I can’t help but stare at the dream mist in front of me, even though I don’t want to be. I’ve really been putting this off, and this is the best way I can think to do it. It’s probably breaking some rule or multiple Luna told me, but I’d feel more comfortable doing it in the dream world. My mind feels like it belongs here, and then there’s the fact that there’s nopony else here. I don’t really know where I could do this in private in the real world.
Taking a deep breath, I stick my hoof in and am surrounded by the mist before floating down to the ground. The ground around me is made of bright, polished bronze, with a lot of glass everywhere to show enormous gears moving fluidly. When I take a look around, I can see that the platform I’m on is circular and that there are a lot more of them floating in the sky. The sun is peeking through the clouds and hitting the fog that’s rising from below the platforms, shining and reflecting off all the bronze. It’s pretty, but it really hurts to look at because of how bright it is.
It’s strange that this is his dream, because he’s not here. Since the only other dream I’ve ever been is in Moonlight’s, I guess that’s just what I expected them all to be like. But Moonlight was kind of young, so it makes sense that his dream would be pretty much an empty field of snow since he might not be able to construct something as complex as this.
I have to snap myself back into concentration; there’s a reason I’m here. No time to admire the scenery. There are a lot of platforms, so I go to the side of the one I’m on and look down. It looks like there’s a pony on one of the platforms.
“Hey!” I call down. He turns around and looks up at me. “Dusty?”
“Aurora?” he calls back.
“Yeah! Uh…” I look at the gap between us. “How do I get down?”
“Just put your hoof out, remember?” I don’t know what there is to remember, but I do as he says and a small, hoof-sized platform like the one I’m on assembles itself from seemingly nowhere. I pull it back, and the components of it just fly away into nothingness. Cool.
I test it again, and the platform materializes again. Slowly, I walk out into the gap, and platforms assemble around each of my hooves to keep me from falling. Hoof by hoof, I make my way down to the platform where he is.
“Cool dream,” I tell him, looking around at the world he’s dreamed up. Pretty fitting for somepony with a special talent like his.
“Cool dream? Does that mean-” He cuts himself off. “You’re doing that Dreamstriding thing, aren’t you?”
“Yeah,” I admit. “Sorry if I’m intruding, but I just wanted to talk with you.”
“Oh.” He pulls the goggles he’s wearing off his head and hides them behind his back, almost as if he’s embarrassed. “No, you’re not. This isn’t about—”
“I still want to be your friend,” I cut him off before he can finish. “You know, it was fun working on that project with you. I got to learn a whole lot of new stuff, even if I understood almost nothing.”
“At least you listened,” he laughs. “Most other ponies I talk about it with just don’t really seem to get it or really care that much. I was kind of glad I got paired with you, since Glacial and Arcane Force just didn’t seem to get it. I think they know too much about magic, so they’ve just kind of gotten pretty narrow-minded about that kind of stuff.” An awkward smile grows on his face. “Well, uh, not to say you know nothing about magic, though…”
“But my competition is Glacial,” I laugh back. “Yeah, next to her I do know almost nothing. Even next to Arcane Force I don’t know a whole lot.” Now we’re just staring at each other, so I look around his dream. “So, like...what’s all this stuff?”
“Just…” He shrugs. “I don’t know. Stuff. Don’t you think it looks really cool?”
“It kinda does.” I look down at my hooves, which are on a glass panel I didn’t notice earlier. Just like the previous platform, there’s all sorts of gears and other parts whirring away under there effortlessly.
“Something about machinery always gets me excited,” he says, walking past me and to the edge of the platform we’re on. “I see these pictures of these massive machines ponies make and tinker with, and I just want to be right there with them. And the best part is, they’re just toying around with them! I love just building things and seeing what they can do, and I hope that’s where I end up some day.” He pauses for a moment. “Wanna see something cool?”
“Sure, what?”
With that, he jumps off the platform and starts falling. I sprint over to the edge as fast as I can and look down, but he’s not falling anymore. He’s...flying. With wings, too.
“You’re flying?” I yell down. “How can you do that?”
“It’s a dream, duh!” he yells back up. “You can do anything! Just jump off the edge and wait for it to happen!”
“I’m not really sure if that’s how it works,” I say, trying to rack my brain to think if that’s really true.
“You can’t get hurt in your dreams, anyways! Come on, what’s the worst that can happen?”
“I’m not sure that’s how it works, either!” Man, I have some serious questions to ask Luna when I get back.
“Just jump!”
Well, I do know how to exit a dream now, so if I just keep falling, I can always try that, right? And he’s flying anyways, so he could always catch me if I don’t get wings like his.
After taking a deep breath, I put my hoof out over the chasm. And then another...and then all of them.
I want to keep my eyes open, but I’m just so scared that they squeeze shut. All my insides are moving around, and I feel like I’m getting light-headed.
Maybe this wasn’t my best idea after all.
“Aurora!” Dusty calls. “Start gliding!”
What’s he mean by that?
“Aurora, open your eyes!”
I manage to do as he says, and when I look back, there are two enormous bronze wings coming out of my back, currently doing nothing. I don’t know how I know how to move them, but I spread them wide and face downwards, getting some control over my fall. I dip down and back up, then begin flapping them. I can’t believe it: I’m flying.
“Cool, huh?” he asks, slapping a hoof on my shoulder.
I try to say something, but I’ve just got this stupid smile on my face as I’m running my hoof up and down my metal wings.
“Try them out for a bit,” he suggests. “Don’t lie; you’ve always wanted to fly, right?”
“Yeah,” I nod. “You know, I don’t think pegasi realize how cool it is that they can fly.” I fly up a few inches, then do a flip. “Does this mean we’re alicorns now?”
“Guess so,” he smiles. “You know, wouldn’t it be cool if these were real? Let earth ponies and unicorns fly?”
“You should try and make them,” I suggest. “You know, you’re already in Princess Celestia’s School for Gifted Unicorns. I hear that once you get to a certain point in there, you’re basically just given time and some funding and told to do something original.”
“I mean, they would be cool,” he admits. “Lots of ponies have tried to make things like this, though. They still haven’t gotten it down yet.”
“Somepony’s got to make them,” I smile.
He just shrugs. “Maybe, maybe not. I have a lot of ideas I just like to throw around, so I’m just not sure I’d ever get to these.”
“Is there a lot more in this world?” I ask, looking below us to just see clouds and fog. “It really sounds like you dream about here a lot.”
He thinks about it a little bit, flicking his ear a tiny bit. “I think so. I don’t usually remember my dreams very well.” He looks at me and stops fidgeting with his ear. “Why is that, by the way?”
“I, hm…” I cross my front legs and start thinking. There may actually be a reason, because Luna can’t be in everypony’s dreams and making them forget her, right? Regardless, I probably shouldn’t tell him about that. Luna really made it sound like it’s a secret that I should keep.
“It’s fine if you don’t know,” he says with a wave of his hoof. “Just curious.”
“I’m glad I came here tonight,” I smile. “It’s nice talking with you. Kind of why I…” I smile weirdly and blush just a little. “You know. I’d be lying if I said I didn’t have a little bit of a crush on you.”
“Well, we’ll have to do stuff together.” He looks off in thought for a moment, then looks back at me. “We could probably do homework together or something.”
“That sounds nice.” We look each other in the eyes, and his seem so much warmer and brighter than they do in our world. “I’m sure if we put our heads together, we can probably do it well enough that we won’t have to keep getting all our answers off of Glacial.”
I giggle, then look up and see the gray mist leading to the dream world. “Well, I need to head back soon, it’s getting late.”
Out of the corners of my eyes, I see him fly up next to me and look up as well. “Aren’t you dreaming right now?”
“I mean, technically. Why?”
“So you’re already sleeping, then.”
I shake my head. “Nope, there’s a difference between Dreamstriding and sleeping. Dreamstriding is forcing your body to dream, so your mind’s still active. I can still fall asleep naturally and get some rest, but can’t Dreamstride then. And even though I'm technically asleep when I'm Dreamstriding, it's not resting, so it's like you're still awake.”
“I see,” he nods. “So what are we looking at?”
I look from the mist to him, and he does the same. “What do you mean?”
“You’re just flying there, looking at the sky. Do you see something?”
It takes me a moment while I just process what he said. “What do you see when you look up?”
“What do you mean?”
“Just look up and tell me what you see.”
Shrugging after looking at me strangely for a few seconds, he looks back up. “Just the sky. Am I missing something?”
“No gray mist?”
He shakes his head. “No, just the sky and some steam from the platforms. No mist or anything like that.”
“Guess the steam just looks weird to me,” I lie. I don’t know what Luna’s policy on telling ponies about the dream world, so maybe it’s best I just say nothing. “I’ll see you tomorrow at school, I guess?”After smiling and nodding, he flies back up to the closest platform. The metallic feathers of his wings all retract into the base, which then folds up and just disappears into his back.
“Great seeing you!” he yells down before going back to work on something on the platform. I wonder, will I be able to leave from here? Guess there’s only one way to find out. I prepare myself for jumping up and out of the dream, and I start moving up without my wings flapping. Guess it does work.
When I get through the mist and land on my hooves in the dream world, I feel another hoof on my shoulder. “Aurora,” Luna’s voice says. She’s not angry, but she definitely isn’t very happy to see me.
“Yes?” I ask weakly, hoping it’s not all that bad.
“What did I tell you about the dangers of Dreamstriding?”
I sigh. “That if I don’t know what I’m doing, it could be dangerous.”
Her hoof comes off me as she walks in front of me and looks down. “What did you do in that dream?”
“Just talked to him. Didn’t do anything else.”
She closes her eyes and shakes her head a little bit. “Aurora, I have told you to not enter other ponies’ dreams because I value both the safety of both you and them.”
“I’m sorry,” I mutter.
“And did you really only enter his dream so you may speak with him?”
Instead of using words, I just nod my head. I can tell she’s kind of disappointed, and I don’t really want to admit out loud that I was doing things she told me not to.
Instead of disappointment, her face instead gets a small and warm smile. “Well, you clearly wish to be using your gift to traverse the dream world. Maybe I shall increase the rigor of your training so you may be safe and know what to do with Dreamstriding? Whether this is your punishment or simply an assignment in lieu of it is your choice, though I feel this is the best move for you as of now.” She points towards the mouth of the cave, which is where my dream is. “Although the best move for you at this very moment is to go to bed; it is late, and you have school tomorrow.”
“Fine.” I start going towards my dream, but not because she told me to. I was going to do this anyways. As I stick a hoof in, I look back at Luna, who’s diving into somepony else’s dream. If she’s to be believed about getting me to start taking on the duties of a Dreamstrider, then I guess that’ll be me really soon.