Old memories

by TheSourceCode95

Chapter 6

“Your highnesses, they have arrived.”

“Good, bring Twilight Sparkle and Rainbow Dash in, and show the others where they will be staying.”

“Twilight Sparkle has been put to sleep, your highness.”

“Then levitate her here, and make it quick.”

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Finally they had landed at the Canterlot Castle. The flight had taken more than two hours. It wasn’t exactly a short trip, but if she had flown herself Rainbow would have been able to do it in ten minutes. But since they all needed to get there, that was not an option. A guard came running out of the castle. He spoke to the other guards, and then stepped towards Rainbow. “Miss Rainbow Dash, you and miss Twilight Sparkle are expected at the Royal Castle. Please follow me.”

The guard levitated Twilight up from the Chariot, and started walking towards the castle entrance. Rainbow followed him, and so did the rest of their friends. A different guard stepped forwards. “I’m sorry, but we cannot allow you to come along. You will be led to your rooms.”

“Oh but I am quite certain the princesses wouldn’t mind if we came along. We are their friends, after all.”

“I am sorry, miss Rarity, but we can not let you come along. Princesses orders.”

Rainbow turned around. “It’s okay Rarity, we will see you all soon.” She continued to walk into the castle, following the guard. She had no idea where they were going. Apparently towards the Princesses, but the castle was too big for her to know where that would be. She could easily get lost in here.

The guard opened a big door, leading towards a big, open room. She knew this room. This had been the ballroom during the Grand Galloping Gala. Now, however, it had changed dramatically. The room was long and high, with large windows reaching all the way to the ceiling. The windows were pieces of art by themselves. Each one of them was made up of thousands of colorful pieces of glass. They all told a story. Together they showed the most important events in Equestrian history.

On the other side of the room, there stood four ponies. On the far right stood princess Cadence, the princess of love. Princess Cadence had been Twilight’s old foal sitter. To her left stood princess Luna, princess of the night. On the far left stood Shining Armor, captain of the Royal Guard. He was also Twilight’s brother. To his right she stood, the largest and most majestic of all ponies, princess Celestia.

As soon as they walked in, princess Luna started walking towards them. She grabbed Twilight using her magic, and put her down gently on a couple pillows. Then she laid down in front of Twilight, and touched her head with her horn. As soon as she did that, her eyes closed. A blue glow shone from both of them.

Rainbow stood there, waiting for something to happen. Then princess Celestia walked up to her. “Rainbow Dash, please relax. You are safe, and so is Twilight. She has been exhausted because of the spell she has been using to put herself to sleep. Right now my sister is guarding her dreams.”

Rainbow had no idea what to say, so the princess continued. “We have called you over to Canterlot to help us. Twilight Sparkle has probably already told you the story.” Rainbow nodded. “As you might realize, the treat is big. You and Twilight Sparkle are currently the only ones that can do anything to investigate exactly what is going on. The magical force that we are dealing with has evolved from what it was. The spell we used in the past is now useless. We need more information to make it work again.”

Rainbow looked worried at Twilight. “And why exactly can only me and Twilight do something about it?”

Celestia turned around and walked towards one of the windows. Rainbow followed. “The magic has developed itself. It is spreading and killing much quicker than it used to. The Royal Guard is trying to prevent as much deaths as possible, but we can not put all of equestria into dreamless sleep. You two are the only ones we can trust. You have proven to be strong, no matter what thread you face.”

Rainbow began to understand what she was being told. Most ponies would kill themselves while doing this investigation. But because they were the elements, they would not. She was the element of loyalty, so she would stay loyal. Twilight, the element of magic, would manage to keep the evil magic down.

There was one thing she did not understand though. “How are we going to investigate when we try to kill ourselves in our dreams?” If they fell asleep and dreamt even they would try to kill themselves. She had already tried it once.

Celestia looked at Twilight. “Currently, my sister is working at that. You two will not be dreaming your own dreams. You will be dreaming each other’s dreams.”

Wow, that went too quickly. “Dreaming each other’s dreams? How is that going to help?”

Celestia pointed at her sister. “Right now, Luna is dreaming Twilight’s dreams. The magic we are trying to defeat adapt to the person it is invading. Right now, Luna is facing threats that would drive Twilight insane. But because the threats are aimed at Twilight, they are not hard for Luna to overcome. Imagine it like this. If you had to, would you kill yourself or burn a book?”

That was a strange question. Of course Rainbow would burn that book, who wouldn’t? But then she realised, that Twilight would find great difficulty in burning a book, and when helped a bit more into the wrong direction, would probably kill herself instead. “Oh, I think I get it. But... How can we live each other’s dreams? I mean, it’s obviously magic, and I’m a pegasi.”

Celestia looked at Rainbow and smiled. “Even though you are a pegasi, that doesn’t mean you don’t have magic. You still have a very strong kind of magic inside of you. I have even sent Twilight to study it.”

And Rainbow was pushed back to square one. She not understand what friendship had to do with this situation. Using friendship you can’t read somebody’s mind, could you?

The princess continued talking. “Your friendship links you to each other. Through this friendship we can set up a permanent spell, that will make you dream each other’s dreams until the spell is broken.”

On the other side of the room, Twilight opened her eyes. She yawned, and blinked her eyes. “I fell asleep, didn’t I?”

Luna spoke to her with a softer voice than Rainbow could have ever imagined coming from the Royal mouth. “Yes Twilight Sparkle, you did. And you have slept, and dreamt. Are you ready to start your studies?”

Twilight looked around the room, and saw Rainbow standing next to Celestia. “Yes, yes I am. Rainbow, do you understand what we are going to do?” She still looked a bit tired, but already looked a lot better.

Rainbow started walking towards Twilight. “I think so.” This was nothing for her, all those explanations. All that, well, egghead stuff. But if she could help her friends, she would do anything. Even if it meant sharing her deepest thoughts. She did realise, that having somepony else see her every dream, could have massive impact. Not all her dreams were, so to speak, for all ages. But well, she had to do what she had to do.

Princess Luna looked at Rainbow. “To establish the link, I need you to lay in front of Twilight, with both your wings on her horn.”

Wow, that was unexpected. Her wings? Why her wings? “Why my wings, can’t we do it with a hoof or something?” She didn’t like anything or anypony touching her wings, or touching anything with her wings.

Luna smiled. “No Rainbow Dash, we need to do it with your wings. Your wings are the most powerful part of your body. They will channel the magic better than anything else.”

Well, no arguing with that. Her wings were indeed the most powerful part of her body, and it did make sense. Kind of. Unicorns have their horn, and pegasi their wings. She laid down in front of Twilight, and unfolded her wings. Slowly she let the tips of her wings touch the tip of Twilight's horn.

“Now lay still please. As soon as I cast the spell, your dreams will be bound. I will have to cast the spell twice, once to make you see Twilight’s dreams, and once the other way around. As soon as the spell has been cast, Twilight will fall asleep. We will leave the room, except for Shining Armor. He will make sure nothing goes wrong.”

Twilight lowered her head back onto her own front hooves, and Luna cast her spell. Rainbow felt a strange flow of energy. A warm kind of flow. First Twilight’s horn became warmer, and then the tip of her wings. But it did not stop there. Slowly the warm glow spread across her wings. Each feather became warmer, as the warmth traveled through her veins. Slowly it came closer to her shoulders, and from there spread both down into her chest and up her neck. Slowly but surely, the magic spread further. When it arrived at her nose, the felt like she had to sneeze.

But then, the magic found a way to her brain. It felt like a lightning bolt traveling from her wings all the way to her brain. The heat retracted from all other parts of her body, and focussed around the two thin lines. One in her left wing, and one in her right, leading towards the center of her brain. The lines became hotter and hotter, and she felt like she was going to melt from the inside.

Then, a second bolt of magic stroke. Everything turned black. As she opened her eyes, she saw the Library. Twilight’s house. What was she doing in Twilight’s bed? Oh, this must be a dream. All of a sudden, she stood up and started walking. How, what is going on? Oh right, I don’t have control. I’m just watching.

Twilight walked down the stairs. Hmm, everything is looking normal so far. She walked to her telescope and started looking through it. Rainbow had to admit, the sky did look amazing through one of these. She had flown out there in the night sky quite often, but that was different from this. It was a bit clearer, but through a telescope she could see things.. Differently. They looked so much closer. Almost as if you could grab them.

The night sky was filled with stars and other objects. Now and then a pegasi flew by. Rainbow saw herself flying by once. And there was one more pegasi that stood out. It was a brown pegasi, with a letter as cutie mark. It was him! That was the messenger! That was the guy that brought her the news that she was suspended! What did that mean? She would have to tell this to Twilight.

But just as that pegasi flew by, something else happened. One of the stars he just flew by started to grow in size. It grew quickly, too quickly. Even though she was not an egghead, Rainbow knew this was not what was supposed to happen. Then, she got sucked back into darkness.

For a moment she just laid there. She had her eyes closed, trying to figure out what had happened. Twilight groaned softly, she had woken up. Rainbow opened her eyes and saw Twilight sitting straight up. Her brother stood next to them. “Twilight, are you okay?”

“I think I am. Well, that was definitely a bad dream. Rainbow, we need to go over every single thing that happened if we want to find out why it happened.” Rainbow was still laying down, her eyes half closed. She folded her wings back into place, and sat up.

Ouch, headache. “Twilight, do you know a spell against headaches?” Shining Armor stepped forward. His horn began to glow, and the headache was gone. “Thanks, Shining. Okay, Twi, could you just explain me what was going on before you woke up?”

Twilight had already grabbed a piece of paper, some ink and a quill and was writing down everything that had happened in the dream. “In a second, just write down what you remember.” She levitated a pot of ink, quill and piece of paper over to Rainbow who stepped back.

Dreaming somebody else’s dreams okay, but writing? She wasn’t really the type to write. “Eeh, Twi? Have you ever even met me? Me and writing isn’t exactly the best idea.”

Twilight did not lose focus, and kept on using her magic to write. Her paper was already twice as long as the average letter to the Princess. That much hadn’t happened, right?

“Here, let me help you.” Twilight cast a spell on the quill, and then on Rainbow. “Now just think of what you want to write.”

Okay, thinking should be doable. Let’s see...

Woke up

Looked at hooves

Twilight’s hooves, Twilight’s body.

Stepped out of Twilight’s bed

Walked down stairs

Stare through telescope

Brown pegasi flies by

Star grows

That was really all she could think of. The quill dropped. She looked at Twilight’s paper, which was currently roughly the size of three letters to the princess. “Okay, I’m done.”

Twilight raised her head and looked the paper Rainbow just wrote. “Rainbow, you will have to write in a bit more detail next time. If we read this back later we don’t know the details. For now it is good enough though.”

Ugh, more detail. Well, the writing wasn’t that bad with that spell. Twilight put down her quill carefully. “Hey Twi, that brown pegasi... He was the one that told me I was suspended. Do you know what is going on with him?”

Twilight started pacing around the room. “I am not sure Rainbow. I have seen him in my previous dreams as well, but in that dream he was an unicorn. he seems to bring the bad to our dreams. I think he could be representing two things. Either he is the one that is currently trying to infect us, or it could be him.”

That pony really never spoke without any kind of riddle. “Him, Twilight?”

“Yes Rainbow, him. Luna’s last private student.”

Comments

[Flying-Claw]

Begins to be interesting ! Nice Chapter !

[Rainbow87dash]

INCEPTION!