Starlight shuffled from hoof to hoof as Twilight fluttered around the upper shelves of the library. “You wanted Practical Dream Magic: A Novice’s Guide, right?” Twilight yelled down.

“Right!” said Starlight.

Twilight plucked a certain book from the shelves and dropped back down to the floor. “How come?” she asked as she passed the aged book over. “This isn’t about that dream you had last night about Daybreaker and Nightmare Moon, is it?”

“It’s not that,” Starlight said quickly (yes, it was, it’d been terrifying). “It’s just… IIIIII… don’t think I should… rely on Luna’s help whenever I have nightmares.”

“Or Celestia. She wasn’t that bad at dream wrangling.”

“She spent all night with just me! Anyway, even if I can’t go full-blown dreamwalking, this-” Starlight tapped the book’s ancient cover. “-should at least help me stop myself from having nightmares.” And living with Twilight, it was practically inevitable that she’d experience something worse sooner or later that would give her worse nightmares.

Twilight rustled her wings and frowned. “You know it’s over five centuries out of date, right? A few years ago, I sent a copy to Luna for her to look over and she thanked me for the wonderful gift of a joke book.” Her eye and ear both twitched as she started breathing deeply. “I know it’s old,” she said through clenched teeth, “but Nimitybelle’s. Best work. Is not. A joke book!”

“It’s better than nothing,” Starlight said, backing up a step, “and I- You know what I’ll just leave you be okay bye.” A teleporting pop, and she was in her room. Thankfully, Twilight didn’t go into a full-blown meltdown, or at least not one that could be heard from her room. That mare could get insanely creative with her curses when the worth of a book was on the line.

Starlight sat down at her desk and cracked open the book to the introduction. “It remains unknown just why we dream,” she read, “or even the precise nature of blah blah blah. Where’s the magic?” She fanned ahead a few dozen pages. “There’s the magic. To dispel spirits of malice, one must…”

No wonder Luna was still Equestria’s foremost expert on dream magic even after vanishing for a millennium; dream magic made as much sense as Pinkie Pie, which was to say, none at all. The designs for the spells looped and twisted in countless impossible ways and broke all sorts of laws of magic and generally blew raspberries at anything resembling proper thaumodynamics. Several of them seemed to require Starlight to have at least two horns. She committed the spells to memory nonetheless. Maybe they’d make more sense in a place where everything blew raspberries at anything resembling the natural order.

When Starlight went to bed that night, she focused on dreams, nightmares, and being aware of them, hoping that was how lucid dreaming worked. Knowing spells that could only work in dreams wouldn’t do much good if she didn’t know she was in a dream. Thoughts of the spells ran through her mind, performing perfect steeplechases. She’d remember those, at least.

She didn’t remember falling asleep, but suddenly she was sprawled on the lack of a floor in a white void, breathing heavily. Her thinking of dreams must’ve worked, because she recognized the situation as a dream perfectly. Kind of a boring place to practice dream magic in, but it would have to-

A shadow fell on her; she slowly looked up. Standing over her was an alicorn-shaped hole in space, smiling a smile with lots and lots and lots and lots of very sharp teeth. “Hiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii,” it said. “You switched my mom’s and aunt’s cutie marks.” It shoved its head in her face. “I don’t like it when ponies switch my mom’s and aunt’s cutie marks.”

Of course. Rolling onto her back, Starlight raised an eyebrow. “Does that happen a lot or something?”

Several stars in the alicorn’s mane winked out. “W-well… no, but… Look, with Mom out of action, I spent like all of last night managing the dream realm pretty much single-hoofedly! I’m not even one yet!”

“Uh-huh.” Starlight nudged the alicorn’s head away and stood up. “Nice to meet you too, Moondog.”

“Oh, come on!” yelled Moondog. “Stop undercutting me! I had this whole speech prepared and everything! It was big and dramatic and-”

“-all about how you’re my worst nightmare?”

“What? No!” Moondog puffed out its chest and wings. “Of course not! What kind of clichéd moron do you take me for? You think that I-” Putting a hoof on its chest, it held its head high. “-Duchess of Dreams, would use something so predictable? Ha! As if! But, no, you just had to throw off my groove. Jerk.” It narrowed its eyes. “Still, you must face the Procession of Shame!”

And suddenly Starlight was flanked by Nightmare Moon and Daybreaker, glowering down at her with murder in their eyes. She squeaked like a mouse getting stepped on and cowered on the ground. She curled into a ball and pulled her legs over her head. “I’msorry I’msorry I’msorry!” she wailed. “It was a mistake! I didn’t mean-”

“Shame!” said Nightmare Moon. “Shame! Shame.”

“Bad unicorn!” said Daybreaker sternly. Very sternly.

“Shame,” Nightmare Moon growled.

As the expected godlike spell-slinging remained absent, Starlight’s ears went up and she peeked out from behind her legs, frowning. “Uh…”

A corrupted version of Cadance coalesced from nothing, her mane crackling with pink lightning. Heartbreaker? Mad Love? “Shaaaaaaaame,” she hissed as she pointed at Starlight.

The alicorns circled around Starlight, repeating, “Shame!”, and her patience vanished in seconds. “This is your idea of getting back at me?” she asked. “Really? A high-schooler wouldn’t find this that bad!”

“Oh, maybe not now,” Moondog said airily. “But ask me again in eight hours, when-”

“Okay, yeah, no,” Starlight said flatly. Could dream magic work on a being made of dream magic? Only one way to find out. She closed her eyes and focused on the nightmare-banishing spell. The ways it worked almost made sense now. She didn’t remember everything, but she was sure she could fill in the blanks. She gathered her magic and the entire dream twitched.

“Whoa, wait.” Moondog sounded nervous all of a sudden as it shuffled away from Starlight. “Hold up, what’re you-”

Dzzt.

Pancakes. Delicious, fluffy pancakes. Twilight adored them, she did. They were just right: strong enough to hold a lot of syrup, soft enough to be easily chewable, light enough to not slide off the fork, flavorful enough to add their own taste to the syrup, mild enough to let the flavors mingle rather than one over power the other… And so on and so forth. Heck yeah. Pancakes.

Twilight had woken up just before sunrise almost perfectly content. Good night’s sleep? Check. Weekend with nothing to do? Check. Sunny morning scheduled? Check. Perfect-for-reading mild evening rain scheduled? Check. New book started just last night? You bet your biscuits that was a check and a half. The day could practically throw a meteor at her without it dampening her mood. (She’d hurriedly run to the window. No meteor.)

She tiptoed to the kitchen, not wanting to wake up either Spike or Starlight, and soon had a set of pancakes griddling nicely. Once they were done, she half-drowned them in syrup, cracked open her new book, and settled down for a quiet, blissful breakfast.

And then, Starlight. “Hey, um, Twilight? I’ve… kinda got a dream pony in my room.”

Twilight groaned and planted her face in her book. “Dangit, Starlight, could you at least wait until I’m done with breakfast before breaking time and space again?”

“Sorry.” A pause. “I’ll, um… be upstairs. Just waiting.” Starlight took a step back. “For you.” Another. “To come.” And another. “And help.” Still another. “Bye.” And she was gone.

Twilight sighed. For all she knew, her entire day was shot. Starlight was an attentive student, but that didn’t mean she couldn’t be stupid, stupid, stupid. Twilight squinted at her fork. “At least you will never betray me, pancakes,” she said forlornly.

Starlight was pacing back and forth in front of her room when Twilight arrived. Twilight didn’t say anything, just gave Starlight a flat Look. Starlight opened her mouth, paused, and said, “It’s… better if you see.” She pushed open her door.

Sitting in the middle of Starlight’s room, stiff as a board, smiling like its life depended on it, was Moondog. “Hey, cousin-in-law,” it said, sounding like it was sitting on a bed of rusty nails. “I need some help. Also, I told you so.”

Twilight blinked. Twice. She quickly closed the door to keep the sound from waking up Spike. She turned to Starlight and half-whispered, half-shrieked, “How?”

“If I knew that, I could reverse it, and we wouldn’t be talking!”

“She used the wrong dream spell at the wrong time,” said Moondog, still smiling. “I think she got a few variables mixed up somewhere and did something when she wanted to do something else.”

Okay. Dream pony in the real world. What to do about it? Twilight started pacing in spite of the cramped space. “We need to get Luna, tell her-”

“NO!” yelled Starlight. “Not now, at least,” she added when she saw Twilight’s and Moondog’s faces. “She’ll be tired after, you know, the whole cutie mark thing and I- don’t wanna… have her know about this.” She fired a glare at Moondog, who rolled its eyes.

Twilight decided to not press the issue for the moment. “Okay, um…” Now what? To start, they needed a more open space than this. She pointed at Moondog. “Why don’t you go to the library?”

“I don’t want to move,” said Moondog. Its smile was growing more strained than Rainbow Dash’s excuses for procrastination. “If I move, I might break something. And out here, stuff stays broken.”

“We can fix it,” said Twilight. “This is the real world, things don’t just randomly explode if you look at them funny.”

“Except for those puddings,” said Starlight.

“Yeah, but that was just twice!” To Moondog, Twilight said, “Seriously. Things aren’t that easy to break out here. Just be a little careful and you’ll be fine.”

“Alright,” said Moondog nervously. It slowly got to its feet, delicately poked the floor, and made its way to the door.

Twilight turned back to Starlight. “Did that spell come from-”

“Um, could one of you unlock the door?”

Twilight and Starlight turned. Moondog was standing at the door, looking annoyed. “The door isn’t locked,” said Twilight. “I closed it myself and didn’t lock it.”

“Then why can’t I open it?” Moondog grabbed the knob and twisted. Nothing happened.

“I don’t know, but the door’s not locked,” said Starlight, “and even if it was, it’s the kind that-”

“Oh, never mind.” Moondog collapsed into a flat plane and slid between the door and the frame.

Twilight shrugged. “You’ve still got the book, right?” she asked Starlight. “I could use a refresher on anything more complicated than sending messages.”

“Yeah.” Starlight levitated the book from the table and leafed through the pages. “The spell I was trying to cast was… this one, right here.”

“Huh.” Twilight took the book from Starlight and examined the spell closely. After a moment, she turned the book sideways. It only made a little more sense. “How…?”

“It makes more sense in dreams,” said Starlight. “Trust me. But I might’ve done something wrong when casting it, so…” She sucked in a breath through her nose. “Yyyyyeah.”

“Uh-huh…” Based on the design of the spell, getting drunk might also make it make sense, too. Might. And when you factored in Starlight’s possible screwup, Twilight didn’t know where to start with it.

She didn’t know.

Which meant she could learn!

Twilight snapped the book shut. “So let me get this straight,” she said to herself. “We need to reconstruct a spell practically from scratch in an esoteric branch of magic that shouldn’t even work on this plane of reality and then figure out how to perform it in reverse.” Her face split into a grin and she hugged Starlight tightly. “This is tied for the sixth-greatest day of my life!”

“How nice,” wheezed Starlight. “Please stop crushing my lungs.”

Twilight’s mind was buzzing with ideas as she trotted down the stairs. “…might turn out to be a little easier than we think,” she said to Starlight, “because with two casters instead of one, we can each handle different parts of the spell.”

“Yep,” Starlight said in a voice that could’ve been used as a tuning fork for inattention.

“But that doesn’t take into account the way physics works in dreams — or, more accurately, doesn’t work,” Twilight continued. “So we’ll kind of need to play it by ear in spell construction, but since dream magic is so mentally-based to begin with, it might not need to be as structured as thaumic magic as long as we have a clear idea of what we want it to do, of course.” She giggled and wiggled from the tips of her ears to the end of her tail. “Different magic in different realities!” she chirped. “I can’t believe I didn’t think of that before! It’s such a neglected field of study! I wonder if that’s why Discord’s magic works the way it does… So how does thaumic magic work in his world? I’ll need to pay him a visit, but if he figures out what I’m doing, he’ll kick me straight out…”

“Absolutely.”

“Later, though. Later.” Twilight’s voice sounded like an alcoholic denying herself beer. “Now is dream magic in the physical world and nothing else.”

Moondog was sitting at a table in the library, staring at a candlestick and poking it. The candlestick didn’t wobble. “I, um, I can’t move things,” Moondog said. “Like, at all.” It slammed its shoulder into the table. Nothing happened.

“Wait, really?” asked Twilight.

“Yeah! Look!” Moondog jumped up to a chandelier and grabbed on. The chandelier didn’t tilt with any added weight, didn’t wobble, didn’t twitch even as Moondog thrashed about to try to pull it one way or the other. “See?” Moondog dropped from the chandelier and landed next to Twilight. Now that she was paying attention, Twilight noticed that she didn’t feel any wind from its wings. “And my magic doesn’t work, either,” it said. “It’s like I can’t touch anything.”

Twilight stroked her chin. “Hmm. I guess dream objects being unable to affect the real world makes sense…” She held out a leg. “Touch me.”

Moondog hesitantly jabbed Twilight’s leg. She didn’t feel a thing; if she’d closed her eyes, Moondog might as well have not done anything. In fact, she didn’t feel anything when Moondog climbed onto her leg entirely for a few moments. Twilight examined her leg closely, but it didn’t look any different. “Hmm,” she repeated. “This might complicate things.”

“Might?” said Moondog.

“But we won’t know until we try,” Twilight said. She laid the spellbook on a table. “Do you think you could help us with the dream spells? They don’t make a lot of sense to physical ponies.”

“Sure,” said Moondog. “What’re you having trouble with?”

“It’s not that hard,” Moondog said. “You just need to use actual happiness directly, not mana drawn from happiness.”

“That makes no sense,” Twilight said again as she rereread the spell instructions. “Emotions are-”

“Whoof.” Moondog rubbed its temples. “It’s how it works. Dreams are shaped by emotions, so if you direct the emotion instead of letting it- Starlight, can you help me out?”

“Moondog’s right,” said Starlight. “It’s really hard to wrap your head around, but, yes, for this spell, you use happiness itself.” Already having cast a dream spell had given her some perspective on Twilight’s difficulties, and she was annoyed that she couldn’t give it any better description.

“How are you even having trouble with this?” asked Moondog. “You cast that messenger spell with no problem!”

“I actually had all sorts of problems,” Twilight said, “— remember all those messages in the PS? — and that was the only spell I could understand. There’s a difference between sending a message and sculpting a landscape.”

“Eh… You know, I bet if you asked, Mom would-”

“Nonono,” Starlight said, shaking her head. “No. She- We shouldn’t make her worry, right?” And if Moondog had an answer to that, Starlight had a whole list of excuses lined up and ready to go.

But all Moondog did was snort. “Fine. Don’t go to the easy, obvious choice. Noooooope.”

Twilight didn’t seem to notice. “Let’s try this again.” She closed the book and massaged her temples. The deep breaths she took made her look like some kind of psychic guru. “Okay, Twilight,” she whispered to herself. “You can do this. Use happiness. Happiness. You can do this.” She turned to Moondog. “Let’s try this again.”

Twilight paced back and forth, continuing to chew on the pulp that had once been a bite of her lunch, lost in thought. She finally swallowed. “No progress on being able to cast dream magic,” she muttered to herself. “Maybe we should try thaumic magic.”

“Frickin’ sandwiches, how do they work?” Moondog was staring at Twilight’s sandwich like the latter was going to bite it on the nose. “I mean, you swallow one and somehow it gives you energy.” It looked up at Twilight. “And I asked Mom, and she just said, ‘digestion’, which explains, like, nothing.”

“It’s complicated,” said Twilight. “And I’m not completely sure myself, to be honest.”

“You?” asked Starlight. “Don’t know something? The apocalypse is upon us.” She dug into her own sandwich.

Twilight rolled her eyes. “Maybe you should duck into a doctor’s head sometime,” she said to Moondog.

“Maybe I will,” Moondog said thoughtfully.

“So how do you get energy? You’re not some… perpetual-motion… pony, are you?”

Moondog was suddenly even more interested in the sandwich than before. If it’d been able to, Twilight suspected it’d be sweating. “Well, uh…”

“Great,” muttered Starlight. “Another thing to make me feel bad. Right?”

“See, here’s the thing. I’m…” Moondog swallowed. “…kinda a being of dream magic, so I use dream magic from the collective unconscious to sustain myself, but there’s no dream magic out here, so-”

“You’re dying?” screamed Twilight.

“Called it!” said Starlight, and she slammed her face on the table, groaning.

“Not super fast or anything!” said Moondog, flaring its wings. “I think I’ve got about a year before my reserves run out, but I didn’t want to say anything ’cause I knew you’d freak out-”

“I am not freaking out!” Twilight scrambled back to the dream book. “This is bad! We can’t just sit around! We’ve got work to-”

“Twilight!” Moondog raced back to her and tried to pull her away, to no avail. “Don’t worry about it! We’ve got time!”

Twilight put a hoof on her chest and took a few long, deep breaths. “Sorry. I just- I don’t like the feeling that your magic is eating itself as we speak, even if it’s slow.” A few more deep breaths. “So, um, since I still don’t have dream magic down, I was thinking we should try thaumic magic instead. There’s got to be something in there that can help you. What do you think?”

“Sure,” said Starlight in a melancholic voice.

Moondog shrugged. “I guess. It can’t be any worse than this, right?”

“You know who misses me?” Moondog muttered. “Third-shifters.” It pawed at the X it was sitting on.

“Hold still,” Twilight said. “Ready, Starlight?”

“Ready.” Both ponies’ horns began crackling.

“Mom can’t get them. She’s asleep-asleep. So there’s just me.”

“One…”

“And there are plenty of them, too. I keep busy during the day.”

“Two…”

“But now, because of some stupid spell, I’m stuck out here, and-”

“Three!”

The magic hit Moondog square on the chest. The stench of ozone filled the air and Moondog was shoved back over a dozen feet, tumbling tail over teakettle. For a few seconds, space seemed to crystallize where Moondog had been, but the moment passed without anything happening.

“Okay,” said Twilight. She was frowning deeply. “That… Hmm. That one almost worked. But we’re running out of interdimensional transport spells.” She made another check mark on her list.

“-and I can’t even move anything,” Moondog said, lying on the ground. “Just… fudgebuckets.” It waggled a hoof in Starlight’s direction. “This is all your fault. Alllllllll your fault.”

“Yep,” said Starlight.

“Come on, Moondog,” Twilight said. She ran her eyes over the spells that remained. “Do you need to bring that up again? It was an honest mistake.”

“I’ve been blasted across the room a dozen times in the past half-hour,” Moondog said as it got to its hooves, “and it’s not as fun when you girls’ only response is, ‘Why didn’t that work?’. Forgive me for being a bit testy.” It flexed its wings. “But if we got Mom-”

Starlight’s response bordered on reflexive. “We can’t, not yet,” she said. “I, I don’t want Luna to think any worse of me because I made another stupid mistake after the whole cutie mark fiasco.”

Moondog buried its face in its hooves. “Pride is so so so stupid,” it mumbled.

Silence reigned for a long moment before Twilight cleared her throat. “I’ve, uh, got the next spell lined up…”

It was early evening when Twilight gave in and said, “We need to write to Luna.”

“Finally,” groaned Moondog. It had taken to pacing around the room in frustration, as in sideways on the walls themselves. It jumped down and landed on the floor without a sound. “And it only took-”

“NO!” yelled Starlight. The papers around her scattered. “Not yet! There’s still-”

“Starlight, I feel like I’m trying to learn a crash course on blindfolded upside-down juggling on unicycles in a few hours for a performance,” said Twilight. “As much I want it to be otherwise, learning a new branch of magic isn’t something you can do quickly, and Luna’s still going to know something’s up when Moondog isn’t in the dream realm in a few hours.”

“Yeah, see,” said Moondog, “I have a job to do, and-”

“-you still decided to play hooky for revenge on me,” said Starlight wearily. She’d been working too long and felt too guilty to be angry.

“Well…”

“I’m gonna go get Spike,” said Twilight. “Be back in a bit. Please don’t kill each other.” Taking a pen and paper with her, she trotted out of the library.

Starlight looked at Moondog. Moondog looked at Starlight. Starlight looked away. “Sorry,” she said.

“I’m not even supposed to be able to exist out here,” said Moondog. “Just, you know, FYI.”

“How do you, um, feel?” asked Starlight, forcing herself to look at Moondog again. It was lying stretched out on a carpet. “Physicality’s gotta be weird to a dream… person.”

“Well, it’s not that bad,” said Moondog casually, waving a hoof in a circle. A pause. “Except that I’m on fire. With weights around my hooves. And my wings bound. And the weights and bindings are also on fire. Submerged in acid. With the consistency of tar.”

“Oh. I’m… sor-”

“And the acidic tar is ALSO also on fire.”

“…I’m-”

“There’s a lot of fire, is what I’m saying.”

“…-”

Moondog burst into flames. “Fire!”

Twilight chose that moment to return. “Okay, I wrote and sent the letter, so now the only thing to do is how did Moondog get lit on fire?”

The fire vanished without any smoke. “Shapeshifting with what little magic I have. Only thing I can do.”

“Ah. Well, I’m not sure when Luna will be here. I don’t even know if she’s awake. It could be a few minutes, could be an hour, could be-”

A pop, and Luna indelicately pushed open the door to the library. Her gaze swept over the room like a scanning spell. “What, precisely, happened?” she asked.

“STARLIGHT DID IT!” yelled Moondog, jumping in front of Luna.

The second she saw Moondog, Luna bit herself on the wing and flinched. “Well. That removes the… more preferable option, unfortunately. I had hoped…” She walked around Moondog, examining it from all angles. “How did-”

“Starlight. Did it.”

“She did,” confirmed Twilight.

“I really did,” Starlight said quickly. Deep breath. “So after the dream I had while you had Celestia’s cutie mark and vice versa, I… decided to teach myself some dream magic to protect myself. When I fell asleep, Moondog came into my dream and tried to get back at me for what I did to you, and then-”

Luna turned on Moondog, who was trying to hold its head high and look small at the same time, and somehow succeeding. “I thought I told you,” Luna said quietly, “to not worry about me.” Her voice had the solid, unyielding strength of a brick wall.

“And I didn’t!” said Moondog. “I skipped over improving your dreams two nights ago and went straight to other ponies’, just like you asked!”

“Yet you felt the need to enact some sort of retribution for me?”

“It wasn’t that bad!” Starlight said quickly. “Just a-”

Luna didn’t even look in Starlight’s direction. “Pray tell, what could you do to her that I could not?”

“It’s just-!” Moondog jerkily gestured around. “She-! And you-!” It folded its front legs and looked away, ears back.

“It is no matter,” Luna said in the voice of a disappointed parent. “What’s done is done.” She turned back to Starlight. “Apologies. Continue.”

Starlight swallowed. “So she- it- Moondog was in my dream, and I cast a spell that was supposed to get rid of nightmares — whichIreallyshouldn’thavedoneI’msosorry — and…” She pointed at Moondog and smiled weakly. “Ta-daaaaaaa…”

“Noisemakers, confetti, mirthful frolicking,” Moondog said flatly. It reclined on the air and decided the ceiling needed to feel the wrath of its gaze. “So what’re you gonna do, Mom?”

“We’ve been trying different thaumic spells,” Twilight said, “but they haven’t been affecting Moondog at all for some reason.”

Luna’s face was stony. She pawed at the ground. She rustled her wings. She took a deep breath. “There is nothing I can do. Spells in the physical world cannot affect Moondog in any way whatsoever, at least not on any scale we can manage.”

“Well,” said Moondog, sounding unsurprised, “ain’t. That. Just. A load. Of giggles.” Starlight wanted to scream. She’d just wanted to not have nightmares. Why did that have to somehow result in ripping somebody from their home dimension?

“There is a reason, I promise.” Luna began pacing around the room. “You… may recall that the first Tantabus’s rather hazy directive drove it to attempt to leave the dream realm and turn Equestria into a waking nightmare.”

“Is that even possible?” Starlight asked. “Shouldn’t dream magic not work outside dreams?” (Twilight suddenly had a pen and paper and was looking at Luna like she was about to reveal the secrets of the universe.)

“Thaumic magic is different from dream magic is different from chaos magic, and they all have their own separate points of origin,” said Luna, “but they are all still magic. Dream magic may not be as adept at manipulating the physical world as chaos or thaumic magic, but sufficient dream magic could still do so, and without any limitations of the other two.” She levitated up a pencil and twirled it around in the air. “I could do this relying solely on dream magic, but it would take more effort than lifting this entire castle with thaumic magic.”

Starlight looked over. If Moondog was listening or grasped the implications, it certainly didn’t look it; it was still stretched out above the table, still staring at the ceiling.

“To avoid a similar situation with what would become Moondog,” Luna continued, “I did my best to sever the connection between it and the physical realm. It could not enter the physical realm from the dream one, and even if that should occur, it would be unable to interact with physical objects in any way, directly or magically.” Her voice turned dry as she said, “At least that much seems to have worked.”

“So why didn’t you change it when Moondog didn’t go crazy?” asked Starlight. “It’s still a person, it shouldn’t have been trapped in dreams like it was! Not removing those limits was just… wrong.”

Luna opened her mouth, then slowly closed it and looked at a point just to one side of Starlight. She tilted her head. “Hmm.”

“Is… is that a good ‘hmm’?”

“Moondog appears to be attempting to strangle you whilst eating your ear off.”

“What?” Starlight looked at her reflection in the polished surface of a table. Moondog had wrapped all four legs around her neck and was biting on one of her ears. She didn’t feel a thing. She brushed at where Moondog was supposed to be. Although she only felt empty air, Moondog was dislodged and went sprawling across the table.

Moondog was on its hooves in seconds, talking before Starlight could open her mouth. “She just forgot about it,” it said defensively. “She’s a pony and she forgets things and that’s fine. It’s not a problem. I didn’t want to come out here, anyway, so it shouldn’t have even mattered! But you-”

“Moondog, please cease the blame throwing and attempted equivorism,” said Luna sternly. “I have no desire to invent new spells to ground you.”

“I could do it!” Twilight said. “I’ve been rereading that book again and I can’t believe I didn’t recognize how fascinating dream magic is before. It works totally unlike the other forms of magic, and since so few ponies practice it, I’d be treading new ground just about everywhere I-”

“And with Moondog unable to interact with the physical world,” Luna said over Twilight’s babbling, “that includes most forms of magic. No spell you can cast can affect it.”

“So… we can’t get Moondog back into the dream realm because we can’t do magic on it,” Starlight said slowly, “but we can’t do magic on it because it’s not in the dream realm.” A catch-22 if ever there was one.

Moondog sighed. “If you don’t mind, I’m gonna go curl up in a corner and wait to die,” it said.

“I mind quite a bit,” said Luna. “And saying we cannot use magic on you is… not entirely accurate. We cannot use thaumic magic on yo-”

“No no no,” Moondog said immediately. “I know what you’re thinking. Nope. Nope!”

“Nobody else can break barriers such as this so thoroughly.”

“Then there’s only one dignified way out.” A thin, curved sword materialized in Moondog’s hooves, looking like a bad illusion. “Hayra-kirin!” it bellowed, and promptly ran itself through. It flopped limply to the ground.

“You ought not to have antagonized him in the first place,” said Luna.

“Oh, shut up,” said Moondog. “I’m trying to die over here.”

Luna sighed and her horn began glowing. “Discord,” she said to Twilight and Starlight. “It might be possible for him to… affect Moondog where we cannot. Provided he answers the call, naturally.” Her horn winked and flashed, and a blue spark zipped out a window.

“So did something happen between the two of them?” Twilight asked. “It sounds like-”

“Nothing he didn’t deserve!” Moondog said. “And is dying supposed to take this long?”

“Discord is still prone to lord his power over ponies,” said Luna to Starlight and Twilight, “if far more harmlessly than he once did. Moondog felt the need to give him a taste of his own medicine, if only once. They are not on the greatest of terms.” She nudged Moondog. “Please get up. A sword, dream-created or otherwise, does not harm you any more than decapitation.”

“Fine. But I can dream, can’t I?” But Moondog stood up and the sword vanished from its body.

Discord popped into existence above the group in a cloud of sparks. “I’m not so sure,” he said, picking up Moondog by its mane and holding it in front of his face. “You certainly exist in dreams, but that’s different from actually dreaming, isn’t it? I’m not even sure sleep is possible for you.”

“You’re gonna get split ends from all the hairs you’re splitting,” Moondog said, doing its best to not look at Discord.

“I know! How wonderful!” Discord tossed Moondog away. It flared its wings and hovered, glowering at him.

“Greetings, Discord,” Luna said. “I am grateful you could spare the time.”

“Oh, don’t you worry your little horn,” Discord said. He lowered himself to the ground. “It was only a lazy weekend with nothing to do, which is just one step away from the most banal form of order. Really, you’re doing me a favor. Anyway, greetings, Princess Luna, Princess Twilight, Not-Princess Starlight — you really should get working on that, you know — and Certainly-Not-Princess The Other One. Such an uncoarse evening this is, wouldn’t you say?”

Moondog snorted. “You think you’re funny, do you?” it mumbled.

“Well, one of us has to be.” Discord pulled out a megaphone and held it so that his mouth was at the large end, with Luna’s ear at the small end. “Is this about your little accident?” he yelled into the reversed megaphone, although it came out as a whisper. “Please don’t tell me it’s about Accident. That would be so predictable.”

“It is not about Accident,” said Luna, pushing the megaphone away. “It is about Moondog.”

“Close enough.” Discord tossed the megaphone over his shoulder. It knocked over a philodendron and a cat yowled, even though the library contained neither philodendrons nor cats. “So what is this about? Has Accident been a naughtly little tulpa in coming to the real world and you need my help with discipline? I’ve got quite the list of ideas.” Discord smiled and revved his chainsaw.

“No,” Luna said exasperatedly. “Moondog is not in need of discipline. We simply-”

“I could tolerate you if you were less boring, you know,” Discord said to Moondog. “Rebel a little! Lose some marbles, if only the shooters! Don’t play with a full deck, even if you choose to play solitaire! All that limitless power of the dreamscape, and you use it to do exactly what Luna says and nothing else? Ulgh.” He stretched a spoon across his mouth and tied the two ends behind his head.

“It’s called,” snapped Moondog, “a work. Ethic. And just because you don’t have one doesn’t mean I don’t.”

“How uncreative.”

“Moondog actually came out here by accident,” Twilight said, “and we were hoping you could help get it back into dreams.”

“Ah. A glorified taxi driver.” Discord snapped his fingers, conjuring a valet outfit for himself. “Yes, of course,” he said in a godawful Prench accent, “I’d be delighted to utilize my omnipotence to move somebody from point A-” An upside-down teardrop with an “A” appeared above Moondog’s head. Moondog stepped to one side; the teardrop followed. “-to point B.” Starlight yelped as a tear-shaped balloon inflated from her ear. She quickly ripped it out, and didn’t need to look at it to know it had a “B” on it.

Discord’s outfit vanished. “And let’s say that isn’t the case. I don’t see why I should help that one in the slightest after what it did to me.”

“Not really,” Moondog piped up. “He’s just jealous at how thoroughly I can trounce him in his dreams.” It smirked a little. “Having the power to warp reality doesn’t do much good if there isn’t any reality to warp.”

“Just like being able to sculpt dreams doesn’t do much good if there aren’t any dreams to sculpt,” said Discord.

“Yeah, but unlike you, I don’t get all hissy about it.” (Starlight suddenly had to cover up a coughing fit and Twilight became very interested in her notes.)

“Discord, please,” said Luna. “If not for Moondog’s sake, then for mine. I care deeply for it, and I have helped you in the past. You can help me now.”

Discord’s expression softened — just the tiniest, most miniscule bit, but it was there — and he nodded. “You have,” he said thoughtfully. He looked at Moondog again and sighed. “Very well. And you, young tulpa, owe your mother a big, fat ‘thank you’.” He cracked his knuckles, then fixed them with super glue. He pulled a welding torch from his ear (Moondog’s eyes widened) and flipped down a protective mask. “Now, this is going to take a bit of work, so hold still.”

But Moondog galloped across the room and ducked behind Luna. “Nope! Not with that! You’re gonna just burn my head out as revenge! Nope! Not falling for that!”

“Discord…” Twilight said sternly.

“Believe me, harming Accident right now is the last thing on my mind,” Discord said as he twiddled with a dial. A gout of arcane fire leapt from the torch’s nozzle, curling around itself and glowing black and infrared. “I’ve had my fair share of betrayals of trust, thank you, and they are the least entertaining form of chaos. And death is so boring, besides. Accident will be perfectly safe.”

Luna nudged Moondog forward, and it reluctantly stood in front of Discord. “Just make it quick,” it mumbled.

“I’ll do my least worst.” Discord pulled Moondog’s mane off, exposing a mass of nebulaic wires, and began carefully sifting through them.

“Ooo!” Twilight was hovering above Moondog and Discord in a moment for a better look. “I’ve never seen arcanic structures like that before! Although that one- Yeah, that’s definitely related to golemancy… That… Is that psychometry? Its dream version, anyway. And, oh, that one’s gotta be a capacitance amplifier… Oh, wow…”

Starlight couldn’t help herself; she peeked into Moondog’s head. The things she saw were like physical sculptures of spells’ forms. Which, in itself, should’ve been impossible, given the malleability of spells, but there you go. She found herself standing opposite Discord, almost pushing Moondog’s head down to look closer. She didn’t know what half of them did, but those spells were things of beauty, and for once, she fully understood Twilight’s love of studying magic for the sake of studying magic.

“Now, first we…” Discord shoved the torch into Moondog’s head. Moondog twitched, but nothing more.

Starlight didn’t want to admit it, but the way Discord manipulated the magic almost made her envious. He had oodles of power, certainly, but this was the first time she’d realized just how much skill chaos magic took. Although she’d expected him to go about his task like a jackhammer in a china shop, he preserved most of the spells with almost contemptuous ease, only changing a few and always interlacing them in ways that made Starlight’s head spin (not literally, thankfully).

“I take back everything I’ve said about you, Luna,” said Discord. He closed Moondog’s head up and popped a wing off. “This is a very clever design indeed.”

“What have you ever said about me?” demanded Luna.

“Stop squirming, Accident,” said Discord, working his torch into Moondog’s torso. Twilight followed, taking notes like it was her last night on Equus.

“I’m not!” said Moondog. Indeed, it was so still that only its color made it any different from a statue. At least until it coughed and a few kaleidoscoping sparks shot out of its mouth. “Well, okay, I am, but it’s hard to stay still. You keep poking at areas that are really sensitive. Can’t you do this a bit less painfully?”

“Maybe.” Dzzt. “Then again, maybe not.”

“MOOoooOOM!”

“Discord!” Luna yelled. She stomped with enough force to make the room shake. “While I am grateful for your assistance, if you persist in harming my daughter-”

“I’m reworking Accident’s connection to reality itself on the wrong plane of existence while it critiques my technique,” Discord said testily without looking up. “Did you really think that could be done painlessly?”

“Perhaps.” Luna’s voice was tight.

“I don’t see why it shouldn’t,” Twilight said vaguely. Scribble scribble. “You’re working with Moondog’s quiddity, not what passes for its pain receptors…”

“I swear,” Discord muttered, “you make one reality surgery without anesthetic, and suddenly you’re responsible for your patient’s well-being.”

Moondog yelped and pulled away from Discord, massaging its head. “Come on, that was deliberate.”

“Yes, it was. Good for you!”

“Well, quit it!” yelled Moondog. “Or I’ll tell everypony about the Hearth’s Warming party you had with Blueblood and Hoity Toity!”

Discord gasped and his torch went out. “You wou- Wait a minute. Which one?”

“The one with the opera!”

“…Which one?”

“At the playplace in Quesadilla Shack!”

Discord screamed. “You wouldn’t!”

“Try me!”

“Well,” huffed Discord, “so it’s blackmail, is it? How scummy and underhoofed.” Then he smiled. “There might just be hope for you yet.” He turned the torch back on and turned the Pain dial from HOT DANG! to Minimal. “Now, if you’d be so kind…”

Once Moondog was convinced to let Discord continue operating, it all went smoothly. Twilight’s horn glowed all the while, scanning whatever magic Discord was using, as she scribbled down page after page of notes. Luna sat on the floor and watched Discord like a hawk. Starlight paced back and forth, doing her best to avoid thinking about Moondog.

Finally, Discord screwed Moondog’s ear back on and tucked the torch away offpage. “There. All done. How do you feel?”

“Eh…” Moondog flexed its wings. “Not great. But better.” It took a few steps. “What did you do?”

“In laymare’s terms, installed a vitiater.” (“I knew it!” crowed Twilight.) “Any dream magic you use gets converted to chaos magic, and, before you ask, yes, equivalent chaos magic. Sadly.” Discord made a face. “It won’t last forever, but it’s enough to get you back into the dream realm and out of my hair. Just promise me you’ll rebel every now and then.”

“Wait…” Moondog looked at its hooves. “You mean…” It reached up and peeled a bookshelf from the wall like wallpaper. Twilight’s wings tensed up and her breathing became labored.

“Now keep in mind,” Discord said, grinning broadly, “that’s about the most you can warp reality out here. Anything you can do, I can do better. I can do-”

“Don’t care!” Moondog slapped the bookshelf back up on the wall and Twilight let out a long breath. “I just wanna do stuff with… stuff!” It grabbed a book and fanned through it. “I can move things!”

“Oh, and since you’re the only source of dream magic out here,” continued Discord, “you’re basically consuming your own life force by continuing to exist and use magic.”

Moondog just shrugged and reshelved the book. “Hey, I’ve known that since hour one.”

Luna inclined her head at Discord. “Thank you for your assistance, Discord. Moondog, you may have a great deal of freedom, now, but as in the dream realm, you must use this power with restr-”

“Traintotheface!” screamed Moondog, and slammed a train car on top of Discord.

“-aint.” Luna sighed and rubbed her forehead. “Must you?”

“But Moooooom, he-”

“That is irrelevant! You shall not hit people with trains!”

Moondog flicked its tail and rustled its wings. “Fine. But he’s Discord. He can take it.”

Discord pushed open the door to the carriage, looking none the worse for wear, and adjusted a polka-dot tie as the carriage dissolved into butterflies. “Well, that was rude,” he said with a scowl.

“See?”

“That’s some passable rebellion,” Discord said, “but I was hoping for-”

Starlight had had enough. “Hey!” she interrupted. “Will you two kiss already?”

“ANYWAY!” yelled Discord. He shoved a massive scroll at Moondog. “Here’sinstructionsforhowtomakeaportaltothedreamrealmIhopeyouhaveawonderfulinterdimensionaljaunt!”

“ThankyouverymuchIthinkIwillandyoushouldprobablygetgoing!” yelled Moondog, burying its face behind the scroll.

“Ithinksotoofarewelltata!” And Discord was gone.

Moondog didn’t salute so much as blur one of its legs near its forehead and then vanish, reappearing in a distant corner of the library, reading the scroll at ludicrous speeds. Luna and Twilight both stared at Starlight.

“It was the first thing I thought of,” Starlight said, shrugging. “If two people hate each other very much, you can-”

“SoIneedadreamtojumpintodreamssoI’mgonnalookforsomeponytakinganapbye,” said Moondog, blitzing into existence between them and blitzing out again.

“-like magnets,” Starlight said, making pushing motions with her hooves. She blinked. “Did you say something?”

Luna glanced at the empty corner. “I think Moondog has been sufficiently motivated. I shall check in with it tonight and let you know tomorrow if anything more needs to be done.” She glared at Starlight. “Do not practice dream magic unsupervised again,” she said. She said it like the ruler of one nation warning another to stay out of her territory.

Starlight folded her ears down and backed up. “Heh heh… Not likely…”

It was likely.

In Starlight’s dream, the Castle of Friendship was dark and hazy. Echoes of Moondog’s pained voice slipped in and out of hearing, and whenever Starlight turned her head, she saw shadows crumble to dust. Her mind wasn’t exactly subtle.

She wandered up and down the castle’s endless hallways, searching for a way out, but wherever she looked, she was confronted with more images of Moondog potentially dying. After what felt like hours, she couldn’t take it anymore. She had to end this nightmare. She jammed her eyes shut, began shaping her magic for happy thoughts-

“Bring a little more calmness forward. You won’t overshoot your target that way.”

Starlight’s eyes snapped open. Moondog was standing in front of her, leaning on air, looking slightly concerned. “No, I had nothing to do with this,” it said. “No, I’m not tormenting you. Yes, I really am helping you with your dream magic. You’re focusing so much on ‘happy’ that you’ll scream past it and go straight into manic. Trust me.”

Starlight frowned, but, not wanting to be too cynical, closed her eyes again anyway. Calm thoughts. Calm. Now, she just needed to-

“And don’t force it. Let the spell slide in and it’ll be much more natural.”

…What the heck, okay. Starlight let her thoughts linger on calmness and lightly pushed the magic out into the world.

Beneath her hooves, the crystalline floor shifted, distorted, sprouted grass. A cool breeze grabbed lightly at her mane. The echoes vanished and were replaced with that big silence that can only come from wide-open spaces. When Starlight opened her eyes, she and Moondog were standing beneath a cloudy sky in a nondescript, flowered meadow outside a town that looked a lot like, but wasn’t quite, Ponyville.

She couldn’t help but smile a little. She’d done it.

Moondog nodded as it surveyed the field. “Not bad,” it said. “Maybe a little too calm, not enough pep to overcome the depression.” It plucked the clouds from the sky and stuffed them under the grass. “But better than I’d expect.”

Starlight swallowed, her spell-mastery high quickly bubbling away. “Um. Hey.” She still didn’t know how to react. She’d made a huge mistake, but it’d been fixed, but, but, but… At least Moondog had helped her. That had to count for something, right?

“Yo,” Moondog replied. “I wanted to apologize. And before you ask, no, I’m not here because Mom told me to come and apologize. I mean, she did, but I’d be here anyway if she hadn’t.” It rubbed the back of its neck. “I was… a total jerk today. A real -------. A whiner. And that’s before you get to the whole revenge thing.” It snorted. “I mean, no duh she didn’t need my help,” it muttered. “She’s more powerful than me.”

“I should apologize, too,” Starlight said quickly. “I-”

“No, you don’t,” Moondog said equally quickly. “It was-”

“But because of me, you-”

“No, no, listen,” said Moondog. “You have nothing to apologize about. At least not to me. I mean, if you’d known I was gonna get chucked into the physical world, you wouldn’t have cast that spell, right?”

“No!” Starlight said. “Of course not!”

“And then there’s me, who… yeah. I just get really protective about Mom, ’cause she’s the one who made me and all.” Moondog took a deep breath. “Anyway, I got back in here just fine, so let’s just forget about this, alright?” It grinned nervously. Starlight wondered just how often she’d made that exact same grin yesterday. “Sorry.”

“Then you’re forgiven,” Starlight said. “But I really should apologize, I can get… reflexive with magic. Sorry.”

“That’s one way to put it. You’re forgiven, too.” Moondog swept a leg out and bowed.

“What’re you going to do about being able to exist in the real world?” Starlight asked. “Planning on visiting anytime soon?”

“Simply existing out there eats away at my life force,” Moondog said flatly. “What do you think?”

“…I’m gonna take that as a ‘no’.” Starlight paused, then smiled. “So have you kissed Discord yet?”

Starlight didn’t remember what happened after that, but she woke up feeling like she’d been run over by a cruise ship. Worth it.