Time for a new story

Sometimes your best option for old work is to let it fade away. Sometimes inspiration strikes, and will not be ignored. I read a story in which Princess Luna is, only after her imprisonment, learning how to enter ponies' dreams. In that story, she's going about it from the point of view of someone in a children's cartoon, who has no idea what she's really doing, and is modifying a mind-reading spell to observe the dreams of others. This bothered me, as it's not how I've found most people who dreamwalk actually go about learning how to do it.

So I decided to write a story in which, instead, Princess Luna knows exactly what she's doing and how it's done, but is now teaching somepony else how to do it (and possibly many other things as well). This story is informed by my own background, where magic is an expression of self rather than a device to be wielded. To put it in D&D/Pathfinder terms: Where the other story shows Luna as a wizard (like Twilight obviously is) trying to learn by rote, I show Luna as a sorceress whose power is as much an extension of herself as her own body.

Part of the explicit intent of writing this new story, "A Sky of Light", is to help my readers learn more about the abilities depicted therein; the story is as much a wrapper around the knowledge I mean to impart as it is a means of entertainment. Toward that end, feel free to post questions in the comments, or send them to me via PM. I'll try to address as many relevant points as I can in future chapters, whether as part of the story or in Luna's letters to the reader.

I should note that the writing style for this story is dense and possibly even florid, rather than sparse and focused. I've chosen that style as reflective of Princess Luna, whose "old-timey" ways are still very much a part of her, and much more recent to her than the kind of language and storytelling in which we engage today. And while Shakespeare's works are actually comfortably sparse as we judge things today, Luna would have been writing letters and reading romances when not engaged in her duties of rulership. I'm sure some of you love Regency romances, but have you also read various letters from a hundred years ago? Everyone wrote deeply and at length back then, because you couldn't jabber on the phone for six hours to get it all out, or spend all day on Facebook, IM, and Twitter, spilling every little detail of your life. Everything you wanted to share had to be told in the words you put on the page.

So now I've put these words on a virtual page for you. I hope you enjoy the read.