“My mom says dreams always mean something.”
“Really? Like what?” Enterprise inquired. She had just been telling her friend, Moon Dream, about a weird dream she had had the previous night. The two blank flanks were sitting together in miss Windy Wisdom’s classroom.
All their pegasus classmates were out playing during recess. Enterprise wished she could join them, but she could barely step outside the front door without plummeting through the clouds that formed the school's playground, let alone fly. Moon Dream could, even if she wasn't good at the latter, but she had chosen to stay indoors to keep her unicorn friend company. Miss Windy Wisdom was the only other pony in the room, preparing for the next lesson.
“Like how you're feeling really deep down, or even about the future,” Moon Dream explained.
“The future?”
“That's how I got my name, she says. She had a dream about the moon falling down a while before I born, and she thinks it was a sign,” Moon Dream touched her pale gray mane to illustrate her point.
It was shaped like a crescent, like how the moon was sometimes drawn in storybooks, and had spots of slightly darker gray in it. It didn't have the dark imprint of a unicorn head in it like the real moon did (Enterprise had spent many sad nights looking up at that imprint, the closest thing she had to someone truly like her in Cloudsdale), but Enterprise could see the resemblance. With her moon mane and blueish purple coat, Moon Dream looked much like the night sky.
“Do you think she's right? About it being a sign?”
“I don't know, maybe?” Moon Dream shrugged. “I actually kind of hope not.”
Enterprise lifted her eyebrows in surprise. “Really?”
“The way she described the rest of the dream… It doesn't seem right. I don't want it to be right.” Moon Dream stopped, reluctant.
“Go on,” Enterprise urged, “what's wrong about the rest of the dream?”
Moon Dream hesitated. “She… She said the moon rose back up to the sky again, but the Mare in the Moon was gone. As if the imprint had never been there. And then the sun tried to come up, but the moon… wouldn't let it. It forced the sun down and cast the world into darkness.”
“What's so bad about that?” Enterprise asked.
“Don't you see it?” Moon Dream said, a growing desperation entering her voice, “If that's about me, it obviously means I'm going to become an evil tyrant who takes over Equestria someday! I don't want to be an evil tyrant, Enterprise!”
“Woah, woah, relax!” Enterprise put her hooves on Moon Dream’s shoulders. “Who said that dream meant anything like that? It just sounds like a regular weird dream to me. You're probably putting too much stock in your mom's superstitions.”
“Oh, no, I'm certain that's what the dream means.” Moon Dream said it so matter-of-factly that it was hard to believe it came from the same pony who had just been so desperate. But the touch of that worry was still there when Moon Dream softly added, “I just don't want it to be about me.”
Why is she so sure?
Enterprise tried to reassure her friend. “Hey, hey, I'm sure it's not like that. You're the last pony I'd expect to become an evil tyrant. Miss Windy Wisdom would become an evil tyrant before you did!” The bumbling old teacher looked up from her textbook and notes, clearly startled by the mention of her name.
“I hope you're right,” Moon Dream sighed. She wasn't smiling yet, but the worry seemed to be fading.
Enterprise decided to distract Moon Dream from her mom’s dream, but she didn't fully change the subject. “So… If all dreams mean something, what do you think my dream means?”
“Oh,” Moon Dream began, visibly relieved, “that one's easy. The part with the flying chickens means you want to fly.”
“Obviously.” Enterprise had dreams about flying often.
“The unicorn farmpony who lassoed the chickens back to the ground and plucked their wings off is everything that holds you back from flying. The fact that you yourself are a unicorn and don't have wings, that kind of thing.”
“That makes sense, but what about the pogo sticks?”
“You said the chickens put the pogo sticks together with their beaks, right?”
“Yeah, and then they attacked the farmpony, stole her hat and pogoed off into the sunset. I think one of the chickens went on to become a rock star or something, still sitting on the pogo stick... It was weird.”
“That's still pretty obvious,” Moon Dream said, sounding more certain than Enterprise had ever heard her, “it's saying you’ll need to make your own way of flying.”
“Ohhh!” Enterprise said. It was an idea that hadn't quite clicked for her before. That was what she needed to do! “You're really good at this.”
“Thanks,” Moon Dream said, “but really, I'm just saying what seems obvious to me. It just feels right!”
A thought occurred to Enterprise, “Like it's what you're supposed to do?”
Moon Dream gave her a puzzled look for a moment, then beamed. “...yes!”
Then she literally beamed. Moon Dream was lifted from her seat as a brilliant light shone from her flank.
Enterprise felt an irrational sting of irritation. Great. She's born with wings and now she gets to levitate without even using them? But the irritation faded as Moon Dream gently landed back in her seat and Enterprise saw that her hunch had been right.
Sure enough, on each of Moon Dream’s flanks was a crescent moon wearing a blue nightcap.
Moon Dream was staring at the image too. “MY CUTIE MARK!” she squeaked loudly. “I GOT MY CUTIE MARK!”
“Congratulations, Moon Dream,” said miss Windy Wisdom, walking over to the pair. No sooner had she said it before a herd of pegasus foals crashed through the school's front door.
“Did somepony say ‘cutie mark’?” said one, a dark blue colt named Shadow Rider.
“Cutie mark?” echoed a few others in the back.
“I GOT MY CUTIE MARK!” Moon Dream repeated.
And through all the commotion, as their classmates demanded to hear the details and Moon Dream excitedly obliged, it was Enterprise who found herself wrapped in a tight, never-ending hug.
~ * ~
That night, Enterprise had a lovely dream about a flock of chickens crossing a rainbow bridge from the sun to a blank moon, mounted on pogo sticks.