Somepony’s hoof nudging me in the ribs rips me out of the restful sleep I’m having, causing me to turn over and groan in bed in the hope they’ll go away.
“Aurora,” Luna whispers. “I need you to get up.”
I moan yet again, then try and force my eyes open a little. “What for?”
“It’s about The Nightmare,” she speaks very slowly, almost like she’s making sure there’s nopony else in my room to hear us. “I’m afraid I don’t feel comfortable telling you anything more here.”
I manage to slither my way out of my bed, but by judging by the look on her face, she is eager to get going with whatever this is. “Pack warmly,” she instructs almost as soon as my hooves hit the floor.
“Are we going somewhere?” I ask. I don’t remember her telling me anything about any trips we’d be taking soon. And we’ve never taken trips together, so it’s not like I should have expected that this could happen.
“Yes, and move quickly,” she pleads. “We need to get going.”
Without asking any further questions because it doesn’t sound like I’m going to get much more out of her, I grab my saddlebags and begin filling it with almost all my warm clothes, then put on a green-and-gold UEC sweatshirt and a heavy, waterproof jacket. “Okay, now what?”
A flash of dark purple light is my response, and I start feeling cold raindrops on my mane where just seconds ago was the warmth of my room in the castle. We’re no longer inside, of course; in fact, we’re not even in Canterlot, from the looks of it. We seem to be quite a ways away, judging from how small the city on the mountain looks.
Luna walks up to me, relief now washing over her. “We are at a safe distance. We must walk down this road, and you may now begin to ask me questions.”
“I’ll ask later,” I sigh. I’ve always needed some time to wake up, so I’m not exactly in the mood to be asking a ton of questions in what assume is a very complex situation.
My stomach growls. “Actually,” I speak up, “I do have a question. Do we have any food?”
She opens her own bag with her magic, then levitates a small drawstring pouch over to me. “Choose one of the bottles and drink it, for it will keep you fed and hydrated for the next few hours.”
Once I take it in my magic and open it up, I can see three tiny bottles that combined probably don’t even have a mouthful of liquid between them. I pick the red one and uncork it, leaving the blue and yellow ones for later. It tastes kind of like oranges, which I didn’t really expect from the red bottle. Still, I now feel well-fed and don’t really feel like I need to drink anything, which is good.
“Make sure not to throw that bottle away,” she instructs right as I was about to do pretty much just that. “Re-cork it and place it in the bag. It will refill in about a day’s time.”
“A day’s time?” I repeat. “Just how long will we need to be going towards whatever this thing is?”
“A few days at least. Those will continue to fill themselves indefinitely, so it is in our best interest to keep them.”
Sounds neat. I tuck it in the pouch and close it, trying to make a mental note to use these on days that I just don’t feel like getting out of bed and going to the dining room for food.
After a few minutes of walking, it starts getting brighter and brighter. Even though there's a thick blanket of clouds, I can tell that the right side is brighter, so I guess that means we’re heading north. “Don’t you need to lower the moon?” I ask Luna.
“I already did so last night,” she shakes her head. “That is why, right now, it is raining all over Equestria. The world can survive one night without a moon, although its ponies would create undue panic if they saw the moon set too early. And for the rest of our journey, Celestia will be raising and lowering the moon. I told her we were leaving today, though she does not know we departed this early.”
“Why not just tell her?”
“Safety,” she replies somberly. That’s not a good sign.
“From what?”
“We are going somewhere that might know something about Shooting Star, and potentially his current location or actions.” She pauses for a little bit. “I just want to make sure there is as little a chance as possible that we are followed or that word somehow gets to him.”
Guess that makes sense and it answers any questions I really have right now, so I’m now just content to walk and look around while I try and wake up, I guess. It’s actually kind of pretty out, even though it’s still not super light and kind of gray. There’s a nice steady rain that’s not too heavy, and the lampposts along the road are shining on the combination of rain and snow that’s on the ground, which also looks nice. My hooves are already filthy after not even a minute of walking, however, because the road’s dirt and so I’m getting mud and slush all over them. It’s not that bad, I guess. So are Luna’s, and I always figure that if a Princess is doing it then it’s okay.
“The tent should be ready,” Luna tells me while draping a small towel over my shoulder and sitting down on the flat boulder next to me. “Go in whenever you would like, and use the towel to dry your hooves before going in so we are not tracking mud in with us.”
I take the towel off my shoulder and gently put it on the rock beside me, careful not to have it fall into the mud and be completely ruined. “I’ll make sure to do that.”
“You’ve asked surprisingly few questions today,” she notes while looking into the fire in front of dance in the same cold December rain we’ve been having all day. “Is there truly nothing you wish to know?”
I shrug. “I suppose there are a few things I wanted to know, but they weren’t super pressing at the time.”
“I shall answer any question of yours you have,” she responds while throwing a damp stick into the fire. “You know that I trust you with any information.”
“Where is it exactly we’re going, then?” I start off. “You said it had something to do with Shooting Star, and I’ve been wondering what that means all day.”
“You remember what happened to the original Dreamstriders, correct?” she asks seemingly unprovoked.
“He banished them, yeah. Why?”
“Their descendents still live where he banished them to, and so we are headed there. He is very arrogant, and will likely return to their dreams to torment them in their sleep, just as he did to their ancestors. Hopefully, one of them has seen him and has some idea about where he is or what he is doing.”
I nod a little; that makes sense. “I’ve got another question. You did all this secrecy to make sure we aren’t being followed or in harm’s way in some other form, so what about the rest of the Dreamstriders? How are we keeping them safe from him?”
“By protecting their dreams, as I had you do the night of the hoofball game,” she responds.
“No, I mean like, how are we keeping them safe from him while we’re gone? Surely they’re going to figure out why it is we’re not there, or at least get some details of it. Somepony in the real world who supports him could then tail them and learn everything it is they know.”
“I’ve instructed Celestia to lie to them about why it is we are gone,” she replies quietly. “Even Celestia herself does not know the true reason of our journey. I told them it was a ritual for the head Dreamstrider. No such thing exists, but they do not need to know that.”
“Why wouldn’t you tell Celestia? She could be on heightened alert and looking for any suspicious activity in Canterlot and put the rest of the Dreamstriders under stronger security.”
There’s just silence, so I turn to her and she’s just gazing into the fire longingly. “You wish you had told her, don’t you?”
“Quite the contrary,” she shakes her head. “I have rarely been more sure in an action of mine than to keep Celestia in the dark about this. I am simply wondering how to communicate this to you, to somepony who has not seen what I have seen.”
“Tell me what it is you’ve seen, then.”
“I’ve seen a stallion who would stop at nothing to defeat me,” she replies hollowly. “A stallion who would mutilate stallions, mares, and even foals who have no quarrel with him just to send a message to me. I’ve seen my own two front hooves choke the life out of an innocent pony because I let my hatred and fury towards him control and consume me. And I’ve seen a mare who had nothing in this world but her sister defeat her in battle and banish her to the moon because of all the innocent ponies she killed.”
I don’t even know how to respond to that, so I just let the silence hang there.
“This struggle against Shooting Star must be kept to as few ponies as possible,” she states confidently. “There is too much hatred, division, and suffering in this world already. Should we fail, should Shooting Star kill us and realize his dream of controlling and subjugating both worlds, I do not want him to seek revenge on anypony. I do not want ponies to suffer because they placed their lives in our hooves and we failed them.”
“We really should involve them,” I suggest. “The more ponies that are ignorant to the fight going on around them, the lower the chance that our side will win. He wants to enslave them, and my guess is that none of them would prefer that to the freedom they have now.”
“And what would they do?” she asks. “There are but four other ponies in the entire world who could march into the dream world to face him, and all of them are too young to be putting their lives on the line.”
“Then why involve me, then?” I ask. “I’m not that much older than Moonlight, and he’s about as capable a Dreamstrider as I am.”
“You are the oldest. The burden of responsibility falls to you.”
“So you’re telling me the reason you included me in this instead of anypony else was because my status as a Dreamstrider and my age, right?”
“Correct.”
“Two things I had no say in,” I sigh. “So it was pure chance that I’m now involved with this and have to sneak around, hiding from somepony who wants to kill me?”
“Yes,” she admits while hanging her head. It’s clear she doesn’t like that news any more than I do.
“Kinda wish you had left me out of all of this,” I mumble.
“You do?” she asks in disbelief.
“Of course I do!” I can feel a little anger building up, which I have to take a few seconds to keep down. “You’ve said it yourself: I’m in danger, all because of things about myself I couldn’t influence. Now I’m cold and wet and going to the middle of nowhere, and nopony knows where I’ve gone.”
She just sits there for a little bit, then moves a little bit of her mane that the weight of the rainwater had caused to droop in front of her face. “I will admit, it was not an easy decision to decide to include you in this. I hope that in time you will come to accept my choice, but for the time being, I apologize for putting you in danger.”
We just sit in silence for a few minutes until she she reaches out and covers me with a still-dripping wing. “When I meant that your age was a big decision in deciding to include you, I did mean that I cared for you. You were the one I spent two years with before Moonlight came along, so I grew close to you. I had little contact with anypony since coming back from the moon, and virtually none with foals. You were a filly who had a loving family, and was old enough to spend quality time with me but was still young enough to have a foal’s optimistic outlook on life. I still worry that the ponies of Equestria hold disdain for me, although I feel it is the foals who do not. I visited Ponyville shortly after on Nightmare Night, and it was the young ones who were were the most willing to give me an opportunity. They had not spent their entire adult lives hearing of the tales of Nightmare Moon.”
“That just makes me feel used,” I admit. “I know you actually care about the time we spend together, Luna, but you have to admit this just makes me look like the most convenient option, not the best one. Besides caring about me, why else did you decide to include me?”
“You knowledge of demons is remarkable, possibly in a few years surpassing my own,” she points out. “Most Dreamstriders choose a field of study that generalizes to our world, and so very few wish to learn of the dream world itself. Shooting Star studied demons as well, and I believe that having you assist me would increase our chances of defeating any demon allies he finds. Additionally, you have proven yourself to be able to think well in a crisis situation. You investigated and defeated a devourer demon on your own when you were nine; most Dreamstriders would not be able to think that quickly at that age and would require me to come assist them.”
“I just do what I feel I need to,” I shrug before yawning. “You won’t mind if I go to bed, would you? We’ve been walking almost all day, and I was up late last night.”
She nods, then looks up at the night sky. “I shall join you shortly. Sleep well, Aurora.”
“Have fun,” I reply before walking over to our tent and grabbing the towel she gave me, being careful to clean all the mud and water off my hooves before walking inside.