“Luna.”
One of the drawbacks of Princess Luna’s total control of subconscious lucidity was that she could tell when someone in the waking world was speaking to her, no matter how deep she might have been in sleep at the time.
“Lunaaaa…”
The princess felt an ethereal poke at her withers, coming from somewhere in the veritable abyss that was her dream. She knew it was Celestia, likely stood over her with a small frown on her muzzle, but paid it no heed.
“Luna, get up. It’s sundown in less than an hour.”
Luna sighed vacantly, she hated doing this: Segmenting her concentration, she reached out to her physical self and barely opened an eyelid to squint at Celestia. She then channelled her thoughts through her mouth, all without leaving her empty dream. “I’ll be up in ten minutes, sister.”
She did indeed see Celestia’s frown, which only deepened at her utterance. “It was ‘ten minutes’ twenty minutes ago,” she tutted, nudging her a little more. “Come on, Luna, I’m completely exhausted. You didn’t have to preside over court today, it was crazy. All I want to do is go to bed myself, and I don’t want to have to raise the moon for you again.”
Luna replied only with a short nod, mulling Celestia’s words over as she peered towards the ceiling with one eye and a blanket of darkness with the other, which was still closed. After a small measure of deliberation, she nodded again. “Five minutes longer, and I will be awake.”
“Fine,” Celestia grumbled, “but if I come back in five minutes and you’re still laid there, I’m pouring a cold glass of water over you.”
Luna shrugged off Celestia’s comment, although she wasn’t sure whether she just imagined doing so. She closed her eyes again, drifting back into an empty slumber.
She knew she had been this way for hours now, but it could almost feel as long as she wished it to. She could experience her dream in real time, or trick herself into believing it was over in a second; all she would remember is falling into sleep and then getting up. On the other hoof, she could stretch it out too, a thousand years of darkness and solitude if she so desired.
Luna always found other ponies’ misconceptions regarding dreams funny, and the empty dream was a big one. Most ponies seemed to think that you dreamt a specific dream all of the time, but only remembered some of them, and that was why you couldn’t recall your dream every time you woke up. In actuality, the reason that certain dreams aren’t remembered is because nothing transpires in them. They are black, devoid of interaction, and completely lifeless.
Luna wondered if she was the only pony capable of truly experiencing such a dream. It was a unique brand of solitude, but it had become all the more inviting lately. After her most recent experiences in the dreamscape she loathed to let her dreams run wild, they took her to places she wasn’t welcome in.
Being able to contain herself to simple nothingness – her thoughts and feelings in a faux stasis – was almost a blessing, but she knew that stifling the expression of her unconscious mind was potentially dangerous, even if it was unconventionally stimulated when she dream-walked.
This was better than the alternative, she sought to remind herself. She had recently made a promise to herself to stop perpetuating her torment, but she still did not trust that she would persevere. Five days she had lasted without doing the dreaded thing, but still the thought weighed heavy on her mind, no matter how she might cover it up.
She knew it was destructive, she knew she was only upsetting herself, and she knew it was regressive, but she could barely help it. It had been a small stroke of genius and a sudden jolt of elation when she realised it was possible, amazement when it had actually worked, and then addiction soonafter. Unfortunately, like all things, it soured with time, and the repetition of her nights spent there only served to damage her soul.
Luna had no reason to think of it any more. She hadn’t visited in five days, and was an expert in navigating the tumultuous surface of the dreamscape, meaning that while she knew how to find her vice in very little time at all, she also knew how to avoid it.
She only wished she knew how to avoid knowledge of its existence altogether. She would happily forget right now, but she wasn’t sure whether she should feel guilty about that.
Luna chose not to dwell on the topic, opening her eyes to greet the receding day, the sun low in the sky like a fiery pendant hanging from a long chain. Rubbing her eyes once, she stepped onto her balcony to watch as the sun gave its last throes of splendor for the day, its radiance stifled as it was slowly set.
There was something Luna enjoyed about sunset. For all of the sun’s splendor, for all its power and ferocity, its strength and regality, it knew how to take its leave, and graciously did so each day, but even still it departed in a stunning blaze.
The moon was a much simpler creature, content to watch over the world in the sun’s stead but not with such aggressive flamboyance, as it had companionship in the many stars that accompanied it throughout the night, and didn’t feel it necessary to cast illumination on the world. The stars were merely dead suns themselves, gone for years as the moon remained everlasting, but the moon didn’t need to know that, it could convince itself otherwise if need be.
Closing her eyes and channelling energy into her horn, Luna prepared herself for the task of bringing about night. Handling the gargantuan, straining amount of magic it took to put her namesake in place was certainly the most easy part of her night.
For hours Luna toiled, coaxing nightmares from the deepest recesses of her subjects’ minds, be those impalpable, imagined demons or much more visceral threats, born of real life worries and fears.
One dream had been particularly poignant: It had told a tale of systematic abuse. Though the dreamer has been the instigator, rather than the victim, they were pained by it all the same.
Through studying the pony and their displeasure, Luna had silently worked for thankless relief, taking the negativity from the dream and forging a scenario in which the pony would be led to do the right thing, which they eventually did. She had chosen not to reveal herself to the pony, as in doing so she would also reveal her knowledge of their transgressions.
She felt pity for the pony. Despite knowing that he had done wrong and clearly regretting it, he was still tormented for his inactions and past mistakes when he tried to sleep at night. It was clear that the want to correct such mistakes was present, if only because the pony did in fact know that what they had done was terrible, rather than for an ulterior motive, such as peace of mind. Luna was sure the pony was not even aware that they were dreaming.
Dealing with timberwolves and ghosts felt almost laughable in comparison. If worries of evil creatures were all that plagued a pony at night, it was likely that their waking world was quite pleasant by contrast.
There were many things Luna would give to dream of being chased by timberwolves.
It was 4am, and as she often did at this time, Luna had hit a lull in her work. New dreams rarely started this late, most ponies had already been settled into one for hours by this point. While dreams could change, the possibility of a very sudden negative turn this late in the night was quite slim.
It was at this time that Luna found herself wandering the unpaved avenues between dreams, searching for something to occupy herself with. In the back of her mind, she knew there was something she could be doing, something that almost screamed at her to acquiesce, but she refrained, knowing it was a bad idea and refusing to give in.
She needed a holiday, she concluded. Somewhere away from her thoughts, and not of her mind’s concoction, suitably unfamiliar. Something foreign and comforting that would make her ever so briefly forget about the palace grounds, her sister, her role, her past, her friends…
She flicked through dreams like a catalogue, but each looked suitably generic. Lacklustre creations with insufficient detail, products of a stunted imagination, she reckoned. Some looked too private, too personal, and others looked to be too complex.
She had almost given up when she stumbled across one in particular, a dream she almost felt familiar with.
She was sure she had seen the verdant farmland before, and after a small amount of time she realised that it resembled what few seconds she had once seen of Applejack’s dreams. However, there was a difference.
The closer she got to the threshold of the dream, the more she saw it. Rows upon rows of countryside, each painted across the dreamer’s mind in such vivid detail you could swear it was real life. Luna was taken aback, awestruck. Scarcely had she seen a dream before that looked so realistic, so powerful.
And that was it. Despite the stupendous amount of detail, this really did appear to be an extremely ordinary dream. Luna had seen countless dreams in the past, and while she was familiar with the phenomenon that occurred when a pony dreamt of their daily activities, it was often that there was a twist. Perhaps they excelled at them in their dream, perhaps their affairs were much better or worse, or their usual activities could even be interspersed with other, more outlandish events.
Still, this was the perfect picture of tranquility. There was a pony in the distance, a hulking red stallion, pulling a cart attached to his body as he worked his way through the fields.
Luna peered closer, watching for any abnormalities, anything that would confirm to her that what she was seeing was indeed a dream, but the realism was too hard to ignore. The fact that all this pony seemed to do in his sleep was pull carts was quite shocking, but equally interesting.
After a little time, he set his cart down, causing Luna to raise an eyebrow. By then, she was camping in one of the further off trees, sat inside the dream. Even the branches and leaves felt real, it was astounding. The large, red pony walked over to one of the trees opposite to her, placing baskets before it at alternating angles. Once he appeared satisfied, he extended a forehoof and gave it a quick, powerful punch, the force causing all of the apples to descend, landing neatly in their baskets as the loud thud of hoof hitting oak reverberated.
All the apples but one, it seemed. This struck Luna as incredibly odd, and she couldn’t help but stare at the lone apple, sitting in isolation and waiting to be plucked. What she found stranger still was that the red pony didn’t appear to notice the remaining fruit, silently loading the baskets onto his cart before fetching more.
In a pony’s dream, they decide the parameters, it’s all their imagination. How could this pony miss an apple and not realise? Does it represent something, or does it simply serve to highlight the lack of departure between this stallion’s creative mind and his work—
Luna thought no more, having been bucked out of the tree. She landed with face and forehooves against the grass, her hind legs scrambling to find purchase as she looked up at her evictor, shock plastered across her face.
It was her first time taking in his features, and she was equally surprised here too. Three freckles on his cheek, eyes as green as his cutie mark, his physique matching hers, but bulkier, and his mane strawberry blonde and barely kempt. He looked to be a young adult despite his stature, but he carried himself as if he was much older.
Those features were formed into what appeared to be a passive frown, as well as a slightly defensive stance. Luna bounced up onto her feet with a flutter of her wings, which only made him take a step backwards, his legs appearing to tense. When he spoke, it was a strong, but fair tone. “Mind explainin’ what y’were doing in my tree, miss?”
“Ahem, I-I was, uhm, err—” Luna was at a loss. What was she doing there, after all?
“Can’t say I have all day, miss,” the pony continued, gesturing towards his cart.
Against her better judgment, Luna said the first thing that came to mind. “You do realise that you’re dreaming, don’t you? And that I am Princess Luna, Guardian of the Night, and as such can enter the dreams of other ponies at will?”
The pony seemed to consider her words for about a second. “That right, huh?” was all he offered in return.
“W-well, yes, it is.” Luna returned, rising to full height.
“And pardon my sayin’, miss, but isn’t your role in the dreamscape to shepherd those ponies that are havin’ a bad time?”
“That’s correct but—” Hold on a second. “How do you know about the dreamscape?”
“Read it somewhere,” he grunted, walking over to his cart. “So, I reiterate… What are you doin’ in my dream, Miss Luna? I don’t see any bad times ‘round here.”
“That’s precisely it,” Luna said, somehow content with honesty, almost feeling it being drawn out of her, “I couldn’t see any, and that interested me. Your dream, your farm, it’s quite picturesque.”
He seemed to look around the farm once, as if he was taking it in for the first time in a while. “You reckon? Pardon my sayin’, but I’d say I’ve grown quite used to it.”
“But your dream is so detailed…” Luna flew up, taking a pair of leaves from a tree and presenting them to the unimpressed pony. “Look at this leaf. It has all the curves and lines of a real one, and even feels the same, and yet this one looks completely different! Each looks as if it has been meticulously crafted by nature herself, yet you dismiss it so readily?”
The pony peered at the leaves for a moment before shaking his head. “Like I said, I’ve grown quite used to it. Details stick after a while, miss.”
Luna thought back to the moon. She still remembered how many steps it took to traverse the entire thing. “That they do, but this is still incredible… Excuse me for asking, but do you have this dream often?”
“Fairly,” the red pony replied, this time instantly. “Never realised my dreams were anything spectacular.”
“I’m honestly upset that I haven’t seen them sooner…” Luna walked through the fields, feeling the grass against her hooves as she kept pace with the mysterious pony, who was currently walking away with his cart. “Would you mind if I spectated for a while on your farm?”
The pony turned, his eyes softer than before. “Well, s’posse it’s a dream so you can’t really eat nothin’...” He cracked a small smile. “Go ahead. There’s a tall hill over yonder that gives a real good view, you might like that.”
“You should show me at once!” Luna smiled, taking flight and whisking her way around the pony and his cart as he unhooked himself, placing baskets under another tree.
“Would you be alright findin’ your own way, miss? Can’t imagine it’d be much trouble with those wings of yours.”
Luna’s body momentarily drooped, yet she still hovered in place. “You wouldn’t like to come with me? To relax, perhaps?”
Another mighty punch, and fruit rained into baskets. The farmer cast an eye at the princess. “I am relaxin’, miss.”
Luna only nodded, feeling like an intruder in the pony’s dream. She turned then, considering taking her leave as much as she was interested in the hill and the view it might offer. She barely got five paces away when his gruff voice made her turn back.
“I’ll join you right after I’ve finished this row. Name’s Big Macintosh, case you were wonderin’.”
Luna’s body soared as she took flight in search of a tall hill, as did her heart.