“Ahem,” somepony clears their throat above me, causing me to look up from my desk and come eye-to-eye with Sveta, who has somehow placed a jar of tea on my desk without me even noticing.
“What’s this for?” I ask as I pull the small glass flask towards me and unscrew it before taking a sniff. It smells almost like an old stone building, undisturbed by time. Kind of like when I’ve gone on tours of some of the old castle ruins around Equestria.
“You are to drink it and meet the Princess promptly,” she states. “She wished that I convey the urgency of this, and that you are to go perform this task now.”
Well, going and Dreamstriding gets me out of filing reports, so she doesn’t have to tell me twice. I get up and give her a quick smile, then grab the jar in my magic and enter my room. As I shoot my kettle with a spell to heat up the water, I just get to wondering: what is so urgent that it came up this quickly and she needed me to do it right this second? Normally I at least get some heads up about things she wants me to do, and not since I was training to be a Dreamstrider has she really sent me tea and told me to use it to meet her somewhere in the dream world. Teaching me about Shooting Star notwithstanding, of course.
Some steam starts coming out of my tea kettle, so I place it and an infuser full of the tea and place it on my nightstand before getting into bed. After giving it a minute or two to cool down so it won’t burn my mouth, I take it in my hooves and start drinking.
As soon as I swallow, the magic inside of me just starts feeling...plentiful is the best way to describe it. Almost like it’s overflowing, as if it’s just going to start seeping out of me at any second. It thankfully doesn’t as I close my eyes and push through into the dream world.
My hooves clack as they hit the ground, which is odd; most times I come out onto grass or dirt, not stone. As I look down, however, I see that it isn’t just stone I’m on; it’s a floor. As in, a very intricate stone floor that somepony or something had to have created in order for it to be here.
“I am glad to see that you have made it,” Luna’s cheery voice echoes from somewhere deeper inside of whatever this structure is. I have to slowly turn around and very thoroughly scan everywhere to find her because of how big this place is, but she’s standing all the way down at the other end of this long room next to some sort of pedestal. “Come join me, will you?”
I can’t help but look all around me as I walk towards her, because this place is just surreal. It reminds me of Princess Celestia’s throne room, and strangely enough, the windows lining these walls appear to be stained-glass depictions of different cities in Equestria. As I pass by the Manehattan one, something catches my eye. Once I stand there for a few seconds and stare at it, I can see that there are tiny ripples in the water and a boat is starting to come into view. Whether or not this is a real-time depiction of Manehattan, some really crazy magic is going on here.
“We are in the dream world, right?” I absentmindedly ask as I start walking up the stairs towards Luna.
“Indeed we are,” she nods. “Welcome to the Elder Halls, Aurora. One of the oldest points in all of time.”
When I get up the stairs and stand next to Luna, I can see that she’s standing next to what looks almost like a bird bath filled with some blue-silver liquid. This isn’t even the end of this room, because I can see that there are stairs that go beyond from us and down into pitch blackness. A single metal rod goes from side wall to side wall between us and the back of this building, where an enormous wall of stained glass depicts the night sky.
“I just…” I trail off. “I don’t even know where to start. What even is this place?”
“You are in my sanctuary,” a voice that’s simultaneously very deep and very soft says. Some fog starts coming out of the bottomless pit and coalesces itself on the metal rod, and it eventually takes the form of an enormous butterfly just perched there, watching us.
“You speak Demon,” I point out, “but you don’t look like any demon I’ve studied. What are you?”
“This is Borboleta,” Luna says. “An elder demon.”
“Elder demon?” I repeat. “Nopony’s ever met an elder demon before, how did you find this one?”
“Not easily,” she laughs. “Borboleta has agreed to fight Shooting Star with us.”
“The Nightmare is a threat to every demon,” it adds in. “If he is allowed free reign over our world, he would subjugate any demon who opposes him. We must not allow an awakened to deprive us of our liberty, for it goes against the natural order of both our world and yours.”
“And what’s this?” I ask, looking back at the bird bath and see my reflection in it almost like a mirror.
“Those are the Avenues,” it explains. “The connections between this world and the awakened world.”
“Our dreams are our own Avenue,” Luna adds. “A small area not within the awakened world or the dream world, where both we and demons may freely interact. Outside of Dreamstriders, it is the only place where those of the awakened world and demons may be side-by-side.”
“And I oversee them. Although we are few, us elder demons play important roles in the dream world.”
“Do you know where The Nightmare or Baku are?” I ask.
“Baku is not a name I have heard in a long time,” it reminisces. “A demon who grew fat by devouring the dreams of Neighpan, and now has insatiable hunger. It truly still lives?”
“The Nightmare has made some sort of deal with it, and I believe he has freed it. Or at least, he is trying to.”
“The first one,” a voice I instantly recognize as Shooting Star’s says in Equestrian. Both Luna and I shoot our heads back to see him walking up to us, a small smile on his face. “It’s been a while, hasn’t it Princess?”
Without even saying anything, Luna shoots a beam of magic from her horn, only for him to teleport off to the side and avoid it. “We don’t have to fight, you know. I’d accept your surrender right here and now.”
“I would sooner die,” she spits back.
“You may end up regretting saying that, by the way. But if you want to fight, go through all the headache like we did a thousand years ago, then have it.”
“You lost last time,” I yell at him. “Why would this time be any different?”
“You’re spunky for...what are you now, eighteen? I was alive before your great-great-grandparents’ great-great-grandparents’ great-great-grandparents were even shitting in their diapers, what makes you think you can intimidate me?”
“Resorting to petty insults when confronted with the truth, Shooting Star? I thought you always believed yourself above such pettiness.”
“I won’t lose this time,” he shakes his head confidently. “Xibalba, the Ankou, that wonderful little fury demon...they weren’t my best recruiting efforts.”
“You lost because without the element of surprise, you are nothing,” she scoffs. “I suppose I give you the same proposition: surrender now, and I promise your death will be swift.”
“My death?” he echoes. “My, you have changed.”
Just as Luna charges up her horn again, he teleports away. Almost as soon as he’s gone, however, the ground starts shaking. I’ve never felt an earthquake, but I imagine this is what one feels like.
“Does the dream world get earthquakes?” I ask.
“No,” Borboleta replies, causing my heart to sink.
A few seconds later, the back wall explodes, sending stone and dust everywhere. Instinctively I put a hoof up to my eyes to shield them, and then I bring it down and see the biggest devourer demon I’ve ever laid eyes on. The ceilings in here have to be at least a hundred feet tall, and this thing is almost touching them.
“That’s Baku?” I barely manage to squeak out.
Before either Luna or I can do anything, a giant cloud flies over us towards Baku. Actually, not a cloud, but Borboleta. It slams into Baku and plants a few of its feet in various eyes, causing it to cry out in pain.
Because Borboleta is right on top of Baku, however, it manages to sink its fangs into its foggy body, sending a very deep reverberation throughout this area. Its mouth then opens, and it seems to almost suck all of Borboleta’s fog inside as effortlessly as breathing in smoke from a fire.
“Did that thing just kill an elder demon in seconds?” I panic, feeling a few tears start to build up in my eyes as it charges towards us.
The only response I get is Luna’s horn powering up and shooting at Baku. Halfway there it turns from just a bolt of magic into a glowing chain, and when it hits one of its back legs, they instantly bolt to the ground. Given that this thing was running full speed ahead, however, the sudden stop causes it to lurch forward and almost have its front legs completely crush us. But before they can come down on us, I feel Luna’s hoof around me and see a flash of light. We’re now next to our dreams at the destroyed end of the Halls, so she teleported us out of safety.
One of Baku’s front legs reaches out and goes towards the bird bath, and the second it touches it, the entirety of the demon just seems to melt into the same reflective liquid as was in the bowl and seeps into the ground.
“What just happened?” I scream, hardly able to see now through the tears in my eyes. When I don’t get a response, I turn to Luna, who is just staring ahead with what I can only guess is shock on her face. “Luna?”
“Baku got to the Avenues,” she speaks after a few moments.
“And?”
“That means Baku got to our world.”
“It what?” I scream even louder.
“We can fix this,” she proclaims before putting a hoof on me and teleporting us back up to the bowl of water. “Aurora, I need you to listen very carefully. Can you do that?”
“Okay,” I nod quickly.
“Place your hoof in the water,” she instructs. When I do as she tells me, she places a hoof in as well and uses her free front hoot to turn my chin to her. “I don’t know what other demons Shooting Star has in store for us, and he knows where the Avenues are. While they’re far away from anywhere else in the dream world and require great difficulty to get to, he could still get here with enough determination. So, I am doing what we need to: I am closing the Avenues.”
“You’re going to sever everypony’s connection to the dream world?”
“They can be reopened later,” she reassures me. “But I need you to keep your hoof in here until I teleport us back to our dreams. I then need you to get back to the awakened world as quickly as possible and find me. Do you understand?”
“Yes,” I nod. “I think.”
“Do you or do you not?” she yells, the first time I’ve actually experienced her yell at me.
“I do,” I nod.
“Please forgive me if I fail,” she whispers. After taking a deep breath, she bows her head down to the bowl and takes a mouthful of the water, but doesn’t swallow. Her horn then lights up, and the liquid still remaining is enveloped in her magical aura. Within seconds, the water changes from the perfectly reflective surface to just regular clear water, allowing me to see the bottom.
I feel her hoof be placed on me again, and before I can process it, we’re back at our dreams and she’s jumping into her own. It soon disappears, shocking me back into reality and making me process what’s happening all around me. With no time to lose, I jump into my dream and push back into the awakened world.
Even before the feeling of my blankets returns to me, I hear the sound of sirens blaring.