Someone Else's Sun

by LysanderasD

Chapter 3: Selene

“...lene? Selene!”

She stared. What had she been doing? She didn’t remember.

“Selene, are you paying attention to me?”

The unicorn in front of her suddenly came into focus. Stark white, with a close-cropped jet black mane and a stern-looking face topped by intense blue eyes, staring directly at her—at… at Selene? Was Selene her name?

It must be. She was Selene. Something about that seemed strange to her but she had to focus on her mother, who was scowling. Around her, though she did not have time to focus on it now, a room (her room, she knew) seemed to materialize as she was dragged out of whatever had been consuming her so thoroughly. Blue and silver, ornate, fancy bed at one end—that all seemed correct. But something was strange. What was strange?

“Young lady, answer me.” A command, barked, sharp-edged—the voice of someone who would not brook disobedience. Selene swallowed.

“Yes, Mother.” Something about her voice seemed wrong, but she couldn’t place it—nor did she have time to worry about it. Her mother’s scowl deepened. Selene added, hastily, “I’m sorry, Mother—I lost focus for a moment. What were you saying?”

The unicorn sighed sharply, through her teeth. Selene tried not to wince. “Honestly, you spend so much time daydreaming it’s a wonder you have time to learn anything at all. Listen closely. Are you listening?”

“Yes, Mother,” Selene said, giving the mare her complete focus.

There was a brief and uncomfortable silence. Her mother’s piercing blue eyes seemed to drill into her own. She did not look away—too intimidated, and admittedly somewhat ashamed, to look away.

“The Dark Lord has accepted your father’s terms of surrender. There is a special hearing of the court in half an hour, which Stella and I must attend. You will be pleased to hear that Dame Chroma arrived ahead of schedule, and it is through her that we have become aware of this news. Your training with Lord Vision will have to be put aside until later—he will need to be in attendance as well.”

Facts hammered into her like concussive bolts. She understood what they meant, even though it felt like the first time she’d heard them. The evil pony in the north had surrendered. The war was over. Her father—her father was safe. A confusing mix of emotions roiled in her chest, and she managed what she hoped was a cheerful smile. Her mother did not react.

“Until that time, I want you to behave—no nonsense with Lulamoon, do you understand me? Moondancer will be along shortly, for study and not play. Are you listening to me, Selene?”

She managed another, “Yes, Mother,” around the uncomfortable tightness in her chest. 

A knock on the door drew the attention of both mare and filly. “Enter,” said her mother.

A light brown stallion in servants’ clothes opened the door and inserted his head briefly. “Pardon my intrusion, Lady Trine, but they’re expecting you…”

Selene’s mother—Trine, she knew, but whenever she tried to focus on it she only thought ‘Mother’—gave a curt nod and stood. “Of course. Tell them I’ll be in momentarily.”

The stallion gave a bow and removed himself. Mother caught the door in her silver-pale corona before he could close it, and crossed to the threshold before giving a glare back in Selene’s direction.

“Behave,” she said, then strode out and closed the door behind her.

Selene stared.

It was like waking from a dream. She had to gather herself, remember who she was, where she was. But that was part of the process—something her mother could not understand. Vision had taught her, and she had only been doing what she’d been taught. Daydreaming was a word for it, fair enough, and she hadn’t gone far enough to enter anyone’s world but her own. Still, she admitted to herself, it was disrespectful.

Things came back into focus, and she took a deep breath. The war was over. There had been murmurings, rumors, for weeks, but finally, confirmation, and confirmation from someone who would never betray her lord for a lie. It was a strange feeling, and one she was oddly of two minds about; for her, the war had been going on for what felt like most of her childhood. Selene could not honestly remember a time before war. But she knew, with a strange and unshakeable certainty, what it was like to be at peace. There would be smiles on the common ponies’ faces. No more casualty reports. Nopony would have to dance around the filly, avoiding the ‘adult’ topics that she had already learned about, seen time and time again, in dreams.

She turned and caught herself in the mirror above her vanity. She looked—well, what foolishness. She looked like herself. How else would she look? She tried to search her memory, unsure where she’d gone in the nebulous dreamscape of the waking world that would leave her so disoriented. She looked like her father. Wings, horn, and all. The only difference was the bright teal of her eyes.

Her attention moved to the door again, brow furrowing. She wanted to be part of the audience, to hear the report from the Dame herself. But Mother had excluded her. Of course, she wasn’t the heiress, she knew that. Stella would be Lady Winter one day. That didn’t stop Selene from feeling left out.

She sighed. She knew, of course. Her destiny was different. The Council had singled her out as a student of somnomancy, had taught her to walk in dreams—was teaching her to walk in dreams, when time allowed. In a way, her destiny was greater than her sister’s. But the dreamwalkers trod on in darkness, and sat on no thrones. She did not fancy a lonely future in the dream world, even though both of her sisters, even Stella, looked on with something like jealousy. The little ladies—little princesses, each wanting to be the heroine. Well, she wondered—how would they like it in her shoes?

Selene moved to her door and opened it. The castle’s hallways stretched endlessly to her left, and rounded a corner to her right. Afternoon sunlight poured through the massive windows of the residential wing, the marble offset by the blue-and-silver regalia of House Winter. In the distance, there was the murmur of activity, bouncing off of the smooth stone of the walls. Movement around the corner turned her eye. Moondancer rounded the bend, carefully straightening her glasses, and stiffened nervously when she saw Selene.

There was something eternally unkempt about the young mare, though it was always difficult to understand why or how. She followed dress code, and her glasses and mane were always pristine—but out of the corner of one’s eye, she always looked somehow mussed. Selene wondered if it had something to do with her bearing, which was always a little—well, not slow, but off, like she was constantly distracted. Not that Selene was one to talk, in that regard.

“My lady,” she offered with a bow. Two tomes levitated beside her, caught in her magic. Selene lit her own horn to take one without comment. “I’ve been—that is, your mother… We’re to spend the afternoon studying,” she said, finally finding her hoofing on familiar ground. She managed a hopeful smile. “Even if we’re not allowed into the meeting, it gives us a chance to catch up on history!”

Selene tried not to wilt. History was her weakest subject. Names, dates, battles, successions—in one ear and out the other. None of it bothered to stick, despite her best efforts, or Moondancer’s. Nevertheless, there was something infectious about the young mare’s earnest, awkward enthusiasm, and Selene could not bring herself to ruin just about the one thing that seemed to bring her joy, so—well, studying it was.

Nevertheless, she felt she might as well have slept through history, for all the good studying it did.

It was barely thirty minutes later when she felt the chill.

Selene was drawn back out of the text by the sudden surge of something—a feeling, a prescience. Moondancer was speaking, but Selene wasn’t listening, her head snapping up and turning toward the door. Something electric went up her spine and her wings fluttered nervously.

It was a familiar feeling, a sense of apprehension settling inside once it had finished traveling up past her wings. Nothing physical, not even necessarily magical, but something had washed over her like a sudden downpour. She could feel it. Something had changed.

The third tap on her shoulder drew her back into herself. She turned her head to find Moondancer reaching across the table nervously, biting her lip. For a moment, her image seemed to waver, and Selene though she saw her wire-framed glasses shimmer into blocky, square frames. But then she blinked, and all was as it should have been.

“Are you… alright, milady?”

“Did you…” Selene shook her head. “Did you feel that?”

Moondancer’s head tilted. “Feel what?”

Selene opened her mouth to reply, but Moondancer’s expression changed before she could vocalize. “There’s… something. It’s faint, but the somnomantic plane has… shifted.”

Somnomantic plane. Selene preferred to think of it as a dream world, separate from the waking—a fundamentally different existence, governed by different magics, by different rules. The scientific term felt like putting a whole new world in a box too small to contain it. Whatever it may have been called and by whom, though, Moondancer was right, and Selene closed her eyes and felt.

The world around her melted into darkness.

She, or the dreaming part of herself, lifted away from her spot on the floor. Beside her, Moondancer’s own lilac-colored dream-shape lifted as well. Focusing was difficult—her perception of the dream world was unsteady and unstable at best while her body remained awake. The whole castle was suffused with energy and activity, and the momentum, the concreteness of the waking world and its inhabitants turned the dreamscape into hazy, blue-filtered slush. 

Earlier, she remembered, the dreamscape had been sedate, a placid lake, ripples from activities like rocks skipping across its surface. Now the whole plane was shuddering with apprehension, tension radiating out from the central wing of the castle  She could barely see and barely move. And yet…

There. She found it, or found what she was sure must have been it. Another dreaming presence, another dreamwalker, in the distance. Selene looked down at herself, the unsteady, wavering teal of her own dream-shape, and then beside, to Moondancer, whose form was even more tenuous, more a lilac suggestion of a pony than a pony itself—and then she looked back to the other, whose presence loomed large over the castle, but whose shape—even from afar—was clear, hard, bright blue lines and solid shapes, solid and real enough to be seen through the very fabric of the dream. Selene suddenly felt very small as she knew, with uncomfortable clarity, that the dreamer was watching her as well.

It was an alicorn, a nebulous mass of stars, whose very form embodied night, constrained and shaped by a radiant blue corona the same shade as Selene’s. It seemed entirely unperturbed by the turbulence of consciousness radiating outward from the Council’s meeting hall, where her mother and her sister sat in attendance.

It hung, suspended, on massive, outstretched wings, then dove for the source of the turbulence.

Selene scrambled her way back into her body, opened her eyes and shuddered. Moondancer had already returned, and was holding a hoof to her throat as though she were struggling to breathe.

“I don’t…” the unicorn gasped. “What—who was that?”

“I don’t know,” Selene said. “But all of the nobles in Canterlot are gathered in that room. We have to go check!”

Moondancer’s eyes were huge behind her lenses, and in them Selene could see panic. “But—milday, I—there’s no way we can…”

“We have to try!” Selene stood. “Even if you don’t come, I have to get closer—I have to see what happened. It… It looked at me. It saw me, like it wanted to make sure I was watching, and then…”

She shook her head and bolted for the door. Moondancer let out a strangled cry from behind. Selene burst out into the hallway, skidding slightly on the carpet as she turned to her right, rushing forward as fast as her little legs could take her. She could hear Moondancer behind; the unicorn had longer legs, but she was no athlete, and in her desperation Selene could not think to slow down for her. She’d just have to catch up on her own.

She’d lived in the castle her whole life, and its layout was burned into her memory. She didn’t think about it as she ran. Her mind’s eye was consumed by the image of the pony-shaped thing. It had had no eyes, but she had felt, more certainly than she remembered feeling anything, that it had been looking straight at her. Taunting her. Challenging her.

Well, an apprentice dreamwalker she may have been, but Selene was not going to back down from that challenge.

What did give her pause, in a rather more concrete fashion, was the wall of force projected by the castle guards. She was pulled out of her introspection on contact, the wall like a great semi-transparent pillow. She pushed against it and it contorted, a shimmering yellow-and-orange mix from two different coronas, but did not yield. Slowly, inexorably, it pushed her back, and she sat on her rump with a little oof.

On the other side of the wall, both guards were staring at her. The blue-and-silver uniform they wore was enchanted to protect their identities, and they appeared, physically, to both be stark-white unicorn stallions. Only the colors of their coronas betrayed them; she knew the one on the left to be Saturnine, and the one on the right Billy Club.

Saturnine’s gaze was half-lidded, but she—under the glamour, the unicorn was a mare—bore an understanding smile. It was Billy Club who spoke first, his usual brusque attitude making him more vocal than his partner.

“Lady Selene,” he said sharply. “What is the meaning of this?”

“No running in the castle halls,” Saturnine said, still smiling a lazy sort of smile.

“You have an image to maintain,” Billy Club snapped. “And rushing about like a lunatic isn’t doing you, or your family, any favors.”

Selene sat up, rubbing briefly at her nose. “But—”

“Today is a day to celebrate, though,” said Saturnine with a languid sort of cheerfulness. “War’s over, I hear. They’ll be partying in the streets by sundown.”

“But here, in the castle,” insisted Billy Club, lightly stamping a forehoof, “we’re to maintain some measure of decorum. More importantly, your lady mother left explicit instructions that you’re not to be allowed into the central wing.”

“Isn’t it time for your lesson?” asked Saturnine. “I remember seeing the little tutor mare off. What was her name?”

There was a huffing behind her, and Selene turned to see Moondancer staggering up, breathing hard. One of her history books floated alongside, apparently forgotten, dragged along in the unicorn’s desperation to catch up with her charge. She flopped, somewhat ungracefully, onto the carpet beside Selene. 

“Moondancer.” Billy Club brought a hoof to his face. “Of all days, can you not keep Lady Selene under control for this day?”

She stood up and stomped a hoof. “Listen to me! The Council chambers—”

“Are perfectly secure,” Saturnine said, gently overpowering the little alicorn’s voice. “Trust me. We’ve got guards on every corner and at least four walkers in the chambers too.”

“We know how to do our job,” the other guard said, huffing and sticking out his chest.

“Are you sure you didn’t fall asleep in history class and have a little nightmare?” Saturnine teased gently. “Not that I mean to imply Miss Moondancer’s classes are boring…”

The unicorn beside Selene grunted breathlessly, still working to catch her breath.

“This is important!” Selene said, though it came across more wheedling and desperate than she’d intended.

“Not as important as a formal end to a war,” said Billy Club firmly. “I’ll not hear another word on it.”

The wall of force slowly moved toward her, and she stepped back to avoid being pushed. Moondancer wasn’t so lucky; her face pressed into the wall and she was shoved back with another breathless grumble.

“With all due respect, please go back to your room, milady. Your mother will come for you when she needs you.”

“They’re in danger!”

“We’ll be the judge of that,” said Saturnine slowly. “Thank you for letting us know, Lady Selene. Please go back to your room.”

The wall stopped moving. The guards were several feet away now, and Moondancer had curled into a crumpled heap, forehooves raised to shield herself from the spell’s gentle but unrelenting force. Selene stared, heart racing. Billy Club had stopped looking at her, returning to his at-ease post and staring across at Saturnine. The mare’s gentle smile had faded, but her half-lidded eyes were still calmly focused on Selene.

The little alicorn grit her teeth and stomped, but turned with a huff and began walking away. When she didn’t hear Moondancer follow, she looked over her shoulder and wrapped the unresisting unicorn in a shell of telekinesis, lifting her and carrying her and her history tome along for the ride.

After rounding a corner, she stopped and set the mare down. The book thudded to the floor beside her. Moondancer finally pushed her way to her hooves, straightening her glasses and shaking her head.

“Please don’t run off like that,” she said, voice still slightly hoarse. “I’m not… you know I can’t keep up with you.”

Selene was barely listening. She turned back in the direction of the central wing, a scowl on her face.

“Lady Selene,” Moondancer tried, “you heard what they said. They’ve even got fully-trained somnomancers in the room. If anything had actually gone wrong, they would know.” When this prompted no response, she put a hoof on Selene’s shoulder. “Milady, please.”

Selene rolled her shoulder, looking back at Moondancer. “This is serious.”

“The best somnomancer in the land is in that room,” said Moondancer, some of her propriety giving way to a stubborn indignance. “And nopony else has said a word. Maybe they’re right. Maybe you were just imagining, and you pulled me into your world. You’re better-trained than I am, but you’re still just an apprentice…”

“I have to get in there,” Selene said, adamant. “I have to. I know what I saw, what I felt. I know it was real.”

“As real as anything can be in a field of magic that revolves entirely around turning the subconscious world into audiovisual forms incarnating extensive metaphor and symbolism,” said Moondancer, voice slightly flat.

“Yes!”

Moondancer shook her head. “Even if you were right, the guards won’t let us in,” she said, and Selene savored the small victory of the mare including herself. “And there’s too much conscious static for us to project ourselves that far while we’re awake. Unless you feel like going back to your room for an afternoon nap?”

“There’s no time for that,” Selene snapped. Her eyes slipped to the side, to the tome that lay, heretofore forgotten, on the floor beside the librarian.

Moondancer’s eyes followed. She smiled, a little relieved. “Well, we could always go back to studying—”

“I need you to hit me,” said Selene. Moondancer stopped and looked up.

“You need me to what?”

“There’s no time for a nap, and you’re no good at artificially inducing sleep. All I need is to be unconscious. Hit me.”

The unicorn stared, uncomprehending. “I can’t do that. You’re a noble and I’m a lucky commoner. They’ll throw me out on my flank if I assault you—”

“They’ll throw the book at you, right?” Selene asked, nudging the tome. “Well, I’ve been misbehaving enough today, too. Throw the book at me.”

Behind her glasses, Moondancer’s eyes narrowed. “I am not going to risk damaging either a book or one of the Lord’s daughters,” she hissed.

They glared at each other for a moment. It was Selene who yielded first, deflating slightly and looking away, cheeks burning.

Moondancer sounded relieved when she spoke. “There. Okay. Good. Now let’s just go back and let the qualified professionals do their job. Okay?”

Selene heard the gentle twinkle of Moondancer’s magic grabbing the tome. She smiled slightly. “Hey, Moony?”

This time the unicorn’s voice had an edge of suspicion. “You never call me that when you mean well.”

“You know that copy of Stygian’s Stigmas you lost last summer?” Selene could practically hear Moondancer’s eyes narrow again. “Lulamoon took it when you weren’t looking. Remember? You had to step away when Mother wanted to talk to you…” She looked up, smiling. Moondancer’s expression had shifted to one of sudden interest.

“...Where is it?” the librarian hissed.

“Oh, it’s gone,” Selene said. “You know how Lulamoon gets once she’s bored of something. It ends up in the pile. For all I know, it could be in the trash. It’s almost certainly long gone now.”

The unicorn was seething. “You knew this? You knew and you didn’t tell me?”

“Knew?” Selene widened her smile. “I helped her do it.”

There was a woosh, and a flash of light as something struck her very hard in the head. She closed her eyes, focused through the pain, and— 

Her body collapsed away from her, crumpling to the floor. Her projection remained where she had been standing. Now, deprived of the distractions of consciousness, it was the dream world that seemed all the more real, a solid, washed out approximation of the castle forming around her, shaped by the collective unconscious of all the ponies who lived here.

Moondancer, less a pony now and more a blur of movement in the placidity of the dream, gasped and dropped the book, leaning down to the little alicorn’s unconscious form. Selene winced, knowing she would feel the blow when she woke—but she had her chance now, and she had to take it.

“You did this on purpose,” she heard Moondancer snap, her voice faint and distant but heavy with concern. “You stupid filly… Enjoy the lump on your head...”

Selene was already moving away. She trotted, or her projection trotted, for the sake of familiarity, but the rules of the real world held little sway for a dreamwalker. She went around the corner again, past the blurred-out forms of Saturnine and Billy Club, who paid her invisible projection no mind, and headed further in.

The great doors of the main audience hall loomed larger than life in the dream plane, and she was, at least, beholden to the solid structure of the quasi-real castle. Behind it, there was the buzz of conscious activity. It made the whole place seem to glow and shimmer. She could not enter through the main door, lest the dreamwalkers notice her. But, she knew, there was a servant’s entrance off to the side. That would be covered, too, she knew, but if she was careful, there was always a chance…

She ducked through the blurry idea of another awake guard, slipping into a side door and heading for an aperture covered by curtains. As she approached, she could hear the voices emanating from the waking world, including the distinct raspy tones of Dame Chroma. From here, she couldn’t make out the words. But if she could just get closer…

Something grabbed her. The shock caused her form to briefly destabilize, and she knew that if she was actually able to wake up, she’d have gone right back to her body then and there. But she was still out cold, and her form solidified again as a large, ice-cold hoof landed on her shoulder and spun her about.

The nebulous pony stood above her, and Selene stared. Up close, she could see individual stars and nebulae, a deeply, almost intimately detailed display of a night sky she had never seen before.

Had she? Something deep inside her screamed, and she squinted, trying to remember as she attempted to pull away. The creature held her fast, lowering its muzzle. Even with no eyes—indeed, with no face to speak of—she felt the immense pressure of its gaze.

Its face moved. It had no mouth, but in the dream world, such things meant little.

Wake up, it said.

And like a bubble bursting, Luna emerged. She did not change in any way; her form remained small. But she remembered who she was; the identity of Selene fell away like she was… well, like she was waking from a dream. She looked up at the dream creature with sudden, relieved, familiarity.

“Tantabus?” she asked.

The Tantabus did not let her go, but it nodded. Luna frowned.

“What is going on?”

You are awake from Your dream, said the Tantabus. But We cannot give You more than this. Others are watching, though they cannot see so clearly as We can. This shape, this role. They have been given to You. Indeed, You may forget Yourself again when Your eyes open. But here and now, You see clearly.

“I don’t understand,” Luna said. “Where is Celestia? What is going on?”

Removed as You are from Your kingdom, You are yet Queen of Dreams. But there is Another Who would steal Your throne. If You would see Canterlot restored and Your Sister returned to Her throne, pain awaits You.

“I shaped you,” Luna snapped. “You are mine—you belong to me. Speak plainly.”

Find the Tree, said the Tantabus, voice like a whisper on the edge of hearing. Find the Light that Shines in the Dark. We will come to You when We can. But We are being hunted. She is close. Sleep again. Dream again. She cannot see You behind Your mask.

The Tantabus let her go, and its form destabilized, fading to nothing. The nebulae vanished into the shadows of the dream world. Selene watched, and had the very disconcerting feeling that she was forgetting something.

Chroma was still speaking. Selene gathered herself and turned, trying to duck under the curtain.

A hoof grabbed her by the neck. She gasped and looked up into the eyes of a dreamwalking pony, a bright orange shape with a very obvious scowl.

“Milady,” said the pony. “By Lady Trine’s orders, you are not allowed in.”

One spectral hoof pressed against Selene's forehead. She felt the surge of magic as she stared into his eyes.

“Oh, bother,” she said, and the world went dark.