Vermilion didn’t expect to actually land.
You never landed in dreams when you fell. You just woke up, and that was it. It didn’t even hurt. Of course, falling from miles up in the sky probably didn’t hurt in real life, either..
Either way, the landing came as a complete surprise.
The ground rushed up to smash him like a boulder crushing an egg. He struck the puddled stone floor with enough force to shatter it, sending bits of rock and dust and a plume of water fountaining dozens of yards into the clammy air. His bones didn’t break, because this was a dream – it merely felt like they broke. The darkness vanished, to the extent that darkness can vanish, replaced by a crimson world of pain and shock and the sudden need to breathe after one’s lungs have been pulped.
Gradually, Vermilion came to his senses. The pain ebbed away like the tide, revealing as it receded a cold, wet room, smelling of dust and mold and years of absence. There was stone beneath his cheek, and above the stone several inches of brackish water. He inhaled a lungful, choked, and pushed himself upright, retching the water back out. His hacking cough was the only sound in the room beyond his heartbeat.
“Hello?” he croaked. “Is.... is anypony…” he ran out of breath, and the edges of his vision turned gray. He knelt and lowered his head, nostrils just above the water, until the blood returned to his brain.
When, after a few minutes, the urge to vomit and pass out had passed, he raised his head. There was little light in this room, this dungeon, but there were marble walls to the sides, and a long corridor extended into the darkness. Chunks of broken stone littered the floor, overgrown with black mold. Bats chittered in the vast, endless space above him. Sky, or a tremendously high ceiling, he couldn’t tell.
A quiet sound, a sniffle, not quite a sob, caught his ear. He spun in place, splashing water everywhere, and saw another pony slouched just feet away. A mare, with a shell pink coat that shone even in the gloom of this despondent cavern. A bright coral mane defied the darkness.
“Rose Quartz?” He took a step toward her and reached out a hoof to her shoulder. “Are… can you hear me?”
She shrugged his hoof off. “Go away.”
“I, uh…” He lapsed into silence. They didn’t seem to be in any immediate danger. In fact, there didn’t appear to be anything in this ruin except for themselves. “I… listen, Rose, this is a dream. I can get you out.”
Rose mumbled something below his hearing. She turned away, presenting her back to him. There was a free-standing mirror in front of her, he noticed now, one of those ancient unicorn antiques mounted on an axis on a wooden stand. It stood well over his head, and was broad enough to view one’s reflection in profile. In all his life he’d never seen one so large. Around the the mirror, the wood frame had been carved in the shape of bones.
A drop of chill water fell from the endless heights, striking Vermilion square between the shoulders. It ran down his spine, leaving a trail of ice in its wake. He shuddered and shook his coat to rid himself of it, but the ghost of its touch remained. All around him, other drops fell into the the shallow puddles, filling the dark ruin with a faint rolling hiss.
“Come on, we need to get out of here,” he said. “This place is—”
“Just leave me alone.” Her voice was quiet, but like stone. It cut easily across his wavering words. “Just go.”
He took a breath. “I can’t do that, Rose. There’s a lot of ponies out there who need us, who need you. I know it doesn’t feel like it, but all this is just a dream, and the sooner we get moving the sooner we can figure our way out.”
She waved a hoof at the ruins. “There is no way out. I’ve looked. It’s just this, and me. And now you. You shouldn’t have come, Vermilion.”
Alright, then. She was in a mood. And after wrestling a giant spider, getting his head cut off, and being tossed from the world’s tallest cliff, Vermilion was running out of patience for that sort of thing.
“Yeah, well, I didn’t want to come,” he said. “But that’s just how things worked out. Now, are you going to sit there and feel sorry for yourself until this place collapses, or are you going to come with me and look for a way out?”
Rose Quartz absorbed this in silence. When finally he was done, and stillness again returned to the ruins, and the loudest sound was the his of the cold rain and the hammering of his heartbeat in his ears, Rose lifted her head. She stared into the mirror, and her reflection caught his eyes.
She wasn’t wearing the half-blindfold she’d sported ever since leaving the hospital. Her face was bare, uncovered, revealing the terrible wound inflicted upon her in Hollow Shades. A twisted, shiney pink scar, uncovered by her coat, rose from her right cheek, across the socket, and up into the line of her mane. The empty ruin of her eye, enfolded by split and puckered lids, stared at him.
He flinched at the sight. Even on an earth pony, it would have been a grievous wound. But on a unicorn? On a face as fine and delicate as porcelain? It was a defilement.
Rose saw his reaction. Her remaining eye narrowed, and her lips twisted in a snarl. She turned away from the mirror, and a bit of her pink mane fell down to conceal the worst of the injury.
“Just get out,” she spat. “I don’t need you here. Go be a hero somewhere else.”
He licked his lips. What would Canopy do in his place? She’d always led them with such supreme confidence, the right words to reprimand or inspire them always at her call. It was one reason Vermilion would have followed her anywhere – why he did follow her into Hollow Shades, knowing nothing more about their mission but that it was the right thing to do. The very sound of her voice was inseparable in his mind from authority and determination. He closed his eyes and tried to imagine her in this place. Surely, if this was a dream, he could dream that much.
Nothing came to him. No inspirational words, no flamboyant appeals. Over and over in his mind he saw the ragged wound on Rose’s face, and imagined how it must have felt for her, to have her eye plucked out. His chest tightened, every muscle in his frame seizing. The mere thought of her pain paralyzed him.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered.
Her ears flickered at the sound. Then she snorted and curled in further upon herself, until her chin touched her chest. The curtain of her mane concealed her face.
“Look, I know this doesn’t make any sense right now, but we’re both stuck here so I’m just going to talk until I’ve had my say, okay?” He turned away from her as he spoke, to regard the vast, shrouded ruins around them. “I know this all feels real, but it’s not. We’re trapped in a dream, and the only way out is if we find the monster that has us trapped here and kill it. And, you know, if you can’t believe this is a dream, then just trust me that there’s a monster in these ruins with us, and we can’t go home until find it and slay it. Do you want to go home, Rose?”
No response. He turned back to see her sitting, unmoving. He waited, and when nothing followed, nodded to himself.
“Alright, I’m gonna go look around, see if I can find it myself. You just… just stay here, I guess. Be careful.”
He looked back to the ruins. High walls hemmed them in, and broken pillars leaned like drunks against them or lay upon the uneven stone floor. Dark passages opened periodically in the walls, but the corridor they were in seemed to extend some distance into the darkness. No sounds echoed back from it; no light penetrated its depths. It was the obvious place for a monster to lurk in a dream.
Nothing for it, then. He swallowed heavily. You can’t die in dreams. You can’t die in dreams. He repeated the mantra over and over, and after a dozen or so times found the strength to lift his hoof and take a step into the darkness.
“Fine, if you’re going to act like a martyr about it,” Rose’s voice, low and filled with gravel, came from behind. “We’ll go together.”
He forced out a smile – he even felt it, a little. “Okay, thank you. I’m really glad that—”
A grating screech shattered the silence, cutting him off. He jumped in shock, spun in mid-air, and nearly stumbled to his knees on landing. His heart, which had begun to slow, exploded in his chest, hammering his ribs hard enough to shake the tips of his ears. The sudden, screaming need for a weapon, any weapon, overwhelmed his thoughts as he searched for the source of the sound.
It was the mirror. Or, more accurately, it was Rose, dragging the mirror. The bright emerald glow of her horn was like a star in the gloom, and her magic surrounded the mirror’s frame. She gave a grunt, and the whole assembly slid a few feet behind her as she walked toward Vermilion. Each step was a struggle, like she was yoked to a stone sled. The mirror wobbled but didn’t fall as it marched behind her.
“Uh…” He waited for a gap in the grating squeal of wood on wet stone before speaking. “What are you doing?”
“I’m bringing the mirror.” She was already winded from the effort of dragging it a mere ten feet.
“I… see that. Why?”
“Because I need it.” She nudged him aside with her shoulder and continued plodding onward into the gloom. The mirror, bound by her magic, resumed its slow pursuit.
He kept pace with her with a foal’s steps. It didn’t make sense, but then, it didn’t need to. Since when had dreams ever made sense? But still, it was worth a try: “Do, uh… Do you really?”
“Yes.”
Okay. Well, that sounded definitive. He gave the mirror another glance, then turned down the corridor and their unknown, unseen destination.
Progress was slow. The mirror quieted down after a few dozen yards, as its wood feet splintered on the stone and absorbed water from the shallow puddles, turning into a soft pulp that, if not quite as smooth as the runners on a sled, managed to rumble across the rocks without too much trouble. It still filled the ruins with a grating rattle as Rose dragged it over the broken ground, but no longer was it loud enough to drown out his thoughts.
The ruins didn’t change much as they moved. In places the walls were further apart, in places close together, but everywhere it was dark and wet and cold. His breath fogged in the air, and the sweat in his coat quickly turned frigid and leached the heat from his body. The cold water splashing at his legs and belly added ever so slightly to the misery.
Rose didn’t fare much better. Although the obvious effort of dragging the massive mirror behind her kept her warm, she quickly ran out of breath. Each step was a struggle; she braced her hooves against cracks or angles in the stone and heaved herself forward, pulling the mirror a commensurate distance.
After a while of this – an hour? Hours? There was no way to tell – he cleared his throat. “You, uh, you sure you need that? We could just come back for it later.”
She shook her head.
“Really?”
She nodded.
And that was the end of that conversation.
* * *
Some undefined time later found them resting beneath a teetering column. It had fallen against the wall some centuries ago, and now provided a shelter from the constant drizzle. He reasoned that if it hadn’t collapsed after years in this position, it probably wouldn’t fall on them while they rested beneath it. Bits of powdery scree knocked loose from the wall formed little seats above the puddles. For the moment they were out of the water.
The mirror was too tall to fit under the column. They left it out in the middle of the corridor, standing sentry against whatever lurked in the darkness.
Vermilion took the opportunity to take stock of their situation. They had no food, plenty of water, no clothes, nothing to make a fire (unless one counted the mirror, which he didn’t), no medicine, no torches, and only as much magic as Rose Quartz could spare after hauling the mirror.
“Thank Celestia this is a dream,” he mumbled.
Rose’s ears flicked. “What?”
He sighed. “Nothing.”
She grunted, and they lapsed back into silence.
In time, the vestiges of Vermilion’s strength returned. He shouldn’t have been so exhausted – he was only walking while Rose did all the dragging – but each dream so far had taken its toll on him. He felt like it had been days since he slept or ate or did anything but walk or fight. He just wanted to close his eyes. But Rose was still trapped, and until they were all free of the dreamora’s grasp he couldn’t rest. Canopy would have never forgiven him if he stopped now. He swallowed that thought and gathered the energy to stand when Rose’s voice came again.
“Why’d you join?” she asked.
“Huh?”
“The company. Why’d you join the company?”
“Oh.” He’d been asked this question so many times the answer came easily, even in his exhausted state. “I grew up on a carrot farm south of Everfree. Seven brothers and sisters, and a dozen or so cousins, all on our farmstead. They’re all still there, working through the first harvest of the summer right now. Pulling carrots out of the ground, tossing them in barrels, then tilling the rows for the next planting. They’ll do that three times in the summer, then switch to gourds, then to wheat, then finally it gets too cold and we all just hide in the house until spring. That’s all we did, every day, every year. I just had to get away from it.”
“Why?”
“Because… Because being a farmer just didn’t seem like it mattered. Do you know how many earth pony farmers there are? More than there are clouds in the sky. And nothing they do makes any difference, except for how many tons or carrots or apples or whatever they grow and sell at the market.”
She snorted. She wasn’t facing him directly – Rose always tried to stand or sit so that only her intact eye was visible. She was facing the mirror instead, though it was angled in such a way that it couldn’t hold her reflection. “Their lives matter to their families, their friends. They make a huge difference to them. Isn’t that enough?”
“Maybe for them.” He shrugged. “But I wanted more. And one day I saw some guards marching by the farm, and I thought, ‘I could probably do that.’ And it turned out I could.”
“So you just wanted to be special?”
It sounded so childish, said like that. Almost insulting. He opened his mouth to rebut her, then realized he wasn’t sure what to say. “No… just... I wanted to matter.”
“Hm.” Her eye shifted toward him for a moment, then back to the empty ruins and the mirror. The silence returned and extended.
“What about you?” he finally asked. They had a few more minutes until her strength returned, he guessed.
“Why’d I join?”
“Why’d you enlist?” He’d always wondered that about Rose – she was the only enlisted unicorn in the entire company. All the other unicorns were officers like Electrum, or technical specialists like Quicklime and the mages he’d always avoided. All the enlisted, all the grunts, were earth ponies and pegasi. Even now, weeks after leaving the company, he still had to fight the urge to call Rose ma’am, as though she were an officer herself.
Of course, they were all officers now. Knights in Luna’s service. He wasn’t used to that either.
“My mother’s a doctor,” she said. “Ever since I was a filly, I remember her going on house calls, or receiving patients at our house. I loved the way ponies admired her and thanked her. If you were sick, and she treated you, she might as well have been Celestia herself. What little filly wouldn’t want that? So when I reached my majority, she offered to get me a spot in the academy, just like she had.”
Vermilion raised an eyebrow. Being a student at the Everfree Academy of Medical Sciences was about as far as a young mare could get from enlisting in the guard. “And?”
“I turned her down.” Rose squeezed her eye shut. “My mother came from a poor family, and she earned a spot in the academy herself, through her own hard work. Nopony gave it to her. I wanted to show her I could do the same. So I signed up as a medic, and after my four year enlistment I was supposed to get a slot at the academy. It was all going perfect until Hollow Shades.”
“Can you still go?” he asked. “I mean, you must have the money for it now.”
She shook her head slightly. He only noticed because the tips of her mane swayed. “No. You can’t be a one-eyed unicorn doctor.”
“Uh.” He blinked at that. Over the years he’d encountered plenty of one-eyed earth ponies, and even a few pegasi. They seemed to have no problems with their chosen professions. Hell, if pegasi could fly with one eye, why couldn’t somepony be a one-eyed doctor? “Really?”
She nodded.
“Oh.” He frowned. “Why? Is there some kind of magical depth-perception you need—”
“Because you can’t be a one-eyed unicorn anything,” she spat. “Because every time you see a foal they run away. Because everypony else just stares at your face when they think you aren’t looking. Because nopony wants to be touched by a one-eyed freak.”
Her rant froze Vermilion’s breath in his chest. He held perfectly still, afraid that any reaction might betray him. That she might see the shadow of understanding in his eyes; that she might think it meant he agreed. So he schooled his visage into stone. When she looked up at him, he returned her gaze without emotion.
Silence extended. She waited, and her eye narrowed.
He chose his words carefully. “I’m sorry. I hope you know I don’t feel that way.”
She snorted. “Of course not. You’re an earth pony.”
“What about Zephyr? Quicklime?”
“Zephyr is a warrior. Quicklime is a child.”
He frowned. “She’s not a child. Don’t insult her.”
“Insult?” She rolled her eye. “We all think it, I’m just saying it aloud. She’s a wonderful pony, Vermilion, but don’t let that blind you to how she thinks and behaves. She may be an adult but she has a lot of growing up to do.”
He pushed himself upright. The cold damp of the ruins vanished, chased away by the heat rising in his breast. “I thought you said foals ran away from one-eyed unicorns.”
“She—” Rose stopped and frowned. When she continued, her voice was softer. “She’s a good pony. One of the best I know. But don’t mistake her for how most unicorns are. She’s special, in a good way. And foals do run from one-eyed unicorns. You’ll have to take my word for it.”
Her voice was so bitter Vermilion could taste it. He swallowed. “Alright. Just remember that we’re not most ponies. We’re your friends.”
For a moment, Rose’s expression softened. Her mouth opened, as though she were about to speak, but nothing came. She stared at him, then turned away.
Finally, “We should get moving,” she said.
He nodded. “Yeah.”
They stood and stepped out from beneath the teetering column into the endless rain.
* * *
The next few hours proceeded much as the first. Vermilion found himself losing track of his surroundings. The endless walls blended together, becoming more an impression of dark, cracked marble, blackened by water and rotten with the ages. The stone beneath his hooves became an endless road, starting nowhere, ending in nothing. Even the constant grating squeal of Rose’s mirror being dragged across the rocks faded out of his mind, turning into nothing more than a background noise, easily ignored.
Like this they walked together, splashing through the cold puddles, wearing away their hooves on the stone. They did this for longer than any dream could have lasted. They walked for what felt like ages. Days, weeks, months passed in slow toil, creeping deeper and deeper into the darkness. In time, Vermilion forgot why they were walking at all. He only remembered that they were finding something. There was an answer ahead, a solution.
If only he could remember the problem.
Time lost all meaning. Days became years. And still they walked. Until one day, when out of nowhere a terrifying roar filled Vermilion’s ears. He froze, crouching, his ears folded back against the assault. Some monster was at last near, and this was its cry, and any moment now it would fly out from the darkness to attack them. He bared his teeth and readied for its assault.
Nothing came. The shadows ahead remained as unmoving as before.
His heart calmed, and he realized the roar was not a roar after all. It was not noise – it was the absence of noise. The constant squeal of Rose’s mirror being dragged across the stone had stopped. What he heard, for the first time in ages, was silence.
He turned around. Rose was a few paces behind him, slouched over. Her chest heaved with each breath. Sweat had so soaked her coat and mane that it hung, limp around her, dripping.
He tried speak and found his mouth was too dry. He licked his cracked lips, swallowed, and tried again.
“You okay?”
She nodded. After a few minutes, she found enough breath to speak. “Yes. Just tired.”
Ah. He looked past her at the mirror. Despite the endless grinding it had suffered, it still stood as tall has he remembered. The bone-carved wood frame glistened with drops of rain. He stepped closer to it and peered at his reflection.
“Do you need help?” he finally asked. “Maybe I could push it instead?”
She shook her head. “No. I can carry it.”
“Are you sure?” He reached toward the frame with his hoof. “I’ll be careful with—
“DON’T TOUCH IT!” Rose’s shriek split the night. She lunged at him, and only a quick flinch prevented her horn from removing one of his own eyes. Her teeth snapped shut on the air just a hair’s breath from his throat.
He fell back with an entirely unmasculine yelp, rolling in the cold water before scrambling to his hooves. Rose stood by the mirror still, panting, but making no move to chase him. Her hooves were wide, planted for support, blocking his path to the mirror.
“It’s mine,” she hissed at him. She glared at him, lips peeled back in a snarl, her eye narrowed to a slit.
He counted to ten in his head, then counted to twenty. When he was sure his breath was calm, and he could speak without shaking, he nodded. “Sorry. I’m sorry. I won’t touch it.”
“I’m sick of ponies trying to touch it,” she said. Her voice crawled with barely hidden malice. “Everypony acts like it’s not there, like they can’t see it, but we all know it’s there. Well, it’s not theirs to touch! It’s not yours, Vermilion!”
“I’m sorry, I—”
“Shut up! SHUT UP!” Her voice rose to a shout. Spittle flew from her mouth. Her crazed eye widened, bulging at him, exposing the white all around the brilliant emerald iris. “Don’t tell me you’re sorry! You’re not! You just say that, like all the others!”
Okay, so that’s what this was about. He held out a hoof. “They say that because they care about you. They’re your friends.”
“Friends.” The word came out twisted by her sneer. “I had friends before, Vermilion. You ever want to learn who your real friends are? Just turn into a freak, and you’ll find out! The answer is: none! None of them, none of them want to see me anymore. None of them want to be around me. It’s like this… this wound, this maiming is some sort of contagious disease that they might catch by being too close to me. So they all stay away, and all they do is stare at me, and they thank Celestia that this happened to me instead of them. And now the only friends I have left are your pathetic little band of outcasts who think they’re heroes. So please do me the favor, friend, of not telling me why ponies feel sorry for me. I already know!”
Her words transfixed him. But more than that, her face stole his gaze. For all that he could barely resist staring at her wounded eye before, now it seized his mind. Where before the hollow socket of her ravaged eye had merely seemed like a terrible wound, now he saw something more there. Something dark, smokey and writhing, boiled out from the wound. It coiled in the empty socket and spilled out, wrapping around her skull. It pulsed in time with her heartbeat. It grew fat, like an engorged tick, swelling until it seemed ready to burst under the weight of the darkness within.
It was a dreamora, burrowing into her demolished eye. He stared, mouth open in shock. Vaguely he was aware of her continuing rant against all the ponies who had turned away from her since returning wounded from Hollow Shades. But he could not focus on that – all his attention was on the dreamora drinking her hatred. It seemed to grow larger as he watched, gorging itself on her. Eating her.
In an instant, his exhaustion washed away. The lethargy of the endless walk through the ruins vanished. He opened his eyes anew and remembered the dream. He remembered why he was there.
“Rose.” He stepped toward her. “Do you remember what I said? About this being a dream? I think—”
“I don’t care what you think! You, you’re the reason I’m here, I know it! I don’t know how, but this is all your fault!”
“Rose, I can get you out.” He lifted a hoof, extending it toward her delicate face. “I know where the monster is. I know how to—”
“Don’t touch me!” She smacked his hoof away. Her horn flashed to life, and an invisible force slammed into him from the side, knocking him flat onto the stones. His face smacked into the rock, and a brilliant flare of pain blinded him.
Once, before Hollow Shades, that would have ended the fight. But Vermilion had suffered far worse blows, and he rolled onto his hooves. The taste of hot copper flooded his mouth, and he spat out a thick glob of blood and spittle. Something that wasn’t water dripped down the side of his face.
He took a step forward. “Listen, Rose—”
“Stop looking at me!” She turned her head, angling her empty eye away from him. Her hoof raise a few inches, as if to shield her face, but hesitated. She froze like that, shaking, and then slowly backed away. She bumped into the mirror, which still stood over them both, and fell to her haunches. “Please, just go away. Leave me alone.”
The fury drained out of her. Her shoulders slumped, and she curled forward, defeated. Her chest hitched as she sobbed quietly.
Vermilion stepped his way forward. The dreamora, though partially concealed beneath the curtain of Rose’s mane, seemed to swell even further. It drank her sorrow and self-pity as eagerly as it drank her anger. All negative emotions were like honey to it.
He stopped a pace away. “None of this is real, Rose. It’s a dream.”
“Is it? And when I wake up, will I still look like this?”
He swallowed. “It’s, uh… it’s not as simple as that.”
“Yes, then.”
A chill descended upon them. The light rain vanished, replaced by tiny flurries of snow. A mist grew up from the water around their hooves and condensed in Vermilion’s coat as thousands of tiny beads. The sudden cold leached what little energy remained in his chest, and he found himself shivering as much as Rose. Only the dreamora seemed unaffected – it writhed, growing larger with every passing second. Already it was too large to simply hang from Rose’s face; now it wrapped around her neck and shoulders, and still it grew.
He sat and leaned against her. The warmth in her coat was all that remained in these endless ruins. He felt her lean into him, and for a moment he was able to breath.
“I can’t do this,” she whispered. “I can’t live like that. I’m hideous.”
“You’re not. You’re stronger than you think.” He pressed his cheek against hers. The dreamora brushed against his neck and began to wrap its length around him. A cold lassitude invaded his blood, draining away his energy. He felt too tired to care anymore about the ruins, or about escaping.
But still… He pushed through the fog invading his mind. He had something important to say. “It’s not hopeless out there, Rose. You’re a hero. Ponies need you. We need you.”
“I’m a monster.”
“No, no.” He wrapped his hooves around her in an embrace. The dreamora squeezed between them, a slimy, cold presence trying to split them apart, but it was a smokey, intangible thing. Nothing compared with the strength of an earth pony. “You’re not a monster, Rose. You’re beautiful.”
Silence followed. Rose stopped breathing. He stopped breathing. The snow stopped falling. The dreamora grew still, holding its shape like frozen smoke. Only the steady pulse of their heartbeats remained.
“I was beautiful, once,” she whispered. “I knew it. I loved it. Perhaps I loved it too much. Is this my punishment, Vermilion? Is this fate?”
He leaned his head against hers. “I don’t know anything about fate. But you’re not being punished. You’re one of the best ponies I know and you’re beautiful. Please come back to us.”
She tensed in his grip, and for a moment he feared she was about to explode again. But instead something inside her broke, a dam, a blockage, and she began to weep. His shoulder turned wet with her tears. And slowly, slowly, she faded away, until nothing remained in his arms.
The dreamora, bereft of its host, fell onto the stones and puddles, gnashing about like a wounded snake. Its movements grew weaker as the cold settled in, and eventually it grew still.
Vermilion found himself alone with the mirror. He looked into it, too exhausted to do anything else. Even months after Hollow Shades, he wasn’t used to his new reflection – bulkier, filled out with new muscles, and dappled all across his face and chest with dark spots from Blightweaver’s venom. He wondered, idly, if he would ever accept this new reflection as his own.
He stood. At his hooves, the dreamora’s corpse faded away, leaving an oily stain the rocks. He stared at it for a moment, then shook his head and turned away.
He tilted his head up to address the dark heavens. “We’re done.”
He felt Luna’s presence, then. Invisible, a heavy press of cold air against his shoulders like a cloak of winter’s night. He wondered, idly, if she had always been there, always watching him. This was her realm, after all. It might be that nothing he did here was needed, that Luna, master and god of dreams, could have simply waved a hoof and released his friends from the dreamoras.
Or perhaps that wasn’t what she wanted. Perhaps this was something he and Cloud Fire had to do themselves.
He would have to ask her, he supposed. He felt his eyelids grow heavy, and his thoughts foggy, and the ruins around him began to fade away. He wanted, so desperately, to sleep.
But there was still a battle to fight. He hoped the others were better prepared than he.