last part.) “Plus, I kinda brought it on myself, just jumping into lucidity like that.” It wrung its mane; a few boards fell out. “Don’t worry about it, you couldn’t hurt me if you tried.”

“Well, I- I supposed that…” Rarity’s voice got lower and lower. “…perhaps… dream ponies could be hurt by… dreams…” She shook her head. “You’re sure you’re alright? That was quite the, um, kick.”

Moondog raised an eyebrow. It twisted its mane around a hoof and pulled its head off with a pop. “Pretty sure.”

Rarity squeaked, then frowned and leaned forward. She stared at Moondog’s neck as she stroked her chin. “I never thought I’d wonder what kind of head covering… equivalents a headless pony might want,” she mused, “but now…” She poked at Moondog’s neck.

“Oh, wow,” Moondog said, almost dropping its head as it giggled. “I didn’t think that’d tickle so much.”

self.setAppearance(ALL.Default);self.setClothes(dreamer.getClothes(STYLE.Business));

“But really.” Moondog collapsed into smoke for half a second, reforming as a normal head-on-neck alicorn in the kind of immaculately-designed business suit Rarity would’ve created if she was into something as boring as business suits. It flicked through a clipboard floating before it. “First order of business… Sable Cloak, famous theatre star, stopped by yesterday to order a dress from you, and between her busy schedule and your own enthrallment with her fame and style you forgot to take her measurements before she left, and now she’s back on Bridleway. Is that right?” Of course it was. But Rarity would appreciate the professionalism.

“In my defense,” Rarity said hastily, “she’s the sort of pony around whom- Yes, yes, that’s right. How did you know?”

self.adjustGlasses();--Error; NullPointerException eself.addToAppearance(GLASSES.Rimless);self.adjustGlasses();

Moondog materialized a pair of spectacles onto its nose so it could wiggle them disapprovingly. “Do you really think I’d be a good dream weaver if I had to conduct an interview with every pony I wanted to work with? I’m a smart tulpa.” Also in possession of a limited number of dream spells to gauge a pony’s surface emotional and mental states, but Mom said ponies didn’t like knowing that.

“I… suppose,” Rarity said skeptically. “While I appreciate the concern, I’m afraid this is a purely physical business, and- ah…” Her face turned beet red for a moment and she looked away. “Goodness that sounded dirty. My point being, how can you help with that?”

“Easy!” Moondog said, grinning.

clothesHorse = DreamPony.getInstance("Sable Cloak");clothesHorse.setCoordinates(0, 0, 20);

A silky black earth pony with a pure white mane meteorically plummeted through the roof. She jumped to her hooves immediately. “My dearest apologies, Rarity!” she said in a flowing voice as she ran to the fitting dias. “I left too early without considering what you needed!”

“Ta-daaaaaa!” Moondog made jazz hooves. “Your very own dream version of her! Take those measurements and they’ll be accurate to real life! Trust me, I’ve triple-checked. You can even get a head start on the design itself!” It grinned and slicked its mane back. “I’m good, aren’t I?”

Rarity was already on the dias with her tape measure out. “To say the least!” she said excitedly, measuring around one of Sable’s front fetlocks. “This is fabulous! All my worries for the week just vanished! Thank you ever so much! Now…” She measured Sable’s trunk length. “Don’t let me keep you, you’ve done quite enough for me-”

self.setClothes(NONE);

“Well, actually, can you work and talk at the same?” Moondog’s suit vanished as it sat down in a chair. “I kinda want to get to know you, know what makes your creative spark tick.”

Rarity peeked over Sable’s withers. “Me? You need my help? I appreciate the flattery, darling, but if Luna… ahm, created you specifically to make good dreams, I don’t see how I can help you. I have no experience with dream magic whatsoever!”

“But you do have loads of experience creating stuff,” said Moondog, spreading its wings. “I’m real good at making good dreams, but I feel like that’s only technically. Like they’re always the same sorts of good dreams.” It privately attributed this to Mom not needing to make a creative powerhouse for what was supposed to be an automated process, but didn’t bring the issue up; ponies always got weirdly existential when it reminded them that it was technically a machine. “But you’re an artiste of fashion. I could give you the same pile of junk three times and you’d design a different excellent dress every time. Your creativity level is like super off the charts.”

Rarity blinked, then smiled and fluffed her mane. “Of course it is,” she said. “Do you think you could fix the holes before I start? I don’t like the ‘atmosphere’ my boutique has being quite so…” A gust of wind blew through the walls, rattling everything in the room. “…ah, literal.”

“Oh, right! Sorry.” Moondog peeled the holes off the wall and ceiling, rolled them up, and tucked them under a wing.

“Thank you ever so much. Now…” Rarity took a step towards her fabrics, paused, and took a step back as said fabrics wove themselves from nothing. She delicately poked at Sable; the fabrics sewed themselves around Sable’s frame in a rough mock-up dress in seconds. Her giggle was rather high-pitched. “Oh, my. What I wouldn’t give to-”

clothesHorse.feedLines(waitingLine);

“Excuse me,” said Sable, “but I believe your guest is waiting.” She pointed at Moondog, who smiled and waved.

“Yes, yes,” said Rarity absently. She turned to Moondog. “You… personalize dreams, yes? Don’t just give the dreamer what they want; see if you can give them what they didn’t know they wanted, what they never imagined. Take Sable, here. She has a most stunning contrast between mane and coat, but I’ve yet to see her dresses take full advantage of it. The colors are all subdued and far too safe. So, since I was given free rein on the design…” She levitated two scraps of fabric, bright red and bright blue. “The contrast of these will accentuate hers all the more, you see? I’m thinking roses on the ocean.”

understand(raritySpeech);return: TRUE

“Uh-huh,” said Moondog, nodding. “Sounds good.”

“And when you get even the slightest whiff of an idea,” continued Rarity, “you chase it down! Never, ever let one get away! Run it to the ground and wrestle it until screams ‘Uncle!’” She pounded her hoof on the ground. “You never know what idea might be a good idea until you’ve worked with it a bit — don’t throw ideas out simply because you don’t like the look of them! You’ll know when an idea is an especially good one when you can’t stop thinking about it, find yourself expanding on it…”

The barn of Sweet Apple Acres was almost true-to-life, barring the lack of bad smells. It was large, even for a barn, unusually roomy and able to hold a not-insignificant portion of Ponyville’s population all on its own. The fire-engine red paint on the walls and shutters was unusually pristine for this kind of structure, with next to no chips or scrapes. This was probably attributable to the barn getting rebuilt, on average, two or three times a year for the past eight years. The thick beams that made up the framework were still good and strong without the slightest hint of rot. Shining pitchforks hung from pegs on the wall, held up by rusty nails. Hay was strewn across the ground, making a not-uncomfortable surface to walk on, while several bales were piled up in the corners. Worn, mildly frayed ropes dangled haphazardly from the loft, twitching slightly in the wind. There was also a twenty-thousand-gallon barrel of Sweet Apple Cider sitting in the middle, taking up most of it.

Applejack lay beneath the spigot, mouth open, blissfully chugging away at the sweet nectar that was flowing out. She flipped the handle back up, wiped her mouth down, and said, “Gotta say, this cider’s almost as good as the real deal. Missin’ the last little kick from the aftertaste, though.”

“Really?” asked Moondog, leaning against the barrel and holding its own mug of cider. “Neat. Taste’s, like, super hard to pull off. Mom never told me how to do it, so I’m just kinda making it up as I go.” For something as central to ponies’ lives as food, it was surprising how small of a role it usually played in dreams. Moondog drained the last inch of cider.

self.enjoy(bestCider);

“Coulda fooled me.” Applejack pushed herself up the side of the barrel, going a little far and pulling herself off the ground for a moment. “Second best kinda cider I’ve tasted.”

Moondog held up the mug in a toast. “Well, congratulate yourself, because even a lesser version of yours is the best cider I’ve tasted.”

Applejack squinted suspiciously at Moondog. “And how many kinds o’ cider have y’tasted?”

“Most of them,” Moondog asserted, briefly flaring its wings. It waved its free hoof around. “I jump around a lot, you know, and I’ve been in an awful lot of cider makers’ dreams.” It licked the last drops from its now-empty mug.

cup.setLevel(0.75, bestCider);

“Never really got the opportunity to talk to them about it, though,” it continued, and took another sip from its refilled mug. “This a family recipe?”

“Sure.” Applejack nodded. “Asked Granny ’bout it once, an’ she said it’d been old when she was but a li’l filly. Most o’ the recipes I know are family ones, actu’ly. There’s-” Her eyes suddenly narrowed and she lunged forward, pressing Moondog against the barrel. “Now don’t you go spreadin’ this all around when you’re workin’,” she said sternly. “I don’t wanna hafta tell Granny that cider sales’re down this year ’cause some dream pony’s givin’ it away for free in dreams.”

Moondog raised an eyebrow. “How would that work?”

“…Well, I sure as sugar dunno, but I don’t want it happenin’, y’hear?” Applejack prodded Moondog in the chest.

“Fine. Promise. For all Apple products, even.” Moondog traced an X over its heart, which glowed for several seconds. It decided to not mention that Applejack had less capability to enforce said request than she did to keep the sun from rising (barring polite requests to her friendly neighborhood demigodesses). “Mom’s real strict on me keeping secrets, anyway.”

Applejack looked Moondog in the eye for a moment longer, then backed away. “Good ’nough.” She smacked her lips a few times. “Say, uh, since you’re practicin’ taste, think y’could whip up somethin’ t’eat?”

dream.addItem(dreamer.getFavoriteFood(DESSERT.Pie));

“Hope you like pie,” Moondog said, waving a hoof at the newly materialized table, packed to bursting with said desserts.

A grin crawled across Applejack’s face as she examined the pies. “That’s puttin’ it lightly.” Grabbing a pie at random, Applejack cut herself a slice and took a bite. Her ears went straight up and her eyes started glowing (literally). She swallowed, said, “This is Apple Bloom’s pie!”, and quickly devoured another bite. “Or pretty dang close.”

“Yeah?” Moondog twirled a chair around so that its back was facing Applejack and sat down that way. “Sounds like there’s a story behind that.”

“Oh, sure.” After wolfing down an entire slice at once, Applejack said, “First time she made it was, uh… six years ago. An’ Apple Bloom was even littler’n she is now, but she was startin’ to do some work ’round the farm. Big Mac was makin’ pancakes, but she got into the brown sugar somehow…”

Sitting in Fluttershy’s sunlit front yard, surrounded by happy animals, using a sleeping bear as a beanbag chair, Moondog gently pulled the brush through Fluttershy’s mane again. “Yes, just like that,” said Fluttershy. “That’s just gentle enough.”

“And this is really all you want?” Moondog asked as it maneuvered the brush around the chickadee perched on Fluttershy’s head. “Just having your mane brushed?” As much as it hated to admit it, Moondog didn’t always understand why ponies liked what they liked. Some nagging thought at the back of its mind kept saying something was up, even though Fluttershy was the kind of pony for which that was least likely to be true.

findCatch();return: FALSE

“If you don’t mind. Oh, and could you also scratch my back? Right between my wings. Yes, right there.” Fluttershy tilted her head back and hummed happily, wiggling her wings.

“Of course I don’t mind it,” Moondog said as it scratched. “I like it, to be honest. It’s just… you can have literally anything while I’m here, and this is all you want?”

findCatch();return: FALSE

The bear raised its head. “Yes, it is,” Fluttershy’s subconscious whispered to Moondog through the bear. “Why’s that so hard to understand?” Moondog ignored it.

“A little bit of relaxation goes a long way,” said Fluttershy. “I don’t need anything else.” She arched her back a little and rustled her wings. “Um, could you get a little more right there? No, lower- There.”

“Need and want are kinda two different things, you know.” Scratch scratch.

“Then I don’t see myself wanting anything else. What would I do with it?”

For anypony else, that question would’ve had a million answers. For Fluttershy- “Good point.” Moondog looked around. It was a peaceful place, all things considered, and for some ponies, all they wanted was peace and quiet. “I guess being waited on hoof and tail doesn’t hurt, either.”

Fluttershy giggled. “No. It doesn’t.”

“So…” Rainbow Dash looked around at the hissing horde of black-skinned, hole-limbed changelings around her, with more crawling from the walls of the hive every second. “Um…”

“Yeah?” Moondog was above the scene, floating like it was sprawled on an invisible couch.

“I… don’t wanna sound ungrateful for this, but… changelings are good now, right?” Rainbow held off the changeling closest to her by planting her hoof in its face. “So if a good dream for me is still seeing them as their old selves and beating them up-”

“Oh, come on!” Moondog dropped to the ground. “A year ago, this would’ve been hog heaven for you, and now you’re worried about speciesism?”

“They weren’t our friends a year ago! And is that even the right word?”

The changeling Rainbow was pushing back stopped trying to advance. “You look busy,” it said tentatively. “Want me to hold off on trying to beat you to a pulp?”

“Well, yeah,” said Moondog. “It matches the other -isms, like tribalism and sexism and-”

“But it sounds really weird,” Rainbow protested. “Like, reeeaaally weird.”

“I’ll take that as a yes.” The changeling sighed and walked back to the crowd. “She’s busy, guys! We need to wait a second!”

“Etymologically speaking-”

“I don’t care where the word comes from, it sounds super-”

drone = horde.selectRandomPony();noteToSelf("Rename selectRandomPony to something like selectRandomActor");drone.attack(dreamer);

An enterprising changeling lunged from the crowd and dove for Rainbow Dash, hissing, fangs bared. Rainbow caught it mid-air, twisted, and slammed it to the ground. “Hey!” she yelled in its face. “D’you mind? We’re philosophizing over here!”

“Hey now, you don’t need to snap,” scowled the changeling. “That hurt my feelings.”

“Keep it up and you’ll hurt outside as well as inside!” Rainbow bucked the changeling back into the horde. “Look, Moondog, if changelings are on our side now, then beating them seven ways to Sunday just because they’re changelings is… yyyyyeah.”

“Hmm. Alright, I get you. Gimme a sec.” Moondog conjured itself a beard to stroke thoughtfully as it stared at the ceiling. If beating changelings up because they were changelings was bad, then beating them up for some other reason was probably a-okay, so maybe-

stagBeetle = DreamPony.getInstance("Thorax");noteToSelf("Rename DreamPony to DreamActor or something");stagBeetle.feedLines(MOOD.Desperate);

Thorax plowed through the wall, leaving behind a massive hole, pursuing changelings streaming in behind him. “Rainbow Dash!” he yelled. “Thank goodness you’re here! Something something renegade changelings blah blah blah still allied with Chrysalis yadda yadda bad guys!”

horde.capture(stagBeetle);

“Also: oh no! I’ve been captured!” Thorax swooned into the crowd, which immediately cocooned him in slime. “If only there were somepony to rescue me!” he yelled as he was carried away. “Somepony Especially Awesome!”

Rainbow sighed and facehooved. “Dream pony dude thing,” she said flatly, “you really need to work on your lines. I mean, wow.”

“I didn’t think I’d need anything better!” Moondog protested, flaring its wings. “I’m improvising like whoa over here just to avoid scrapping the whole dream and starting over! How was I supposed to magically know you were suddenly super socially conscious?”

“The same way Luna does?”

Moondog folded its ears back and scowled. “It’s…” it mumbled, “not… quite that easy. And I… frgt bt it…”

“Hey!” protested a changeling. “Are we gonna fight? I’m booooored!”

“Still, they are evil now.” Rainbow flexed her wings and smirked at the horde. “Get ready to take notes on the Epitome of Awesomeness.”

“Finally.” Moondog sprang back up to its invisible couch and pulled a pen and paper from its mane. “Why do you think I came here in the first place?”

“La-la la-la la-la…” Pinkie Pie pronked along, singing a song that was going nowhere in particular and having a very fun time getting there. Moondog skulked along behind her, sticking to the shadows, waiting to corner her at a (relatively) still moment. Every single shred of information it’d dredged from other ponies’ heads said that Pinkie Pie was… different. She didn’t look different, she didn’t feel different, but something about her made Moondog feel like it was being watched. In spite of that feeling, Dream Ponyville was oddly empty, particularly for one as bubbly as Pinkie, but Moondog ignored that. Dreams were about as consistent as Twilight’s lists were short: not very. It was probably nothing.

Pinkie’s route took her all across town, often doubling back on itself, the whims of a scattershot mind. But just as Moondog was ready to reveal itself to Pinkie when she was still at her bounciest, she took a left and entered Sugarcube Corner, quickly shutting the door behind her. So was it to buy sweets or make sweets? Either one seemed valid. And either way, this was probably the most still she’d been. Moondog quickly trotted to the door and pushed it open.

“SURPRISE!”

The lights came on, nearly blinding Moondog. About a dozen cannons went off, spraying confetti everywhere. Although the room was filled with yelling ponies, Pinkie Pie’s voice in particular filled the whole room, drowning out every other sound. Moondog blinked the glare away and saw a banner hanging from the ceiling: WELCOME TO DREAM PONYVILLE MOONDOG.

“Surpriiiiiiise!” said Pinkie, getting in Moondog’s face and grinning from ear to ear. “I heard about you from Twilight but you were never around for your greeting party but then I had a knee twinge and a tail corkscrew this evening so I was wondering when you’d show up and I’m sorry I’m the only real pony in this place but I’m not as good with dreams as you so I couldn’t get any actual ponies from their dreams-”

self.activatePanicMode();dreamer.setVolume(0);--Error; PinkiePieException p

“-so I should probably see if I can get Princess Luna to teach me that and do you think maybe you could put in a good word for me?” And she boinged in placed, smiling expectantly.

Moondog blinked. Mom had never mentioned something like this… awareness. “Um…”

“Don’t worry, it’s okay if you can’t!” Pinkie bounced away through the crowd, which parted for her like fish in a shoal. Before Moondog could get its thoughts under control, Pinkie had bounced back with a cart (also bouncing) lined with desserts. “So! I came up with the best treats I could dream of! You take a seat and I’ll show you the options.” Moondog hesitantly sat down at a table as Pinkie began rattling off various dessert names at the speed of light. “This is lemon meringue, this is Rocky Road-”

“How- How did you know I was coming?”

Pinkie Pie didn’t skip a beat. “-mint chocolate chip, this is chif- Well, you had to come here eventually, silly! And if you could come at any time, why not now? So I planned for now, and here you are! -fon, this is cookies ’n’ cream-”

“That’s not what I-”

--Error; PinkiePieException p

“You know what, never mind.” Just who was Pinkie Pie? Moondog double-checked her metadata.

getDreamer();return:-- dreamer[name]: "Pinkie Pie"-- dreamer[desc]: SPECIES.Earth_Pony, SEX.Mare, COAT_COLOR.Pink, [...]-- dreamer[interests]: "laughter", "parties", "Moondog trying the red velvet cake"--Error; PinkiePieException p

“Seriously, Moondog, try it!” said Pinkie, pushing some red velvet cake its way. “You’ve never had any cake before!” She grinned slyly. “I can tell if somepony hasn’t yet tasted the magnificence of monosaccharides.”

“Look, look, look,” protested Moondog, pushing the cake back. “It’s- I- You- You don’t need to do this for me, really! I- I’m the one who’s supposed to be making good dreams for you!” Honestly, how was something like this even possible?

But with party mode activated, Pinkie Pie was a veritable avalanche, consuming all in her path of wanton sugar-and-confetti-based destruction. “And my definition of a good dream is you enjoying yourself at the party I’m throwing for you! Pleeeaaase?” Her eyes were big and her voice was earnest.

Moondog looked at the delicious spread sitting before it. It’d never been celebrated like this before, never planned on it, and technically Mom had told it to not spend too much time just faffing around. But just once couldn’t hurt, right? Still, it had a job to do and it couldn’t waste time-

“Eh, ---- it,” said Moondog, and buried its face in the cake.

Spike pulled another gem from the positively humongous mound beneath him and popped it into his mouth. “All this is for me?” he asked hopefully, his voice echoing around the cave. “And I just need to answer a few questions?”

Moondog poured another bucket of sapphires onto the pile. “Nope. The gems are free. The questions are just a polite request. Pretty please?”

“Heh. With this kind of dream, I’ll do anything you want.” Spike burrowed into the pile and popped out on the other side, happily chewing on three giant diamonds with a ruby sticking out from under one frill and an emerald from under the other.

“Cool beans.” Moondog flowed to the top of the pile and looked down at Spike. “For starters, what’s it feel like to breathe fire? I’m just trying to get some non-pony experiences to draw on. Can’t believe Mom didn’t do something like this before.”

Spike stared at the ceiling of the cave, gnawing pensively on an opal, as he thought. “It’s… You… kinda will or force hotness into yourself and collect it in your belly.” He mimed a ball in front of his chest. “Then you just… push it up and out and, well, poof.” He spat a small plume of fire at the ceiling. “It feels like you’re drinking hot cider in reverse. But you’re not puking.”

“Uh-huh. Interesting.” Moondog plucked a chunk of hibonite from the heap for examination. “And when you bite gems, do you actually cut through them or do they shatter?”

“That actually matters?” asked Spike. “It’s just eating gems.”

“Which is part of the Dragon Experience!” said Moondog. “Honestly, do you have any idea how often ponies dream of being-”

self.setAppearance(SPECIES.Dragon);

Moondog ripped its pony skin off, revealing the starry scales of a dragon underneath. “-something like this? And I wanna do it properly.”

“Wait, hold up.” Spike rolled onto his belly and pushed himself into a sitting position, facing Moondog. “You can… pretty much do anything in dreams, right? But… I still know more about being a dragon than you?” He grinned slightly.

“Everything I know about dragonning, I learned from Mom. Which means I know jack squat about dragonning.” Moondog shrugged and collapsed back into a pony shape. “Just like you know nothing about being a pony.”

“I dunno. I’ve already been a dog, and the two can’t be that different, can they?”

“Let’s find out!”

dreamer.setAppearance(SPECIES.Unicorn);

Evidently, living with Twilight for one’s whole life left one immune to certain kinds of shock. Ponified Spike looked at his new hoof without the slightest hint of a twitch. He slid off of the gems, trotted around them twice, and climbed back on. “For starters, my sense of smell isn’t as strong as when I’m a dog,” he said, “and my feet aren’t as sensitive. But I can see and hear better.” He wiggled his ears back and forth. “Although that second one might just be because my ears aren’t flopping like flags on the side of my head.”

Spike pushed his hoof into the pile of gems. He pulled it out with nothing on it. Frowning, he tried again. Same result. And again, and again… “How do you guys pick stuff up with hooves?” he growled, repeatedly shoveling his hoof through the pile and always coming up with squat.

“Like this.” Moondog scooped up a single prasiolite stone and held it out to Spike, grinning a grin that was teetering on the edge of helpful and smug.

“Riiiiiiiiiight,” Spike said flatly. His hoof kept passing through the gems like they were water. “You’d think that this would be easier in a dream,” he muttered, “not harder.” He gave up and just plunged his head into the heap.

dreamer.getHoof().setFriction(0);

“Believe me,” said Moondog, still grinning, “I don’t know what’s going on. So, gems?”

notify(self.getSpellMessages(), sm);self.readSpellMessage(sm);

Moondog,I’ve heard you’ve been helping my friends with their dreams and introducing yourself to them. That’s great! While you’re at it, do you think you could stop by mine when you have the chance? I could use your help with something. It’s not vital, so take your time.TwilightP.S. I’m still new at dream magic, so let me know if this message doesn’t reach you Moondog wouldn’t know if it didn’t wait is this still recording delete that last bit WHY IS IT STILL THERE I don’t know how to delete things in this. Sorry.

Moondog stepped into Twilight’s dreamscape and into a coliseum in the Canterlotian style. The encircling walls, gleaming white, reached for the sky as pennants flapped in the wind. The stands were empty, but loud bangs and cracks echoed through the colonnades; in the center of the arena was Twilight, unleashing twenty different kinds of Tartarus on a wooden pole that reformed whenever she let up for a second. The ground around her was blackened.

“You think you’re tough, don’t you? Don’t you?” roared Twilight.

The pole didn’t deign to respond.

Twilight screamed and unleashed a torrent of fire on the pole that cracked the earth beneath her feet within seconds. The stone wall on the other side of the coliseum melted within seconds from the onslaught. The heat expanded the air so quickly it was like a shockwave, and in the real world, the light would’ve blinded anypony looking at it. All other sounds were drowned out as the fire roared.

And when the fire vanished, the pole wasn’t even singed. Twilight shrieked in anger.

“Call me crazy,” Moondog whispered in Twilight’s ear, “but you might be a tiiiiiiiny bit high-strung, cousin-in-law.”

Twilight twitched at the sound of Moondog’s voice, then sighed. “Sorry,” she said. “Rough day. It was…” She waved her hoof vaguely and groaned. “But! Enough about me. Glad to see you’re around, Moondog. Did you get my message?”

“No. That’s actually why I’m here: to tell you I didn’t get it, just like it said.”

“Oh.” Twilight’s tail drooped a little. “Well, I just wanted to…” Then she blinked and squinted at Moondog.

Moondog put a hoof to its muzzle as it snickered. “You have no idea how easy it is to get ponies to fall for that.”

Twilight rolled her eyes and continued, “So I was thinking: this all feels pretty real.” She gestured at the coliseum. (Moondog fought the urge to turn the sky neon green right then and there.) “And my spells work as expected.” She pointed at the pole.

“Okaaaaaaay…” Moondog said.

“So then I thought, maybe you could help me cast a spell that’d be nearly impossible in the real world, but trivial in a place where anything is possible. ‘What kind of spell?’, you may ask? Easy! It’s-” She frowned and started pacing. “Okay, never mind, maybe not so easy. I had that really good analogy, too… What was it?…”

spellScroll = new Scroll();spellScroll.setContents(dreamer.getCurrentThoughts());dreamer.giveItem(spellScroll);

“What was it what was it what was it…” Twilight muttered, hitting herself in the head with the scroll. She paused. She looked at the scroll. She shrugged, gave the first few lines a quick once-over, and nodded. “This spell, here,” she said, passing the scroll over.

Moondog unrolled the scroll. And unrolled it and unrolled it and unrolled it and unrolled it and…

“It analyzes wave function collapse in quantum physics!” Twilight said brightly as the length of the equation-filled scroll ate up miles. “Specifically, it’ll technically observe the wave function without actually observing it — probably — which will tell us whether the Clopenhagen interpretation is correct, which, either way, would be a huge leap forward our understanding of the world-”

“Oh, sweet Aunt Celly, you’re integrating the Haymiltonian across five dimensions,” whispered Moondog.

“I’m exploiting so many classical, quantum, and arcane loopholes, I might as well be a lawyer!” Twilight said cheerfully. “But I don’t really want to say that, because, well, lawyer…”

Moondog looked at the next few lines of the scroll before groaning and dropping it. “So let me get this straight,” it said flatly. “You want me… to simulate reality… perfectly… down to the quantum level… so you can test a spell.”

“Please?” asked Twilight, smiling sweetly.

self.setFacehoofLevel(7);

Sighing, Moondog slowly turned away and massaged its temples, mumbling, “Whyyyyyy why why why whyyyyyeeee…”

“What?” protested Twilight. “All you need to do is model reality — like you’ve been doing!-” She waved a hoof around the coliseum. “-and let me cast the spell!”

“This isn’t the greatest model of reality,” Moondog said bluntly. It reached up and rolled part of the sky away; the scaffolding of a theater crisscrossed above them and a giant stage light burned down in place of the sun. “See?”

“That’s only there because you’re making it be there!” Twilight said. “Come on, don’t you think you could put in a little bit more effort just this once? For science? Please?” The worst part about it was the way she was earnest rather than demanding. Shutting down a jerk out of spite was fun; shutting down a friend out of an inability to help wasn’t.

“It’s not that simple,” Moondog said, fixing the sky. “Remember, this is still all in your head, with your own expectations. Your spells are working perfectly because you expect them to. And if you expect your new super awesome spell to work one way, then it will, even if it’s totally different from the real world. Like, if I changed the way magic worked in here-”

dreamer.setSpellEffects(RANDOM);

“Okay, look.” Moondog plucked a rock from the floor of the courtyard and held it out. By all accounts, it was a perfectly ordinary rock, gray and dull and speckled. “Levitate this rock.”

Twilight gave Moondog a Look, but tried levitating the rock.

The coliseum exploded.

dream.setTimeSpeed(0);explosion.setVolume(0);

With the explosion frozen in place, Moondog wove around bits of stony shrapnel. Twilight was frowning, staring at the remains of a statue and poking it. “Huh,” she said. “That’s… Huh. Huh huh.” She looked around the tableau and tilted her head in though. A second later, she was scratching pictures and equations on what remained of the ground with a charcoal stick.

“Don’t get me wrong,” Moondog said as the coliseum rebuilt itself, “if I could do it, I totally would. But quantum physics is way weirder than dreams. I mean, particles behaving differently depending on whether or not it’s being observed? Why does a particle only interfere with itself when nopony’s around to watch it, if you know what I mean?”

Twilight didn’t look up. “Because on those scales… it’s so small that… Yeah.” Scratch scribble scratch.

“And this ‘reality’ is so hugely based on thoughts and perceptions that… that…” Moondog let its voice trail off and tilted its head.

“Yeah. I get you.” Scratch scratch.

self.setAppearance(SPATIAL.Picture);self.setRelativeSize(0.1);

Sighing, Moondog flattened itself into a tiny drawing on the ground. It took a seat on one of Twilight’s sketches and glared up at her. “Are you even listening to me?”

“You were talking about how weird quantum physics is,” Twilight said, “even though it really isn’t — you just need to remember that reality is governed by complex-in-the-mathematical-sense probability amplitudes and measurements can only occur in discrete quantities and observation itself can-”

“Okay, right. You were listening,” grumbled Moondog. For somepony so prone to tunnel vision, Twilight could be impressively aware of her surroundings. Well, live and learn. It looked “down” at Twilight’s equations. “So what’s this?”

“I’m reinventing arcane physics!” Twilight said cheerfully. “If the energies in the normal proportions for levitation caused combustion on that scale, how else does magic work in here? I know it probably won’t be consistent, but it’s a fun thought exercise! So thanks, even though we couldn’t do the quantum spell.”

Moondog shrugged and saluted. “You’re welcome, then. You want anything else, or-?”

“No, thanks.” Twilight scratched out something that required a mind-boggling number of Kroneckolt deltas. “This’ll keep me busy for quite a while.” She giggled. “I’ve never invented an entire branch of science before!”

“Alright. Be seeing you.” Moondog pulled open a door and put a hoof inside.

“Actually, wait.” Twilight scribbled the door closed. “You’ve been around most of my friends, but I haven’t heard anything from Starlight about you.”

“Yeah, well, uh…” Moondog laughed humorlessly and leaned against the blob that had once been a door. “No offense, but have you met her? She’d probably cast some weird spell by accident that’d shove me into the real world and keep me from getting back here. Noooooo thank you.”

“I thought Luna was the only pony with dream magic that powerful,” Twilight said, frowning.

“Do you really think that’d stop Starlight? Besides, you taught yourself to send me spell messages, so…” Moondog shrugged. “Dunno.”

“Still, it’d be nice of you to talk to her sooner or later.”

“Definitely later.” Moondog shoved the scribble aside. “Adios, amiga.” It was out of Twilight’s dream before she could respond.

“Hey, Mom?”

“Yes, Moondog?”

“Have you ever thought about how freaking weird the Elements of Harmony are?”