Fear is not enough. Nor is rage. But love is.

Cinnamon and Canterlot Red Peppers with hints of strawberry and rubies. The taste floods Ocellus' receptors, filling her with life. Giving her the strength she needs.

Love galvanizes the nymph... but it does not take away her pain, nor cure her concussion. Smolder gives Ocellus all the will in the world to go on. But the young dragon's love cannot give the nymph the form or skill she needs to evade and escape Queen Elytra and her hive.

Not with her injuries. Not through the slippery thinness of the moon's air.

Most of Elytra's hive is likely swarming through the palace, but there are plenty of survivors of the battle with Pharynx to harass them outside while the Nightmare hunts Its prey.

Ocellus briefly finds herself thinking of the Tree of Harmony. Twice in her life, the Tree of Harmony appeared to her and her friends.

The first time was in the catacombs beneath the School of Friendship where It tested them, using fears drawn from their hearts to construct a trial that proved friendship was indeed in their nature.

The second time, It pulled them into a shared dream -- a power otherwise only known to Luna -- to alert them of Its passing. The Tree of Harmony, destroyed, was able to use the harmony of their friendship to give itself new life, reincarnating in a form inspired by their combined efforts to forge a way to remember It. The Tree of Harmony was reborn as the Treehouse.

But before she and her friends worked in harmony, they worked separately. Ocellus remembers the meditation nook she designed with help from the leader of her hive's Feelings Forum. And she remembers the giant stone monument that Smolder carved by punching and kicking a boulder the size of a tree into the shape the dragon wanted. Ocellus remembers Smolder flying around, carrying the sculpture several times her size.

Smolder's so strong. It doesn't surprise Ocellus in the slightest that the dragon is carrying Pharynx in one claw while holding her hoof in the other as the dragon weaves around the Palace of Nightmare Moon, racing through the thin, freezing air.

Smolder yaws and dives, dodging a volley of resin from two drones armed with royal jelly sprayers. Ocellus beats her wings as fast as she can. She isn't adding any speed to their flight, just keeping herself aloft so her weight doesn't slow Smolder down.

Smolder spreads her wings and levels out, racing across the rooftop above a row of gothic spires.

Behind them, the Nightmare scurries around one of the palace towers on its spindly legs. It and Queen Elytra stare down at them with a singular hatred. The Nightmare leaps, soaring across the open air.

Smolder pitches upwards and soars as the Nightmare comes crashing down behind them with a resounding DOOM! shattering slate shingles and caving in the hammerbeam roof. The dragon beats her wings, propelling them beyond the grasp of whipping tentacles.

"Dive!" Ocellus shouts as one of the Nightmare's tentacles wraps around a stone thestral gargoyle, tearing it free of the roof and hurling it at the fleeing trio. Smolder reacts immediately, plunging as the stone statue whisks overhead, rasping across the tip of Ocellus' tail membrane.

Smolder loops them over the span of a flying buttress. "Where are we going?" The young dragon grunts softly as she shifts how she is holding Pharynx's weight.

"The oculus room!" Ocellus calls back as she looks behind them. "Luna said she was guiding Gallus and Yona there. That's where the portal can be opened."

All of the Nightmare's eyes swim together, merging like droplets of water, forming one huge ocellus. It stares balefully at her, Queen Elytra clinging to Its back. A rush of horror whispers into Ocellus' mind that the changeling queen directed Its focus away from Its prey for too long, and now Elytra is no longer in control.

Slipping shapes writhe up the Nightmare's amorphous form, rippling up Its sides and across it's back, merging together. The Nightmare sprouts four huge, oily-black calliphora wings, beating them against the air. The back two drum in counter-rhythm as It pushes off of the roof, sending more rubble into the banquet hall below.

"Smolder, It's flying now!" Ocellus warns as Smolder whips her about, dodging the bright lime comets of a trio of drones.

Ocellus sees them smash into the palace's central tower, two cratering the walls. One hits a reticulated window and rebounds, the ghostly image of magical chains shimmering across the stained glass.

The Nightmare flies with the grace of a bugbear. It roars as It closes the gap. Not a primordial, panic-inducing screech but a sheer bellow of hatred. Ocellus wonders if It has finally realized that making Its prey flee isn't the best tactic.

Smolder pulls in closer to the tower, weaving between the flying buttresses, using them for cover. Several drones above them begin to hurl green orbs. Royal jelly explodes across the tower and buttresses, the goo hardening into knives. Their aim is good. Her dragon is better.

"Yeah, but where is this Oculus Room?" Smolder shouts, hefting Pharynx to get a better grip on the unconscious Protector of the Hive.

"I have no idea," Ocellus calls back. She can't check her map, and Smolder's erratic flying has obliterated her sense of direction. "It's supposed to be an exterior building. Look for an oculus."

"Right," Smolder nods, winging around a spire and diving back towards the buttresses on the opposite side of the palace. "...what's an oculus?"

"It's..." Ocellus almost wants to sigh. "...an eye. An eye-like, circular opening, usually at the top of a dome."

Ocellus spots a flicker of orange flying about below.

"Another eye thing?" Smolder asks. "Wait, are you sure it isn't an ocellus room?"

Ocellus pouts at her girlfriend. She mimics Smolder's voice perfectly. "You're terrible and I hate you."

Smolder smugs at her.

The air erupts in thunder as the Nightmare smashes through a flying buttress behind them, sending a spray of rubble through the frigid air. Ocellus feels her chitin pelted by debris. A chunk of palace stone the size of a yak flies just beneath her. The stone tumbles through the air to slam into the wall of another palace wing, crashing through the wall into a ballroom, pulverizing the dance floor with a bounce, and tearing out the other side.

Smolder dives, shooting into the wreckage of the ballroom. The Nightmare hits the roof, cracking several of the hammerbeams with a resounding DOOM!

The pipe organ at the end of the room begins to pour out discordant notes. The room goes black. The sloshing, stabbing sound of the Nightmare on the roof above becomes percussion to the pipe organ's dissonant dirge.

"Seriously?!" Smolder shouts, slowing down.

"Keep going!" Ocellus calls, reaching back to unclasp one of her saddlebags. She wishes she could put up her collision barrier in front of Smolder, just in case they miss the exit created by the stone and slam into a wall.

"Wasn't planning to stop!" Smolder says as they burst out of the darkness, swooping back outside, Pharynx's tail membrane dragging briefly through the regolith. She pulls Pharynx closer, awkwardly getting him under her arm. Ocellus imagines her claws must be starting to cramp.

Ocellus looks back.

On the roof above, the Nightmare watches her with Its ocellus. Suddenly, Its body erupts with myriad forms. As if dozens of creatures are trapped within and are trying to break out. Oily, covered in black ooze that envelops them like paint. Ocellus recognizes the creatures pressing against the Nightmare's liquid, sloughing chitin from within.

Dragon-Ocellus.
Bugbear-Ocellus.

A shock of absolute horror knifes cruelly through her.

Pony-Ocellus.
Seapony-Ocellus.

Below, the darkness ripples away, leaving the molten carapace form of the poltergeist. It stares at her with its one glowing eye. Its single, dead ocellus.

Ocellus opens her saddlebag -- the one with all the rubble in it. She pours out all the fragments of the onyx pillars that Smolder had broken when the dragon was blasted into the final clock room.

"Up! Fast!" she shouts, hoping desperately that her dumb plan will work.

Smolder beats her wings harder, pulling them upwards as the onyx stones hit the regolith. The poltergeist pauses, its ocellus turning to the shower of rubble. The Nightmare remains focused only on Ocellus, more forms writhing beneath its liquid ebony skin.

Puckwudgie-Ocellus.
Rock-Ocellus.

All the forms from her nightmare last night. Ocellus sees them open their mouths in screams of agony and horror. But the only sounds are the hisses of her name.

The regolith below erupts in a violent thunderstorm of ethereal white flashes. Bursts of spectral white light so brilliant they wash away everything but the Nightmare.

Bat-Ocellus.
Bunny-Ocellus.

Air rushes past her far faster than Smolder's slowing descent. The ashen sands of the moon swirl into a vortex around a dozen clustered points of vacuum. Space itself seems to bend and warp around the cataclysm.

Ocellus' heart beats fast. Queen Elytra nearly killed her with this same trick back in the center of her hive. She wasn't sure if the queen had enhanced the stones with her magic, if the unstable magic within the damaged artifacts would trigger on their own. The nymph realizes how insanely dangerous it has been carrying those around as she sees the plan work all too well.

The rubble of the broken wall flies into the storm, vanishing in brilliant flashes of ethereal white light. Ocellus watches as the yak-sized stone is dragged through the regolith, breaking apart and dissolving into blue smoke as it is devoured by the vortex. She hears the scream of the poltergeist slash through her psyche like rusty knives as the existential collapse rips the dark essence out from whatever is left of the dead thing.

Smolder's ascent against gravity, wind and the pull of the cataclysm slows, then stops. Ocellus can hear the dragon grunting as she beats her wings harder. But they are sliding back towards the maelstrom.

The Nightmare staggers, pulling back onto the rooftop. Its shifting flesh pulls towards the vortex like black licorice taffy.

Last night, Ocellus' nightmare began with a dream of the day Starlight Glimmer and Thorax invaded Queen Chrysalis' hive. It started with her as the love-starved changeling she once was. Ocellus watches that former self strain up from the flesh of the Nightmare, bursting its eye. She screams at her, trapped within the Nightmare.

The words slam into Ocellus like a charging yak, knocking the wind and strength out of her.

Is she? Or am I?

The taffy-swirl of liquid chitin is pulled into the vortex. The Nightmare screams. Ocellus has seen It take dozens of Wrath-fueled blasts, but this is the first time she believes the Nightmare has actually been wounded.

The Nightmare turns and flees.

Ocellus' eyes clinch tight to protect her from the swirling regolith as the trio is sucked downward towards devouring oblivion. The flashes of white burn through her eyelids, seeming to only intensify.

Without warning, the maelstrom implodes.

Ocellus, Smolder and Pharynx fall to the moon in a rain of regolith.

Ocellus feels several of the blisters beneath her chitin burst as she hits. She screams, her cry of pain becoming violent coughing as she breathes in course moondust.

She hears Smolder moaning and coughing next to her. She tries to get up, but hot pain sears through her breast and abdomen. Her head throbs harder than ever, like an earth pony is applebucking her skull.

She leans, opening her eyes, looking around. She sees Smolder pulling Pharynx's muzzle out of the regolith. "H-he's okay."

Ocellus feels the moon shiver, the course dust shifting under her body. There is a crackling sound, and it is growing louder.

Smolder stands, looking past Ocellus. Her friend's orange scales have become fiery, lit by an apricot glow. Flame dances in the blue of her eyes.

Ocellus sees her own stark shadow grow in the amber light. Feels the quickly mounting heat. She remembers seeing a spark of orange light flying about below them just before everything got crazy.

Smolder stares with lidded eyes. "The fire'ling, I presume?"

Ocellus turns. The drone of fire stares down at them from the ashen dune above. It steps forward and the infernal heat banishes the freezing cold of the moon. The fire'ling leaves flickering hoofprints in the regolith that quickly gutter out.

Fire bursts out around it. Ocellus gasps as Smolder leaps in front of her, wings spread, blocking the flame. "I am not the slightest bit scared of you," the dragon growls, fire licking from her own muzzle.

The regolith trembles again.

Smolder spins, her wide eyes darting across the lunar surface. The fire'ling advances on her while her back is turned.

Ocellus feels the hard tug as her saddlebags pull painfully against her chitin. In a fluid burst of motion, Smolder has grabbed her by them while snatching Pharynx by the tail. The young dragon flies upwards with adrenaline-fueled speed.

Below, Ocellus can see the fire'ling glare upwards with eyes like tiny suns. Tongues of flame spread from its back, forming wings.

The regolith erupts in a geyser as the moonshark's open jaw bursts up around the fire'ling, snapping shut as the gigantic white-scaled eel dives back beneath the moon's surface.

"I see it!"

Ocellus lets out a breath of sheer relief. Still, she keeps her eyes open. The drones stopped attacking when the Nightmare fled carrying their queen with It. But the reprieve they are enjoying will be brief.

Smolder wings about, swooping towards a huge, circular, domed structure. The Oculus Room resides at the end of a long covered walkway with a translucent canopy that connects it to Nightmare Moon's Palace. Sections of the canopy have collapsed.

The fight with the Nightmare and Elytra's drones was on the far side of the palace. Ocellus suspects the damage is from the moon's only wildlife: moonsharks.

As Smolder glides down towards the walkway, Ocellus can see trellis walls covered in long-dead cousins of the plants in the conservatory. Her friend dips down through the broken canopy and pulls up, landing before a pair of giant, blue slate doors carved with images of a triumphant night.

The crash of the canopy breaking is far away and all too close. Ocellus and Smolder spin to see the Nightmare sloughing into the far end of the walkway. Ocellus feels numb as she sees the abomination is still crowned with the head of her love-starved nightmare self. The black carapaced nymph from her dream who failed to share her love.

In unison, Smolder and Ocellus rush for the door, the dragon pulling Pharynx with her.

The door refuses to open.

"It's locked!" Smolder cries out.

Ocellus almost feels the stench of moldy, rotted, burning pumpkins slam into her. The gurgling sound, like hundreds of creatures suffering messy indigestion, grows louder and closer. Beneath that horrible sound is the mounting buzz of wings.

Ocellus glances back. The Nightmare has already closed half the distance. And behind It, the stars are blotted out by Queen Elytra's army. The swarm must be thousands strong!

Ocellus frantically digs into her saddlebags for Nightmare Moon's Seal. Then freezes as she realizes there is no lock on this side. The door can only be unsealed from within.

The sloshing, spilling sound grows rapidly louder. And with it, the myriad of voices, all hers.

With a clank and a scraping groan, one of the blue slate doors opens. Gallus and Yona quickly usher them inside, the yak helping drag in the unconscious Pharynx.

Gallus slams the door shut in the faces of the Nightmare, thrusting another copy of Nightmare Moon's Seal into the lock and twisting it. Spectral chains briefly flash across the doors as a mountain of wet slams into them from the other side.

Ocellus stares at the Seal. She recalls returning to the Throne Room with Yona and Pride:

Immediately, she knows where he got the concentrated essence to make it. Her mind flashes to the griffon's first reaction to the Nightmare, before It crashed through the ceiling:

Smart, clever griffin! Ocellus thinks fondly.

The changeling nymph wobbles on her hooves, catching her breath. She is thankful for the thicker air. Her head swims and she stumbles, only for Gallus to catch her. The thump to her other side tells her Smolder dropped Pharynx to do the same, but the griffin was quicker.

Less exhausted, more likely.

Fatigue and lingering heat exhaustion sap what little strength Ocellus has foraged. She slips from Gallus' grip, collapsing onto her hooves, breathing heavily. Her head swims again, and she really wants to pass out. She doesn't, but for the life of her, she can't say why not.

Ocellus stares at the floor. All around her, her friends are voicing concern. Her head feels abnormally heavy as she tries to lift it.

Gallus is asking Smolder what happened to them. Smolder is telling them, albeit in a somewhat crass fashion. One that skips everything personal, praises Ocellus, makes them both out to be hugely amazing, and involves the Nightmare eating Gallus' toy crossbow.

Ocellus chuckles. She looks up, smiling at her friends. "I'll be okay," she lies, not wanting to worry them. "Just tired." She won't be okay. She needs a hospital. She's not going to get one.

The monster forged from her nightmares is upon them. She has to get her friends home now. And some creature still needs to stay behind in this room and destroy the portal. She's not going to sacrifice King Thorax's brother. Not that he is in any condition to break the portal anyway.

Ocellus lifts her head, the pain in her skull having shifted to feeling like she is being hit gently but insistently in the back of her brain with a hammer. A thud for every heartbeat.

The pounding in her head echoes the Nightmare's wet pounding on the door. She looks behind her, seeing the magical lock shake, the ghostly chains rattling with each impact. Ocellus pulls her gaze away, slowly turning her head to take in the rest of the vast, singular room.

The oculus room is massive, and almost completely barren. Concentric rings of stonework circle into the center where the emblem of a full moon is set in silver. Each stone is engraved with an image of a star.

The lower quarter of the wall is built of ebony bricks, reminding Ocellus of the bathroom off the Grand Hall. Above the brickwork, stained glass in a multitude of blues and purples are held within arching flame tracery that converges on the oculus at the top of the dome.

Four giant statues of Nightmare Moon, each the size of adult dragons, sit in cardinal directions, their heads lifted haughtily, their wings raised to touch each other beneath the dome, framing the oculus above.

Through the glass of the oculus, Ocellus can see her world. The white fluffy patterns of clouds swimming over the greens and browns of the continents and the blue of the oceans. She can see the continent she calls home at the edge of shadow and realizes it is morning in Equestria.

With a heavy breath, she looks back to the ebony brick walls. To her left and right, tapestries line the walls between the statues. The largest depicts Luna standing triumphant over a broken Celestia.

Not Nightmare Moon. Luna.

Ocellus shudders, finding that somehow the most twisted thing she has seen tonight.

Behind her is the exterior exit. Before her, across from the exit, is a dais with another throne. And above the throne is a circular mirror. The ornate moonsilver frame looks like the tortured corona of a solar eclipse. Nearly identical to Nightmare Moon's Seal.

The mirror is dark. It does not reflect the room. Instead, Luna gazes back at her from it. She looks weak and heartbroken. Ocellus thinks she understands why. With an expression of immense sadness, Luna mouths the words: I am sorry.

Followed by: hurry!

Ocellus nods in response. Hurry, yes. She can hear the Nightmare outside. The drumming vibration of the drones is building as the swarm surrounds the Oculus Room outside. She has to hurry and...

Ocellus realizes she has no idea what to do. She wasn't expecting an obvious portal artifact like Luna's mirror portal, but she expected something. She looks around again, expecting to find holes in the four giant statues that the anti-Elements would fit into. Or maybe on the floor. But she doesn't see anything like that.

Still laying on her hooves, Ocellus turns her head to grasp the belt of her saddlebag and tugs. She pulls off her saddlebag, feeling very uncertain.

"Smolder, can I have Gallus' bag?" Greed and Envy are in it.

Smolder nods, shucking the saddlepack and passing it to her with a claw.

"Every creature, please stand back."

Gallus backpedals. "Yeah, I don't want to be anywhere near Envy when it comes out." The griffon spreads his wings, taking to the air and backflying until he hits a tapestry.

"Yona not want evil stone either!" The yak moves nearly to the throne.

Smolder backs up more slowly, but gives Ocellus some room.

Ocellus dumps the contents of her saddlebags and Gallus' pack. The anti-Elements clatter against the stonework among a rain of school supplies, books and dice.

She feels herself on the verge of crying as she looks not at Envy, Wrath, Pride or Greed... but at the dice bag Sandbar gave her for Hearth's Warming. If she stays, she'll never see him again. This bag will be the one thing she has to remember her friend by. He's not even here to say goodbye to.

She doesn't even notice as the four anti-Elements begin to glow. But they tear her gaze away from Sandbar's gift as they pull themselves up out of her pencils and notebooks.

Ocellus watches as the anti-Elements lift up, swirling about each other: angry red, sickly green, ghastly white and unhallowed gold. The anti-elements glide towards the center of the room and circle about the silver moon. Then rise upwards.

In their wake, a crystalline doorway appears, the frame made of a thin, reed-like lattice, shimmering with moonlight. Crystal facets reflect the colored lights of the vices that conjured them. It looks precious and incredibly fragile. The top of the doorway is adorned with a twisting spire that looks like an alicorn's horn. It points out of the oculus. Towards her world. The world in the sky.

The doorway floods with a pale, ethereal light.

Ocellus's ears twitch at the sound of a wet, hitching breath. She turns, her eyes widening as she sees Yona sniffling, tears welling in the young yak's eyes.

"Yona sorry! Yona so sorry, Ocellus!" the yak suddenly wails. "Yona going home. Yona miss family. Miss Sandbar. Miss..."

"What!?" Ocellus cries out, aghast. Yona flinches, but Ocellus continues. "Of course you're going home! All of you are going home!"

Ocellus pushes herself to her hooves, staring. When did that even become a thing in question!?

Smolder says bluntly. "Nope."

Gallus strides over to Smolder and turns to face Ocellus. "Yeeeeah, that's not going to happen."

Ocellus turns her stare on Gallus and Smolder.

Smolder crosses her arms. "I'm staying."

Ocellus is reeling. "But..."

Gallus nods. "I'm not abandoning my friend on the moon. I'm staying. You'd do the same for me." The blue griffon points a talon at her. "In fact, you did. Remember our first Hearth's Warming? You could have gone home to your family, but you chose to stay with me."

Ocellus steps towards him, her brow furrowing crossly. "Gallus! This isn't for a holiday! This could be forever!"

"All the more reason," Gallus retorts.

Ocellus feels an icy whirlpool of panic swirling about her. She turns to Smolder.

"You know why I'm staying," the dragon girl tells her. "Don't make me say it."

Gallus looks away. "Way I see it, if any one of us should be left here alone, it should be me."

"WHAT!?" Ocellus, Smolder and Yona cry out in unison. All eyes turn to the griffon.

Gallus flatly stares at the lot of them. "I'm an orphan, remember? I know how to live on my own. I can handle it."

"It's not a calculation of who would be best!!" Ocellus shouts at him.

I'm not going to treat people, especially my friends, like a math problem!

Gallus presses on. "And unlike all of you, I don't have a family to go back to. You guys are it. I'm not turning my back on that." He looks pointedly at Ocellus. "Or on you."

Ocellus falls to her haunches, stunned. What was playing out before her... this was the true nightmare.

Bizarrely, the questions from Rarity's test float back to her mind.

...and the fourth question -- the last one -- which she had barely read...

Ocellus feels everything in her world falling apart.

Part of her wants to let Smolder and Gallus stay. She needs them. But Gallus' words nail home just how selfish and horrible that would be. Smolder has a brother she cares deeply about. Staying here would tear the dragon she loves away from him forever. Ocellus can't and won't be the creature who does that. She's not a love-starved changeling! She doesn't separate people who care about each other so she can feed on one of them!

Ocellus clinches her eyes tight and focuses. Her head detonates in wrathful pain, black lightning tearing through her skull. The agony is so bad she almost wants to die. She screams! The scream comes out a roar!

Bright novas of pain and light flash through her brain as her head hits the wings of the giant Nightmare Moon statues, snapping them. She opens her eyes as she hears the pieces thudding down on the floor below, frightened at the thought they might have hit someone. Or the portal.

Below her, the portal remains intact, its aperture glowing with spectral light. Her friends are staring up at her. Gallus' beak hangs open, as does Yona's mouth. Their eyes are wide, filled with wonder and fright.

The expression on Smolder's face keeps changing as a plethora of emotions fight for dominance behind her eyes. Ocellus knows Smolder is remembering what she said about turning into Dragon Lord Torch.

Ocellus has never met Torch. But she has met Greed-enlarged Smolder.

Before the emotions in Smolder's face can include betrayal, Ocellus sweeps the three of them and the unconscious Pharynx through the open portal with her massive dragon tail.

Green flashes of light from above draw Ocellus' attention to the oculus. Scores of shapes move against the curtain of space, black against black. Only the first rays of pre-dawn light against the contours of chitin reveal the swarm amassing beyond the walls of the domed room.

Ocellus raises her massive, orange fist over the fragile latticework doorway home.

And pauses.

With a flash of turquoise, she sheds the form of Greed-enlarged Smolder, returning to her natural self again.

"Ocellus?" Luna's voice is tinged with worry.

Ocellus beats her wings, hovering up to the portal. So close she can feel its effervescent light. She could fly through. Be back with her friends. Be home. She has that choice.

If she does, Queen Elytra will follow. The Nightmare will follow. And soon after, all the nightmares of Equestria. She can't let that happen.

If she destroys the portal, she has to let Queen Elytra have Pride again. She doesn't know what will happen to the other anti-Elements. But this hive has nothing else to feed on. They will all die without Pride. Horribly and painfully.

Too many have died already.

Ocellus drifts. She slowly circles about the open portal. She doesn't need to be a giant dragon to destroy it. She just needs to choose to. She understands what she believes is at stake. She has no intention of allowing her world to be invaded by a powerful and dangerous new threat. She is not hesitating because she is tempted.

Except for choosing to follow Thorax's example -- to share her love and transform -- this is the most important decision of her life. She should not make it lightly or in haste.

DOOM!!!

Ocellus looks up to see the Nightmare crouched over the oculus, staring down at her with pure hate. She is unsurprised to see Queen Elytra riding It's back. Since the Nightmare appeared, the queen has been practically attached to it.

The Nightmare raises a massive claw formed of hundreds of fangs. And SLAMS it down against the circular window.

DOOM!!!

The glass is thick and as strong as armor, but a single crack threads out from the impact. Phantom chains appear, only to flicker.

Ocellus glares at it, annoyed. Such timing. Almost as if It is trying to rush her. Ocellus refuses to be rushed. She promises herself that she'll destroy the portal the moment Queen Elytra breaks into the oculus room. But she is taking every moment she gets before then to make sure doing so isn't a mistake.

The throne is now behind her. She cannot see Luna's expression, but she can hear the worry in her voice.

"Ocellus, there is no time to waste," Luna urges. "It will not take long for that monster to break through."

"Luna, please, let me think."

The changeling nymph reviews what she knows. Everything leads her to the same lonely, heartbreaking conclusion. One that leaves her stranded on the moon for the rest of her life. Alone, save for visits from Luna. Ocellus remembers the tale of Tantabus and the shared dream Luna wove. Perhaps Luna could weave shared dreams for her and her friends? Or at least her and Smolder? If they were lucid, they'd even be able to share real love in the dream.

Luna did say the moon was part of her domain. Yet at the same time, considering the amount of magic required to open a portal between Equestria and here, creating a shared dream between the two may be untenable or even dangerous. Not that she shouldn't ask; she should just be ready for the answer to be "no".

Above, the Nightmare hammers at the oculus, filling the building with the drumbeat of doom. More cracks begin to spiderweb across its surface. The phantom chains appear again and again, glowing as they rattle. Ringing as they begin to crack.

Ocellus reviews again. Everything she knows leads her to the same answer. But there is so much she still doesn't know. She delves into her mental notebook of Unanswered Questions. Some she can cross off, but there are still a worrisome number that she cannot...

...and some questions have answers that seem perfunctory. Ocellus' mind returns to the question that troubles her most. The most fundamental question.

Why are there changelings on the moon?

Why didn't Queen Chrysalis simply devour Elytra? It would have been in keeping with the ways of love-starved changelings. Why banish her, knowing that left a threat? Ocellus finds it impossible to believe the same Queen who abandoned the hive's larva to die was moved by some maternal instinct or love for her child.

And even if Chrysalis was feeling maternal, why the moon? The moon was Luna's domain. Ocellus could understand Luna banishing someone to the moon. Or someone -- Celestia, obviously -- banishing Luna here. But Chrysalis? How would the moon have even become a consideration?

And how would she do it? She had no anti-Elements, nor Elements of Harmony. Queen Chrysalis didn't even know about the Tree of Harmony. Nor does the magic of a changeling queen have any connection to the moon. The moon is Luna's domain. Like night and dreams.

How ironic that she was dreaming of being a love-starved changeling, of Queen Chrysalis and her hive, the night before the field trip.

Ocellus feels a cold trickle down her back.

That was an ominous coincidence... unless it wasn't.

You chose what you saw in my roots, not me.

That cold trickle grows into a frigid waterfall pouring through her spine. What if she is the reason there are love-starved changelings on the moon?

She's thought it before: this ordeal has made manifest one personal nightmare after another. How much has everything tonight seemed focused obscenely on her?

Right down to the eye thing. The symbolic violation.

Okay, I have to ask, why the eye?!

What if that is the reason? What if it is personal?

Are you sure you didn't create this place?

Ocellus feels numb, a single word on the forefront of her mind. No.

It's a puzzle! I love puzzles.

Ocellus whispers plaintively, "No."

I literally haven't told you anything you didn't already know.

DOOM!!!

With a mighty crash, the oculus shatters. The Nightmare tears Its way through the top of the dome and drops to the floor before Ocellus and the portal. Queen Elytra shouts her victory.

Ocellus doesn't care. She's done. She knows the truth now. The moment it became a consideration, it could not be denied... and the revelation washes away all the pain, leaving only the fatigue behind and a notion that the pain should be there.

"Smolder never woke me up."

Behind her, Ocellus hears Luna's surprised voice come from the mirror. "What?"

Ocellus sighs dryly. "I just transitioned from one nightmare to another."

Behind her, she hears Luna asking softly, "How did I not realize this?"

She doesn't care. It doesn't matter. "I'm still dreaming. None of this matters."

Ocellus slowly lands, her hooves setting down on the stonework. She clenches her eyes shut. Her voice is one of finality.

"I want to wake up now!"

With a gasp, the voice of Luna cries out, "Ocellus, NO!!"

Next Chapter: Chapter 18: Real Things Estimated time remaining: 35 Minutes