Clouds had begun gathering over the nightly scape of Canterlot, blotting out what pale light her waning moon offered. Through a small, steel-barred window, Luna watched the dark world beyond, said window placed so high upon the wall that the normal pony would have to stand upon their hind legs to get a view of the outdoors. The cell she occupied was silent, but not empty. Her eyes shut, a deep breath of air flowing through her barely parted lips as she calmed herself, the silence of the room ringing in her ears. She looked over her shoulder, eyes adjusting to the darkness as she watched the soundly slumbering mare of turquois fur and cream mane beneath her colorful quilt, the pattern of which was etched into Luna’s mind as if it were an image carved upon a slab of wood.
She came to the bedside, her metal shoes silent even upon the hard, cold concrete floor of the cell. She outstretched a hoof, pausing a moment as she looked at her own limb, what little light leaked into the near pitch-black cell gleaming upon the blued steel of her hoof guard. A teal aura encompassed the armor, removing it and setting it to the floor, letting her bare hoof to be laid upon the mare’s side through her blanket. The world was shut out, a cold aura of misty, dark magic forming around her horn as she bridged the gap between her reality and the dream realm. Sense left her body, a new kind of silence taking her senses as she opened her eyes to an infinite sky of stars. She hadn’t made the same mistake of attempting to directly influence this mare as she had in the prior morning.
Within this place, every conscious presented itself, no matter near or far. Frames of the mind would begin to fill the endless void of stars she occupied until nothing but visions of dreams filled her sight as if she peered through an infinite number of windows. If this were any other night, she would stroll along an imagined path as if taking a trot through the castle gardens, perusing the memories and dreams of her ponies as if they were fine works of art within an endless gallery. Tonight was no such night. Now, only a single frame faded into the ether, that single frame being nothing more than a blotched, stinging mess of crimson and jet. It writhed as if in pain, an aura of coldness surrounding it as she approached, faint echoes of roaring noise beginning to replace the silence.
She stopped short, the rumbling sound of the frame being just on the brink of unbearable. As one would look upon a corpse, she gazed into the frame, hardly knowing what her next step should be. Her contemplation led to an idea, or rather, a theory. What she looked upon might not be the state of this mare's mind. What she looked upon was interference. A shield. A barricade. The creature latched upon her mind knew who and what Luna was, and thus, this was its defense. If the fairly minor beast within Cirrus sensed Luna, then whatever spawn of Tartarus occupied this mare's mind undoubtedly could.
A sphere of blue magical aura encompassed the frame, totally ceasing the echoing roars as it contained the thing. Slowly, she stepped closer and closer as her sphere of magic shrunk and shrunk, eventually conforming with the rectangular shape of the frame, allowing her to stand before the edgeless, writhing image. She circled the two-dimensional thing, the nonsensical smatterings of colors continuing their charade. Scowling, Luna pushed her magic into the center of the frame, watching from the side as a stretched bulge of the image pushed outward, still surrounded by her aura. She pushed on further, straining against it as if she were pushing inward upon a rubber band. Then, she paused. She held steady, looking at the long stretch she had caused. Her scowl lessened. With little difficulty, she connected both sides of her aura in the center of the stretch, a purely white dot forming as she pierced the barrier.
She stepped closer, the white dot growing, never changing color as she widened the breach, peering further and further within. Finally, her breach was wide enough to step through, and thus, she entered. Standing within the white space, she found the floor to be sharp and angular, having many small ridges and edges as if it were a mess of cubes melded together. Keeping her breach in place, she ventured further forward, her magic sparking to life as she brought existence to a little black drawstring sack, contained within being a fine black pigment one would mix with bits of water to create ink. Gathering a pinch in a spell, she sprinkled it about the floor before her, finding the surface to be made of a geometric mess of harsh angles. It was as if hundreds of small mountains had been filed to a point and spread across the floor. She blinked several times. Were the walls and ceiling in a similar state? On such a note, where were the walls and ceiling within this damaged place? Taking a new pinch of dust, she cast it forth skyward, watching as the cloud connected with nothing, only slowly settling to the floor some distance away.
She hummed. They were quite some distance away. A new pinch was gathered, and she sent it forward with great speed, watching as it traveled until it was no longer visible. Her brow raised as she stepped forward, only continuing for a few steps until her nose ran into something totally flat and cold. She stepped back, pinching some dust and spreading it out before herself to find a smooth wall, yet somehow, right before her face, there was a square hole, as if it were a window on the side of a building. The dust had passed through, yet she had not? She put a hoof forward, holding it through the window her nose had just bumped into. Curiously, a new pinch of black dust was held just above her hoof, and upon its release, she found this wall to be entirely two dimensional. She moved her hoof down, and as if nothing at all were there, it passed right through what chunk of the wall had been coated with her dye. She pulled it free of the surface as if nothing were present, however, upon driving her hoof forward once more, she found it to be solid.
Again, she blinked multiple times before turning around, disregarding the nonsensical surface as she made her way across the uneven, jagged floor around her breach. She circled the thing, watching as the circle of starry space she had come in through rotated away, its two-dimensional nature meaning that, for a split second, nothing was visible before it turned back into the circle of starry infinity. The clack of hoof upon stone brought her vision around to find the mare whose mind she occupied standing a few hooflengths away.
Luna turned to face her, looking over the neutral faced mare a moment before gathering a pinch of dye from her bag, sprinkling it across the mare to see it settle upon her as if it were settling atop a stone statue, not a single pigment sinking into her coat or mane, rather, simply sitting atop it. Luna stepped forward, circling the mare and watching as not a single movement came from the stoic figure.
“Help,” came a quiet, female voice.
“Thou speaketh?” Luna replied, keeping her eyes upon the still unmoved figure of which the voice had not come from.
“Who are you. Help.”
Luna peered in every direction imaginable, never seeing a source to the voice.
“Princess Luna, and we shall help.”
“Can you.”
Luna held her tongue, looking to her breach to ensure its stability.
“Aye.”
“I can you. I can you,” repeated the mare's monotone voice.
Luna contemplated that reply a moment. This mare might not have an understanding of her way with words.
“Yes. We can help.”
“We can help who.”
Again, Luna stopped.
“I can help you, mare.”
“I can you. We can you. Who can you.”
Luna felt a sting in her magic, drawing her gaze to the breach once more to find that crimson and jet field to be seeping into this white reality. She flinched as a sharp stab of noise broke the quiet place, that split moment of sound being exactly what she had heard the prior morning when peeking directly into the mare's mind. With haste, she darted through her closing breach, the cacophony pulsing in and out in erratic periods. Walking backwards through her starry sky, she let the breach seal, that pulsing sound steading into the unending, unnatural scream of pure noise she had known from the first visit.
Luna pulled herself from the dream realm, the sensation of existence returning to her senses. The mare before her continued her unmoving slumber. Gingerly, Luna took her hoof from her side, letting it down to the concrete and reacquainting it with the chilly blue steel of its guard. Drawing in a breath, Luna took a moment to take in the cell around her as her mind attempted to unscramble itself. In her years, in the hours upon hours she had spent within the far realm of dreams, she had never witnessed something of that caliber. Hooves a little shaky, she stepped away from the bedside, standing in the middle of the room as she drew in a long breath.
That white, nonsensical world was the state of this mare’s mind. This mare's mind failed to fathom its own existence. It held no solid depiction of reality. What hurt the worst, what brought the most painful knot to her stomach and the most wretched ache to her heart, was the creeping feeling she had no way of repairing what damage has clearly been done. In the past, what problems she encountered always held some level of familiarity; she knew, at a base level, where to begin to mitigate a problem. With this mare, she had no beginning point. There were no ledges to grasp at the foot of this cliff.
Again, she drew in a breath, calming her nerves. She had surmounted higher peaks than this. As with anything, time was needed. One last time, she looked over her shoulder at the sleeping mare before turning for the cell’s featureless door, her horn working a silent spell to grand her passage through the shut fixture, ensuring its noisy mechanism never had to work so she may maintain her clandestine nature. Her eyes adjusted, the abysmal level of light meaning her finely tuned senses could only show her a monochromatic, detail-less image of the corridor. After a little look around, she made a turn to the left; further into the institute, rather than towards the lobby and exit. Eventually, her corridor made a right turn, only leading her further down a hall which was visibly indistinguishable from the previous. Nothing but doors and number plates.
Her ear flicked, the distant clunk of a door’s latch opening echoing through the hall. Seconds later, another, far louder clunk rang through, freezing her in place as she looked over her shoulder, the sounds having come from where she had come from. Such a grand noise could only be made by the two armored doors which led into the original hall from the stairs. Then, a small smattering of light came down the corridor, clearly produced by a personal torch rather than the terrible fluorescence within the ceiling. Turning around, Luna began making her way towards the turn in the hall, stopping just before the corner, listening as hoofsteps drew closer and closer and this pony’s light grew brighter and brighter. She adjusted her eyes accordingly, knowing well when this pony came within view their light would be quite harsh.
The brown-furred stallion finally came to the corner, his eyes instantly locking with hers. He jumped, eyes wide with fright as he scrambled back, his light falling from his green aura as he let out a startled yelp.
“What business hath thee within these halls?” Luna inquired, following him backwards and lowering her head to be eye-level with him.
He stammered, back against the wall as his terrified gaze darted over what little silhouette of her he could see, the only defining features being her waving mane and gently glowing azure eyes.
“I-I work here!” he blurted, shrinking further against the wall.
She huffed through her nostrils, ears flat with her head. “And what should that entail?”
“W-What?!”
“Dost thou work here within?”
He blinked a few times. “Y-Yeah?”
She came a little closer. “What should that entail?”
He visibly swallowed. “I-I-I’m a nurse.”
She looked him over, noting his robin’s egg blue coat adorned with both the name of the wearer and the name of the institution.
“Nurse Hearthwarmth.”
He nodded.
She craned her head back a bit. “Pleasant name.”
“T-Thank you, your Highness.”
Her ear flicked. “Recognize us, aye?”
“You’re… Princess Luna, right?”
“Aye.”
“It’d be hard to not recognize royalty, your Highness.”
“Quite.”
There was a pause.
“Uh… so, may I ask why you’re here?”
“Visitation.”
He looked a little concerned. “Do you know somepony here?”
“Formally, nay. Room number 22.”
His posture relaxed a little. “Sky Stock. She’s… one of the more far-gone patients here. If you don’t mind me asking, your Highness, how do you know her?”
“Pure coincidence. Until current we knew nothing of her name.”
“Oh. Uh… well, is there anything else I can help you with, your Highness?”
She gave him a bit of space to breathe. “Possibly. The higher halls of this institution, be they as these?”
“I-I'm sorry, your Highness, I don’t quite get what you mean.”
“Halls above, hold they any difference to these?”
A little pause went by before he perked up a bit. "Oh! No, not really. Bland, white, and sterile. There’s a commons area on the floor just above this one, but other than that, it’s very uniform and, well, boring.”
She hummed knowingly. “Halls so clean and lifeless as these speak with volume held by halls of our own home, young stallion. We come not for spectacle. We come to listen. To hear what hath been cast into darkness beneath door latches and window bars.”
Still quite bewildered by both her presence and her words, the nurse opted to hold his tongue as she stepped to the side, giving him some room to get back underway. Clearing his throat, he collected his still alight torch from the hard tile, making sure to not shine it towards the Princess.
“Travel on, Nurse Hearthwarmth. Shalt not be the last of our standing face to face, this moment.”
Watching on a moment as she went down the hall from which he had come, Hearthwarmth raised a brow. “You’ll be coming back?”
He watched as her ear flicked, her back staying turned to him. “Shall not leave until the final soul depart from these cells, and in their departure, nev’r peeketh behind at trails already trodden.”
Blinking a few times, Hearthwarmth shook his head and looked back to the hall before him, his walking about to resume, but being paused as a sudden cease to Luna’s hoofsteps came. He took a step back, looking down the hall to find the princess to be nowhere within the corridor. Again, he blinked, shining his light down said hall in total bewilderment.
“Your Highness?” He called, the silence of the hall being the only reply.
The gentle tap of a pencil being set upon a writing mat hardly disturbed the silence of Luna’s study. Following that miniscule rap of sound came the calm rustle of paper as Luna held before herself the finished imprint she had worked throughout the morning to create. These things, to the ordinary, untrained eye, would seem to be broken, nonsensical pencil sketches done in haste, but in reality, to Luna, they were physical windows into the dreams and visions of her ponies. What she currently held was an image which had translated nicely to paper from graphite; an infinite void of white, only broken by a black blotch of geometric mess on the ground and a dusted wall with a window cut in its center.
In her studies of the dream realm, and of dreams themselves, she had begun the act of recording the most notable of her experiences, keeping them for further study or to present, at a later date, to the very pony who had dreamt the image. Once a dream was dreamt, and once she had witnessed it, that creation faded into a memory, existing nowhere but the mind of the beholders, and as with any memory it would exist with error and misinterpretation. Her recordings, the very imprint she held within her magic, gave longer life to a single frame of those volatile weavings of the mind. They gave them rigidity, allowing them to remain steadfast against the withering of time.
Luna blinked as a muffled, yet still rumbling and thunderous crack of lightening cut the silence. She took a moment to look beyond her study to the rainy landscape of Equestria that laid beyond, the early morning sun hardly giving light to the land or her study. Returning to her work, a wooden dowel was brought forth from one of many drawers about her grand desk, and the paper was carefully wrapped around the dowel to form a tube. From elsewhere on the table came a stamp as well as a stick of light blue wax, which had its tip held a distance above the rolled paper as Luna's magic forced the wax to melt with a spell. A healthy dollop of wax was applied, the stamp was brought forth, rolled along the wax to seal the rolled paper, and then the dowel was removed to leave a perfectly rolled document.
In a fluid motion, everything but the scroll was returned to their rightful places. Leaning back in her chair, she looked below her desk to one of three standalone wooden cabinets, the centermost of them being opened to reveal a finely stacked group of scrolls identical in size and shape of the one she held. The newest was brought down, set upon the top of the honeycomb-like stack, and the cabinet was shut. Upon sitting back up straight and gazing out across her study, her ear flicked as it detected the finest of sounds; distantly approaching hoofsteps. Patiently, she watched the far off entrance to the study, listening intently as they drew closer and closer before, finally, Frolicsome Meadowlark entered.
“The package you requested, your Majesty,” he spoke upon entry, bowing at the door.
“Wonderful, dear Frolicsome,” returned Luna, watching as he stood and approached with the aforementioned ‘package’ within his pale white aura.
Stopping a few chairs down from her head position at the grand desk, he floated a burlap draw bag before her, allowing for her to take it within her own spell. Bringing it closer, she opened it and peeked inside to find a gathering of many gold coins; all 50 bit notations.
“Many thanks.” Luna drew the little sack shut, setting it before her upon the desk, the coins within jingling gently against one another.
He bowed once more. “Of course, your Majesty.”
“Not observed withdrawing these funds, aye?”
“Of course not, your Majesty. Only the teller is ever in the Treasury.”
“Wonderful.”
“May I ask why the withdrawal of such a small amount from your personal allowance must be so… clandestine?”
“Sister shalt inquire, and we wish not explain ourselves.”
Again, he bowed. “Understood, your Highness.”
"Heard anything of the investigation?"
"Not a peep thus far, your Highness."
"Very well. Dismissed, Frolicsome."
With that, he began his departure, Luna’s ear flicking once more as she heard the overlapping of hoofsteps with his. Far different in tone; deeper and harder. Certainly recognizable. Just as Frolicsome passed out of view through the doorway, her ears caught the cheerful voice of her sister giving a good morning and wishing him a good day.
“And good morning to you, as well, Luna!” she chimed, peeking her head through the door.
“As to th- you,” replied Luna, correcting herself before sister could.
“Enjoying the rain?”
“Aye… yes.”
“Oh, I am, too! Makes for good meditation, right?”
Luna’s eyes narrowed only a bit, the tip of her hoof digging into her seat between her haunches. “It does, indeed.”
Now fully entering, her sister stood at that very far end of the room in silence a moment as she traded a glance with Luna’s Night Guard, who were as usual stationed behind her on both flanks.
“Going to do some rainy-day shopping?”
Luna’s hoof held still.
“An odd inquiry.”
“Well, I noticed in the Treasury log book that a thousand bits had been withdrawn from your allowance, so I simply assumed…” she paused, taking note of the ever-so-slight scowl present upon Luna’s expression, “not being nosy! It was simple coincidence that I too was making a withdrawal this morning.”
“Shopping. Indeed, shopping.”
Her sister smiled a bit. “I, too, planned on doing some spending! Maybe some new scarves and coats, since its beginning to get cold out.” There was the slightest pause. “What did you plan on doing?”
Such a question came not from friendly curiosity, Luna knew this well. Her sister seemed like a vulture, probing not with talons, but with constant inquiry, always wishing to know what she may be up to so that, in nearly all cases, she may dispute Luna’s actions.
“A finer cloak,” she replied, “one of thicker fabric. We too hath noted the growing chill.”
“I too, have noted the cold?” replied her sister, veiling her correction as a question.
Luna’s hoof dug into the chair once more. “Yes.”
“These things take time, Luna. Adjusting your speech is going to be the biggest way you’ll adapt to modern Equestria, and it will prove to be the hardest.”
Her hoof paused once more. She thought a moment. Sister was right in that regard; those around her occasionally had difficulty in understanding her words.
“You’ve been practicing, right?” her sister asked after a moment.
“Yes,” she lied in reply.
“Well, practice makes perfect!”
The study fell silent. Celestia took a glance around the dark office for a moment before letting out a tiny sigh.
“Well, have a good morning!” she called before departing, not giving Luna time to reply or so much as wave.
Luna stared blankly at the ajar door to her study. She huffed out a short breath, tucking her satchel of coins into a little empty drawer in the organizing cabinet atop her desk. Taking her hoof away from her seat and placing it upon the edge of the desk, she gazed out into the dark, stormy morning with an absent-minded gaze. She hadn’t felt that tired earlier, despite her normal bed-time having passed a good hour ago, but now, her body hungered to be laid down in the sheets of her bed.