XIV. Terrible Canyons of Static

LUNA

Luna slipped away from Rarity and left her to the sweet embrace of the dream. She smiled, knowing her body back at home smiled as well. It was a good dream. She clung to the good dreams, especially in these days and especially in this environment.

The Firmament of Night was dark, as was its nature. Black, not the absence of things but the Presence of them, like darkness visible. One swam here, like in the blinding color of the Lunar Aether… but it was best not to think about that.

Instead, she watched the tiny wandering lights.

Each light was an individual dream. Each was a pony or a griffon or a zebra, sleeping somewhere in peace or in danger, satisfied or hungry. Their dreams drifted like worried fire. Worried, she thought, and turned the word over in her mind. It echoed here, for here she was only her mind in a place that had no material.

The white lights were as they should be. They drifted and were undisturbed. The red ones were nightmares. Nightmares were a part of life. Luna had watched them through the long years before and after her rebellion. Her gaze had been wary. Her attention had been keen. Not always did she intervene—often, intervention would only make a dream worse. Nightmares served a purpose, and though it had taken pain and experience to discover this, they were willing to fight for their own survival. The nightmares were a scourge, yes, but not always an unnecessary one. A stallion dreamt of an angry wife and woke to his own infidelity. She remembered the first time it had made sense to her, when such a thing had happened.

But some nightmares, some intrusions upon the otherwise safe haven of sleep, Luna could not tolerate. Some nightmares were not simply a dull crimson. Some flashed red, angrily buzzing and stirring up the Firmament with malicious intent. Within, there was no reminder or trial but only suffering. Undeserved, unwarranted suffering. These were the nightmares that drove ponies mad if left to attach to them.

And attach they would. There were other things that lived in this land besides dreams and herself. Wispy, cloud-like Whims floated through in herds or in pairs, and they were more or less harmless, but the same could not be said of the Furies. They rocketed through the inky blackness, finding weak hearts or wounded souls, and they burrowed inside. They knew no mercy. They recognized no quarter nor gave any. They knew only to consume and to beguile. They knew how to cling and how to fester.

The Furies had been her main concern in this realm during the Long Night. Spirits fell, and they descended, hungry. Fighting them one at a time had sapped her strength, and she had been afraid of asking Twilight Sparkle. She had not trusted her spirit. It was such a cruel thing to say to ponies like Twilight who would not understand. But without conviction, there was weakness in the realm of Idea, and Luna had seen the monsters that the Furies made.

But while they still swarmed, they had become manageable. At first, months ago, Luna had congratulated herself. Through hard work, she’d slain them! That was the only real explanation. The ponies of Canterlot seemed to rest easier at night without knowing why or how. Certainly they dreamed in happier states.

But before that, she had found a curious thing.

One day, long before, she had found a dream with black veins running through it. It had been the dream of a petty Canterlot thug, the kind that crawled in the filth of the alleyways and fed off of the fear of the weak and the drunk. The veins of darkness seemed to pulse if pulse weakly. How she had observed it with wide, curious eyes! How close she had come to this tiny dream and how close she had come to touching it! Even now, she shuddered.

Of course, before Luna was able to investigate, the veins of darkness had grown and lashed out, liquid and vile, and tried to ensnare her. With hooves formed of idea, she crushed them, but not before the veins had touched her. Her mind had filled with terrible noises and endless echoes. She had seen a great, desolate plain where no sun ever reached, and she had thought perhaps there were mountains, but the vision had been washed away by searing pain—first hot and then cold.

She had woken in a cold sweat and scrubbed the spots where the darkness had touched. She had scrubbed them raw.

But there was no explanation for all of that trouble. Even now, the black veins, pulsing strongly now with dark purplish hints of movement, strangled dreams left and right. They seared on touch. When she walked here, she now tread carefully. Much of her night was spent corralling the untouched dreams and trying to keep them from straying into the thicket. But even with her care, the veins ensnared new dreamers.

She had tried to cut them away, but rescuing only a few at a time had left her wracked. Her mind was confused and reeled, and it took days just to feel like herself again. But she had seen such terrible, incomprehensible things.

One of those things had been Jannah.

Luna looked away from the snares. She had a rendezvous with them. It was still ahead, but she had a reckoning planned. She just needed Spike to arrive and wake her up.

Time passed, or at least, it seemed to. Time was soft in the dreaming.

But at last, light flooded the aether, and she opened her eyes to the late afternoon. She lay sprawled on the surface of her bed, mane without its starry glory. Her adornment was put away. It was only Luna as she had come into the world, as was proper when visiting the world of dreaming. Her head felt foggy. She shook it and closed her eyes again.

“Princess?”

She opened one eye and cast her gaze around. Spike stood by her bed, a hand in midair as if puzzled. She had not seen him before in the rush of waking.

“Give me a moment,” she said.

Spike waited quietly. He put his arm down, but after that, Luna shut her eye again and saw nothing. Little by little, she came back to herself and felt more and more like Luna Songborne and less like a whisper in a dream.

“I am alright, Spike,” she said at last. She stirred. “I am quite alright, given the circumstances. I am glad that you have arrived.”

“Yeah… Barely made it on time. Amber Wood was working me hard, but I think I’m really making progress. I disarmed him twice in a row.” The dragon grinned wide, revealing his sharp, impressive teeth. Luna was reminded of the old Great Dragons.

She yawned and righted herself. “I am very glad to hear that, Spike. A warrior should be confidant.” With some difficulty, she stood on all four wavering hooves. The world wobbled around her for a moment, but then it stabilized. She smiled. “And I am feeling a bit more like myself.”

She strode past Spike, listening to the rhythmic sound of his claws against the cool tile. She wondered what it would be like to feel the coolness of the tiles. She knew how they were supposed to feel, but the pegasus magic bore the brunt of any coldness, and so she did not feel it as she knew Spike must.

“I can heat the rooms if you like, Spike. I have not forgotten the cold-bloodedness of dragons.” She hummed. “I fear I must ask you to attend me a long time. I would have to have you falling asleep on me!”

As hoped, he chuckled. “I’ll try not to. Yeah, I could use some heat. It’s freezing in here. Do you really not care?”

“Not at all. I prefer it cold,” she replied. “I… became used to colder temperatures during my hiatus.” She smiled but noted that Spike said nothing.

Luna led him away from her main chamber into a side room, meant as a receiving room. It had a small table and couches, and she gestured for him to sit in one of them. Around them hung art from various periods. Celestia had educated her on what she’d missed during the long years, and so she had taken to art’s progression since her banishment with an acolyte’s eagerness.

It was hard not to admire the paintings. She recalled buying every single one of them—from the famous to the work of a street artist, which she now looked at once again. The stallion in question had been a resident of… Oh, where had he been from? Surely it was Ponyville. She recalled that he was the color of sweet caramel and that his voice had been ever so soft. How pleasant he’d been! How flustered. She would admit she enjoyed the attention, if quietly, and had enjoyed his painting though it had asked no great and important price.

Spike spoke after a moment. “So, what are we up to tonight, Luna? You made it sound like it was something different or special.”

“Hm? Doubting my word?” Luna kept her eyes on the painting. She shifted her weight.

“N-no, I didn’t mean it like that.”

Luna sighed. “It was meant in jest. I am a bit on edge, Spike. No, we are doing something tonight, but I hesitate to call it special. Different is a good word for it. It shall be very, very different. New for both of us.”

“New for you?” Spike asked. She nodded but still took in the art.

It was no grand scene in the old aesthetic she had once known. Instead, it was a garden, enclosed in a picturesque white fence. Tiny, vital flowers in a myriad of blues and yellows peeked out from the slats, and past the open gate, there was a small path between the greenery leading up to a door that moss grew around. It was hazy—once she would have found it sloppy, but Celestia had brought her around to Expressionism. That was before she left.

“Yes, new for me. Perhaps more of a new spin on an ancient thing, but still new in its own way. Do you know who painted this?”

“Actually, I can guess,” Spike responded. Luna glanced over at him, surprised.

“Hm?”

“Caramel, right? He’s from Ponyville. Or was. I haven’t seen him in a long time…” Spike met her eyes. She watched his curious, reptilian brow contract in its foreign yet familiar way. “I really don’t know if he’s alive. How crazy is that? All of the ponies from Ponyville just sort of drifted away. I mean, like, we tried to stay together at first.”

“But there were too many others.”

“I guess. Without a town to be a part of, I guess we just sort of drifted away. Everypony still knows the Apples, and so I guess they kind of keep us all connected a little, but besides that, we’re all just sort of absorbed. It’s like we’re salt, and Canterlot is a bucket of water. We vanish, but we’re still here.”

“You knew him? I had forgotten his name. Were he alive, I would like to meet him even still.” Luna turned away from the painting fully. “We have plenty of time. Tell me about him.”

Luna sat on the other couch and listened.

“Um… I don’t know much. I didn’t really know him very well. Most of my interactions with him were when I was a kid, but I do know he was dating Big Mac for a while. Not sure if they are if he’s alive. It’s been too long since I talked to Big Mac, you know? Well, you wouldn’t know.”

“I understand.”

“I thought he was the greatest. I didn’t have that many male role models, and he was kind of the biggest one. Strong, quiet, confidant. Well, I mean, he seemed confident. I was a kid; I didn’t exactly talk with him deeply.”

Luna filed all of this away for future reference. “Spike, do you have any guesses why you are here? There are two things on our agenda this night.”

“I guess I do. But why am I always guessing? You always call me in and then I guess what’s in your head. Like, why not just tell me? Er, if that’s okay. Sorry,” he added hastily. “I guess it’s just frustrating.”

“I have no doubt it is. I will tell you freely that I know it is frustrating. I am trying to get you to be on your guard even when you are with friends, Spike. You must be vigilant not out of duty but out of a sort of desperation. You and I are cornered animals. You must feel the wall behind you and hear the hounds.”

“I… alright.”

“I know it doesn’t seem that way, but it will. Trust me if only with this.”

“I trust you,” Spike countered, frowning. “I swear it. I’m sorry I said anything.”

“Do not be. I am glad you finally did,” she said. “Regardless, guess.”

“Well, we haven’t talked much about how exactly I’m supposed to be your ‘sword’ or ‘dagger’ yet, so I guess one of the topics is that,” Spike said. “Whatever ‘that’ is.”

Luna smiled. “You would be right. That is the topic you and I will turn to presently. I suppose I may wait on the night’s true struggle. But for now…” She stopped and cocked her head. Examining Spike in the well-lit room, she found him curious. His back was bent, not with labor but with watchfulness. His face seemed to be setting like cement into a permanent frown. She found she did not like it. “Enough of my games for now,” she said softly. “Spike, I need to ask hard things of you. Do you know how it was that I and my sister came into our thrones?”

“Not entirely,” he admitted.

“I am not surprised nor offended. Discord, it must be remembered, was king here for half a century. When we defeated him, there was a power gap. He had tricked a blind, unhappy king on a whim, but there were no other heirs to take up the mantle, and so all was poised for a rather unpleasant conflagration.”

“And then you two took over,” Spike said.

Luna snorted. “Hardly. Celestia was far more eager than I, at first. I did not wish to be tied to a hearth like an old spinster—which is what the whole business seemed like. But the ponies of Equestria, the common ponies, were unanimous. We woke up to find ourselves thrown into the ring as claimants to the throne. Literally, I might add.”

“But you were outsiders.”

“And heroes. Though I am glad that you said that, Spike. It is a good observation, for it explains much of what has happened since. Yes, we were outsiders. As outsiders, we should not have been considered at all by that kingdom’s rules of succession. But as the political grandstanding went on and on and we sat and waited, the air in Everfree turned poisonous. Something was rotten in the state of Equestria—not surprisingly, as Discord’s rule was still showing itself. When he wasn’t destroying causation to torture peasants, he did so love to throw the nobles at one another like wild dogs.”

Spike leaned back. An idle claw scratched his cheek. “Things got bloody? Like with House Rose?”

“Oh, not nearly as desperate as that and yet far more bloody. The Great Game broke out into violence, and a hundred ponies were dead by the time that Celestia and I intervened, demanding that the Landsmeet end in a decision. We wouldn’t have done it, but the Mayor of Everfree came to us in tears. They could make no decision, Spike, until at last a curious thing happened. A curious thing that many ponies have forgotten. Two houses stepped forward to name us as their candidates. Two houses that were in the lead, in fact. Houses Rowan and Oak threw themselves behind us, and after that, it was all route and victory.”

“Whoa, whoa, hold on.” Spike sat up again. He shook his head as if casting off even the thought. “Those guys? Like, the ones that are causing you so much trouble?”

“Yes. They have always been troublesome. The later generations were not quite as good as the previous, and they never forgot how close they were to dynasty, Spike. None of them ever did. And so, for three hundred years, we remained Princesses and kept the lines of succession open and thriving, to appease them with a promise that one day, perhaps, they would replace us. And we intended for them to if we could ever get them to be more than barbarians. But then I fell.”

Luna stood. She felt restless and ill-at-ease. The room was not small, but it suddenly felt so as if it had shrunk as her mind expanded back into antiquity.

She continued. “So. The Great Game, Spike, is still being played. For some time, it was played in a new way, but it has come back around again to cloak and dagger. This is the game I remember, and I know how it must be played.”

“I’m lost, Luna.”

“I shall need you to assemble hand-picked soldiers of our guard and to be willing to kill, steal, set afire, and destroy under cover of darkness. I need you to fight a war in the streets that nopony must know about.” She caught him staring at her, horrified. She could almost hear his refusals, and so she pressed on. “Spike, I will not lie to you. The work will be distasteful. I will ask you to do things that may shame you in the daytime. Not because they are evil but because they are secret. Your enemy will not be raiders or monsters, as you are accustomed to, but Equestrians, and even Equestrians of the Royal Guard.”

“This is crazy!” Spike rose, shaking. “There’s no way. You want me to be an assassin.”

“I need you to be one.” Inwardly, Luna winced. She had hoped he would not use that word. She did not need an assassin. She needed someone to mop up a rebellion, not to kill innocents. But how to say in a way that didn’t seem like a lie?

“Oh… Oh this is so messed up,” he whispered. His claw gripped the couch’s arm, and he looked away. Luna kept her gaze firm.

“Sit down, Spike.”

“I was an assistant librarian.”

“Please, sit down,” Luna repeated.

He groaned softly and sat.

“You will not be alone. In fact, you must not be alone. A team of loyal and trustworthy ponies must be assembled, but they cannot all be Lunar Guardsponies. It must be a diverse group or at least a diverse as you can manage. It must be of ponies unafraid to do difficult things.”

“We’re just going to be murderers.”

“No, you will not,” she said firmly. She all but hissed at him. He flinched, and something in her felt good about that, felt powerful about that. Luna took a deep breath and closed her eyes but for a moment before continuing. “No, you will not,” she repeated. “You will be soldiers without flags or parades, without daylight or promises. I cannot protect you, but I can help you. I need you to do this, Spike.”

“Why?”

“Because the batponies would kill in my name without any hesitation.”

He stared at her in confusion so obvious that it almost broke the tension. She resisted a smile.

“What?”

“Spike, if you were eager to do this and realized what it might mean, I would not wish for you to be my helper in all of… this. I need somep—someone who will do what is right, at least as much as he can. I need a soldier who is not really a soldier—no, do not protest, I speak not of your blade skills. You are not a soldier. You are not a warrior. Spike, you are what you have said.”

“I’m a librarian and a secretary.”

“And a marvelous one. You are dedicated and kind, Spike. Not without fear, but willing to risk much to do much. I think that you are brave. I do not yet know if you are brave, but it is impossible to know such a thing.”

She quieted, then, and watched him. Spike would not meet her eyes. He slouched in her expensive couch, not that she minded, and he closed the membranes over those strange eyes of his. She found him curious at every moment.

The silence stretched too thin, and so he spoke in a measured tone. “I will do what you want, Princess. But I have to be able to have freedom to do it my own way.”

“Of course.”

“I’m not a killer.”

We all will be. “You are not simply a killer.”

“Then who is there for me to pick from? I’ll need a lot of help. I’m not exactly good at this plotting stuff,” Spike said, and he smiled.

Luna let go of the tension in her shoulders and chest. She had worried that he would react poorly, but he had taken it in stride as much as one of his nature could. She worried he would be soft, but the commitment was made now. There was no need to question it. No time to question it, in fact. She smiled widely and opened the door with her magic. From the other room, she felt the summoning spell she’d already set and activated it.

Scrolls wandered in of their own accord, and she turned her magic to the more important task of procuring tea. She stood. “You have plenty of choices right here. Now, I believe some tea would suit us well.”

*

The dossiers she had acquired were extensive and varied. Most of them were of her own Lunar guardsponies, newer guards who were experienced enough to be useful but not established enough to be suspects. A few of the ponies were Solar Guard, old veterans who would never move to great things without their princess’s word… at least, on the surface.

Spike saw one he recognized. “Amber?”

“Yes. Myself, I think he would be a wonderful addition.”

Spike hummed and set the scroll on the couch. “That would be a really awkward conversation,” he said with a chuckle and took a sip of the tea that Luna had brought. “But maybe one I need to have. Who is next?”

The next few were young Solar pegasi.

“As We said,” Luna reminded him as he glanced at the scrolls. She gathered them in her magic and held them up for better viewing. “The ponies you pick must be of good quality and must be diverse. We shall need the talents of all three of the tribes in the coming struggle against the growing sedition.”

“Gods, this is so…” Spike sighed. “Whatever. Hey, wait. I know this one.”

“Hm?”

“Rainbow Rays. I met this guy out on the practice field. We’re friends.”

Luna continued to hum. “I am glad that you made friends, Spike. They will be a pillar for you. I see, however, some interests. Tell me about this stallion.”

“He’s trustworthy, at least in that he won’t betray me because we’re friends. He’s not a great flier, but he’s not bad. Rays has only been in the Solar guard for a while, and he has more loyalty to both of you than to just one of you. He really only joined the Solar Guard because the Lunar guard station was farther and it wasn’t recruiting.”

“So his ties are not as strong. Perhaps. Proceed, then.”

Spike looked through the others and took another scroll but then moved on. Luna knew he had already made his choice. She would say nothing about it—she knew the stallion in question was no great flier. She had been watching Spike closely. She knew the ponies he had befriended out on the parade grounds. Her words about being pleased by his sociability and adaptation to a new set of ponies were genuine; she needed Spike, but she also found that she care for him. But caring for him and pushing him did not seem mutually exclusive. Rainbow Rays was an average flier, enthusiastic if he thought the activity was fun, and not possed of nerves of steel. But trust went a long way.

They went through the unicorns available from both Guards, as well as a few House Levies, mostly those chosen by lot and duty, not volunteers. As Spike deliberated and asked questions and bounced ideas off of her, Luna observed how quickly he adapted. It was all paperwork, really, just choosing the best personnel who fit a criteria. It was the kind of job a secretary did well, and she had meant it when she said that Spike had grown skilled at working the bureaucracy that a book-addled Twilight had not wanted to bother with. Had he registered yet that he would be leading them? Intellectually, she thought. But not on a deep level. That would come later. It always came later.

Three more scrolls went down by his side, and Luna moved to the next group.

“Wonderbolts? You’ve got to be kidding,” Spike said.

“I am serious as the grave.”

“Holy cow…” He leaned in. “I haven’t seen some of these guys in… Yeah, of course, I’ll take this one.”

“Hm?”

“Soarin’. Think about it. He’s not as fast as Spitfire, and he’s slower than Rainbow, but he’s bigger than them and can take a hit. Or, you know, give one. He’s strong for a pegasus, fast for a pegasus, has great endurance, and…” Spike grinned ear to ear. “If Soarin’ kicks down your door, you just give up. Are you going to fight a Wonderbolt?”

Luna chuckled, despite herself. “That’s a bit of an uneven argument Spike, at least the last bit. Soarin’ also has Ponyville ties.”

“So Ponyville ponies are off limits?”

“Not at all. But how do you justify it. Think, young master dragon.”

“He’s also got Solar ties. Soarin’ flew with the Solar guard for three years before honorable discharge. He’s from Baltimare, and he had to serve a short stint as… wow, really? A house levy for House Blueblood. It was only a year, but he still did it. He may have a tie to Ponyville but not to you.”

Luna nodded. “Excellent thinking, though I wonder if you know exactly how deep his connection to Ponyville goes.”

Spike looked over the floating reports. “What do you mean? He’s friends with Rainbow and I guess all of the girls, kinda. I was a kid, but he still seemed pretty cool.”

“He and Applejack are lovers.”

Spike stood up. “Holy cow. Holy—really? You’re serious?”

She nodded.

He laughed and sat back down. “Oh wow. Oh wow, no way. Wow, I had no idea. I thought he had a thing for Rainbow! I kept waiting for him to get the bad news.”

Luna chuckled and then stacked the rest of the reports and put them away.

He ended up with many scrolls, though Luna thought she had his choices more or less pinned down. They were not quite the choices she would have made, but that was why he was choosing. This was to be his warband, not hers. He would need to know them and to lead them. Ultimately, he would have to ask much of them.

Specifically, she knew what was going to come next. But that was for later. It was something to not look forward to if tonight went well. So far, it had. She felt—well, no, not quite relaxed. She felt calmer than she should, considering the circumstances.

But it was better not to let her nervousness show. It grew steadily as the night wore on and as the little odds and ends planning came and went. As Spike grew more eager, more comfortable with his task, Luna grew quieter.

At last, Spike lay back.

“I think that’s it. I’ll have to read them and make some final decisions, but I can do that tomorrow. I… I don’t know, I kinda feel okay about this. Right now, anyway.”

“I knew you would acclimate, my friend,” Luna said. “But you seem ready to say something.”

“Yeah… I was going to suggest someone. I’ve been thinking.”

Luna arched an eyebrow. “How dangerous.”

“Yeah, I know. But none of the ponies I’m pretty sure about are exactly heavyweights. None of them are bruisers. If we run into somepony who is big, we’re probably gonna get squashed. I need someone who can beat down doors, carry heavy things, the kind of pony who can hold his own in a bar brawl, you know?”

“And thine arts extend to knowledge of the workings of bar brawls?” she asked him with a bit of mirth.

“Nope!” He declared. “But I can imagine what might be useful. I want to ask Big Mac to help,” he finished and seemed to wait for some response.

Luna, for her part, was not surprised. She doused her growing discomfort by indulging in a suppressing mirth. “I thought you might.”

“Really? I wasn’t sure,” Spike said, cocking his head.

“You made a point to speak of him, and beyond that, he is the pillar of the Ponyville community here in Canterlot now that Applejack is gone. He has a public face among the refugees as a good pony, and he also has prodigious strength. In another age, he would have been quite the champion. Yes, I think you should indeed see if he is willing.”

Spike seemed to lose some of his easy confidence. “So…”

“So,” she responded.

“The other thing?” he prompted. He pursed his strange, reptilian lips in a decidedly equine gesture, and Luna found it fascinating. She’d never seen a dragon make such a face.

“Yes. It will come in due time. The night is young, is it not? I think perhaps it would be better to have a nice dinner first.”

He blinked.

“Come, Spike,” she said, smiling. “Accompany me?”

He rose, and she led him back into her main chamber, where a mare-in-waiting stood by the door, yawning. When she caught sight of the Princess and her champion, she jumped to attention.

“Good evening ma’am! Dinner is ready. The Head Chef asks if you were still wanting to eat in your suite.”

“I do wish that,” Luna said and turned to Spike, lowering her voice. “Spike, I must ask, has your diet expanded past gemstones?” Spike squirmed, and she took that as a yes. Turning back to the maid, she continued. “Would you inform my most valued chef that the alternative meal will be fine, and to use both of his plans if that will not be too much of a bother.”

The mare bowed and left them.

“Geeze…” Spike hissed. “I really don’t like talking about that. Ponies aren’t exactly carnivores, Princess.”

“And you wish not to antagonize them. My maid remembers nothing that she knows she mustn’t nor did she hear me, I think. Regardless, I shall keep that in mind, dear Spike.”

Luna led him to another room branching off from the main bedroom chamber. It was simple, with a small wine cabinet and a table for six at most. She sat on one side, and Spike sat awkwardly on the other.

They talked of light things. Spike’s training and his off-duty adventure into the city with this Rays pegasus.

“I mean, I’m basically old enough now, by dragon standards. I guess. Rays wanted to go to this bar. I’ve not really been to one before.”

“I highly doubt that Twilight would take you to such a place.”

“I don’t even know if she ever goes herself, honestly,” Spike said with a shrug. “It’s weird. Most of my life with her, I was just a kid. I don’t know lots of stuff about her of that nature.” He sighed. “But anyhow. Rays practically drags me in there, and I just felt awkward. Not like, a bad sort of awkward. Just sort of like I was faking it. Like, it’s an adult place, and I’m not… I don’t know.”

“It takes a bit to feel as if we’re grown,” Luna said quickly.

Spike chuckled. “I thought you were always like this.”

She shook her head. “Certainly not. In body, mostly. In mind, stars forgive me, certainly not.”

“I didn’t have much. It was weird… Do dragons even drink?”

“They have, on occasion. There are dragons and there dragons—if you understand. Not all of them are the great majestic sort you’ve no doubt seen on migration. If I am not mistaken, you seem more of the lineage of the bipedal drakes from the Badlands.”

“I wouldn’t know.”

She frowned. “Right… I am sorry. But it is not unheard of, especially among your kind. If I’m correct, at least.”

Spike smiled a little. “I guess that’s cool to know. Rays enjoyed himself. It was fun doing stuff with a friend that I made, you know? I mean, the world sucks and all that, but I made a friend without Twilight or anyone else helping at all.”

A mare-in-waiting arrived, a unicorn, bearing two covered dishes in her magic’s hold. She laid them on the table and bowed to them both. “I am sorry it took me so long to bring your food.”

“It’s cool,” Spike said, grinning. He grinned perhaps a bit too wide, Luna thought, but was glad that the mare did not flinch at his display of teeth.

“It is indeed alright. Thank you,” Luna said, adding her own smile, and the dismissed mare left quietly.

The covers were removed. The chef had prepared lightly cooked meat for Spike, with a small dish of semi-precious stones. For herself, bread and a bit of cheese, as she had insisted.

“Go on and eat,” she said quietly. Rising, Luna went to the cabinet and retrieved a bottle and a glass. The label was worn, but she read it and smiled. Hermitage, a fine Syrah, dark as midnight, red with life and, if she remembered the variety correctly, intense. She popped the cork out effortlessly with a bit of magic and poured a token amount in a glass to test it. The wine did not disappoint. She sighed happily and returned to the table, spirits buoyed briefly.

She and Spike ate in amiable silence, and by the end, she had finished a third of the bottle. As soon as it was over, she focused in on the rest. She and Spike removed themselves to the room they had met in before, and she invited him to lounge on one of her couches, which he did happily. She was glad to see him in good spirits, considering.

For her part, Luna regretted her choice. A wine this fine was meant to be savored, but she was more interested in its effects on her mind than she was in simple enjoyment.

But alicorns are ponies as well, in their own way. She felt lighter, warmer. The gnawing doubt was not gone, of course. It lingered even still, but now it was only a whispering in and around the light conversation. Luna told tales of her journeys in the past and of the ancient kings and queens and commoners of lands much changed.

But as the hours stretched on and on, not even the warmth of good wine could forestall the whisperings’ advance. It became a murmur.

At last, she had to come around to it.

“Spike,” she said, a bit more sharply than she had intended. “What is the time?”

“Um… I don’t know, let me see.” Spike rose and found a clock on the wall. “It’s nine.”

Luna took a deep breath. She could wait just a tiny bit longer. Moments.

“Princess?” Spike took a step towards her, an unsure step. “What’s this about? You look…”

“Dismayed? Nervous? Oh, Spike, I am both. The time is drawing near. Will you come with me to the gardens so that I might calm myself before the night’s work?”

“I… Of course,” Spike replied.

She led him down from her private suite and through the many subdued halls. There were few ponies in the dark. They saw a few Lunar guards standing silently in the shadows, a few quiet mouselike maids performing a few last tasks before bedding down for the night, and a lone pegasus without barding trotting sullenly. When he caught sight of them, he seemed to slouch even more and all but scurry.

Spike glanced over at Luna, but she only chuckled.

“Lover’s trysts,” she said. “Some indiscretions go unchecked for good reason. It helps morale.”

They came out into the garden and began to stroll.

The night was warm—surprisingly so, and, to Luna, quite pleasantly so. A light breeze whistled through the hedges and beflowered bushes. The greenery was holding fast even with the not-so-distant threat of winter. Luna reflected that winter had already come in the North. Her friends no doubt set their faces to snow and wind much different from the wind she encountered here in the peace of her estates. She wondered how Twilight was faring in Vanhoover. It had been too long since they’d spoken. Days. How were the wine-dark seas of the West at this time of year? Oh, she knew the facts, but she juggled the centuries to remember how it was to be there.

But gravity drew her back to Spike.

“You and I shall be taking many walks in the coming weeks, Spike,” Luna said quietly. “This is the second, is it not?”

“It is,” Spike agreed. “Princess, will you tell me now?”

Luna cleared her throat. “I need to dreamwalk. I need you to be there to stand a lonely and dangerous vigil.” Spike offered no answer, so she continued. “There are dreams, and there are dreams. There are nightmares, and then there is something else that I do not understand. A shadow lies on the dreams of ponies, Spike.”

“A shadow?”

“Yes, a shadow.”

“But… why?”

“The time has come to meet it and understand it if I can. It threatens us. It threatens me. I fear it may be important. I am going to dive into it, and you will be the rope linking me to the surface. If I begin to drown, you must pull me back to air—wake me up. If I…” She paused, looking away from him and to the night sky with its scattered and chaotic stars. “I may come back as something else, weak but filled with some alien malice, and if that is so, you must deal with it.”

“D-deal with it?”

“Deal with it,” she said again, firmly. “As it must be dealt with. But that will not happen.” She continued swiftly, picking up the pace. Spike followed at her heels. She had wandered in the garden long enough. She wanted it over. She just wanted it to be over.

*

Luna lay on her bed, staring at the wall.

Spike was at her back, sitting quietly in a chair that he had brought in from another room. She did not look at him, preferring to lie on her right side. She was comfortable, at least in body. Her bed was an ocean of soft pillows and caressing, pliant covers. But her mind still writhed.

Sleep would come when she commanded it. Falling asleep was no problem for the Princess of the Night, the one who walked the deep aether. Sleeplessness, in fact, had rarely been a problem of the alicorns born out of the Song.

But she was afraid.

She shifted ever so slightly. Spike was being quiet—admirably quiet, she thought—and while usually it would have been nice, she found it awful somehow.

You want an excuse, Luna.

And didn’t she? She had been afraid of few things since the Song had faded into the pool. Few things. And yet this was one of them. The brief brush with the veins had been nightmarish, but not so much worse physically or mentally then some terrors she had faced. Celestia and she had delved deep and seen terrors that would never see the light of day. They had seen Ryl’neigh under the darkness of the Northern Mountains, stretching on forever.

And yet still she was afraid. It was not the experience. It was the suggestion in the experience, the hint of something else, something more than she could guess at.

“Spike? Are you there?”

“I’m here, Princess.”

She did not ask him for anything.

Instead, she shivered.

But the night was growing older. It was time. It had to be time. If it was not now, it would be never; she would not try again. It had taken a long time to work herself up to this, all the way to the night that she had spoken to Twilight and resolved to change. Running was easy. Hiding was something she had learned and mastered, and yet for as much as she wanted both, she could not. There was something up ahead and she would face it or…

Luna commanded sleep to come, and it obeyed its mistress readily.

At last, Luna stood in the quiet, undifferentiated chaos of the Dream.

Potentiality once again roiled about her. It touched and did not touch, was felt and was not felt. The bright lights of a thousand thousand dreamers glowed like stars in a strange sky on every side of her. Most were white, she saw, and the knowledge was like water in a desert. A few were red.

But far too many were corralled into the center, into the shadow of some great Thing that she never looked at.

But Luna steeled herself. So many nights she had refused to meet it head on, refused to look at it with all of her resolve, but tonight she would. Spike was watchful, and her heart was raging in her chest, and for a moment, it seemed possible to risk this danger and come out again.

She stared into the Shadow and thought the Shadow stared back. She walked towards it.

With measured pace, she drew closer and closer to the center. The Firmament was not flat but rather sloping, and so her progress was down, down into some great hole. To Luna’s senses—changed with their transport—it seemed as if she was walking down a great well, down a flight of precarious stairs. It had not seemed so large from afar, but now that she drew close, it seemed to grow in size. It did not make sense. Nothing in the Firmament made sense to the waking mind.

Luna felt as if she were watched.

But she continued on despite everything. Despite the feeling that with every step the stairs were growing, despite wanting to go back. She thought of Twilight.

The stairs did, at last, stop, and Luna stepped timidly into a terrible canyon of static.

It was then that they struck. She heard a shrill, heart-stopping cry, and her ethereal wings flared in response. The light which radiated out from her caught only suggestions of slithering things out in the dark, and she threw more light out.

They were lampreys, she thought in horror. Great lampreys hundreds of yards long, a thousand teeth the size of her sister, mouths like gaping caverns. They thrashed, fleeing before the light. But it was only temporary. They came back, circling Luna, ready to feast.

Luna threw out purplish-blue fires. They struck true and burned on the scales of the shadow lampreys, and the beasts roared. Her limbs shook without her consent. Her whole form wavered, fading in and out, as her unconscious mind scrambled for safety.

But Luna held firm. She summoned more fire, threw up lighting that arced and called wind that howled. She beat at the monsters even as the terrible static increased from a murmur to a roar in her ears, destroying her every thought.

So she roared back, baring flat teeth, baring the canines in the back no alicorn would ever show a pony. Her body glowed with liquid moonlight.

One of the lampreys lunged. She threw herself out of the way and then took to the sky. Another followed, and it missed her by meters. It felt. It was all relative. Nothing made sense.

But then she pulled all the power she could hold and threw it down behind her with a roar that was mostly agony.

The monsters writhed. She could see them now, glowing hot in her arcane fire.

Panting, Luna continued flying towards whatever the Shadow was, at the heart of the swirling storm of static and captured dreams.

It seemed that she flew for years. The static pounded away at her, but she knew that she that she had come to far to quit.

But no matter how long it took, it eventually ended. As she came close, she saw the little points of light dangling—still alive—and the Firmament in which the Aether lived formed itself into a tree of some dark wood before her, with its luminescent, stolen fruit. Its branches were twisted and barren except for the cages it formed around dreamed that pulsed with its own dark light. She felt a wind but knew there was no wind, and yet it dangled the dreams of miserable, twisted souls above her as if it existed.

Luna felt exhausted. Her thoughts were sluggish. Her limbs were weak. Yet, despite this, she knew that it had to be finished. All she had to do was touch the tree. To touch the tree. Touch the tree. Touch the—

She shook her head. Could she?

It radiated darkness in a way that she could not understand, was darkness in a way she was afraid that she might just understand, but that her mind shied away from. But the deepest fear was the worst.

It felt so very familiar.

At first, she thought that perhaps it was because of her own brush with the dark, but found, after a moment’s pause, that it was not the memories of her own Nightmare that she was remembering. Yes, they were similar in some ways, but this was something dissonant and different. The memory that it tapped was farther back than her foolish rebellion.

Cautiously, heart in her throat, Luna stepped forward and touched the wizened, black bark of the nightmare tree with a hoof.

And her mind was set on fire, and Luna screamed into eternity with the agony of knowledge.

Author's Notes:

Next:

Chapter 15
"Neither the Quick Nor the Dead"