i
The Hollow Shades were dense, and the forest alight with birdsong overhead.
Celestia cast thoughtful glances around as their eager young guide tread onwards.
“I’m not going too fast for you, Sun Princess?”
Dusk Ruby had been excited, and Celestia had done her best to match the young mare’s pace, but it was quite clear the Hollow Shades were not friendly to ponies of Celestia’s size. They had long abandoned anything vaguely resembling a previously cut path, but the thestrals themselves were clearly not too bothered by this. The elaborate twine decorations around Dusk Ruby’s spear even served a rather thoughtful purpose of keeping the shaft anchored firmly to one of the thestral’s wings even as she used them for help in parting the heavy foliage.
The Hollow Shades were unforgivingly wild, but their crafty inhabitants were more than up to the challenge. Celestia had very quickly noticed the carefully tended-to fruit trees all about… she spotted nearly a dozen different berries, only several of which were discovered when her feathery wing accidentally rubbed against one of their dense bushes. The underbrush itself was largely fern-based, and occasionally interrupted by babbling riverbeds that the thestrals had built efficient and narrow little bridges over. More than enough for the eager little hooves of the young mare weaving her way through them, though Celestia found it easier to just hop over the creaks with a few flaps of her wings. It would have been dreadfully embarrassing to accidentally break one of their cleverly placed bridges.
“Don’t worry. I’m quite alright.” Celestia trilled back. “How long have you been a scout, dear?”
Dusk Ruby’s ear tilted. “Since I was sixteen, ma’am!”
“It must be liberating for a young mare, above all of this foliage.” Celestia rustled her crippled wing for emphasis. “You certainly caught up with Twilight and I quite quickly.”
“Oh yes. I have to keep my flight talents up. Farseekers have to be the first to spot the machines and help fight them, after all.”
“Indeed. We will turn the tide on their assault.”
Dusk Ruby smiled. “Thank you, Sun Princess.”
“And then?” Celestia matched the smile warmly herself. “What’s a young Farseeker to do once she’s helped save her tribe?”
She raised an eyebrow and tilted her head thoughtfully. “Well… a few of my friends have gone to Ponyville to help them there.”
“Them being other thestrals?”
She shook her head. “Not exactly. Some ponies there are frightened that what happened to Whitetail will also happen to the remains of the Everfree. Even if we do save the Shades, there’d still be a lot more things to do. And fighting the machines here has felt hopeless enough.”
“I saw them on the train ride in. Like dragons.”
“At least dragons leave you well enough alone.” Dusk Ruby scoffed. “The Elders will be happy to hear from you. Though perhaps a little cranky at first at being woken so early.”
“Ah. Your tribes are nocturnal.” Celestia nodded. “I’d… forgotten.”
“The Sun Princess forgot? I am dearly shocked.” Dusk Ruby gave her a mischievous look. “Most awake several hours from now, and given the severity of your visit, it’s really a miracle to most of them.”
Celestia nodded. “Scouts like you are diurnal, then?”
“We must be. It would do poorly to wage war one just woke up to, and the machines don’t exactly communicate their visits. Thankfully, they haven’t exactly figured out how to make them silent.”
“Loud, monstrous things. My marefriend was telling me about them.”
Dusk Ruby nodded. “How many did you see?”
“It had to have been at least fifty. Only half of which were large like the...”
“We call the largest ones ‘Tree Eaters.’ You can likely guess why that is.” The young thestral scowled. A sort of hopeless flood seemed to be dragging down the bouncy mare’s step, making it significantly easier to follow her as she stopped parting the underbrush with her wings. “That’s still twice as many as last time.”
“Dear. I will stop them.”
“This is our Crystal War, Sun Princess.” She let out a long sigh. “And even if we win, they’ll just keep sending more. It will be a hundred next time.”
“It will be zero. Ever again. I’m stopping this.” Celestia said. Dusk Ruby had stopped all together to look back at Celestia, and she met the halted mare with a gentle smile. “My dear, I promised to help protect your tribes from this very thing, and if your tribes are waging a Crystal War, I am an ally.”
Dusk Ruby managed a single nod. “The village is ahead. They will be expecting you.”
Ahead of them, Celestia could see the signs of the village ahead. It had been built into a clearing in the dense underbrush, and more vertically than horizontally. They’d used the heights of some of the older trees to their advantage, creating a village of quaint little treehouses looking down upon a somewhat overgrown clearing. A few thestrals were watching her from thetreehouses built along the canopy. The dwellings were simple and decorated in the same woven red twine that Dusk Ruby’s spear had been, and Celestia idly wondered if they shared a similar purpose of helping the buildings be packed up and transported at short notice.
A populace content with their peaceful solitude had been forced to become crafty and mobile in what had surely been a short span of time. As soon as Celestia entered the village clearing, the little settlement had already been lit up by a sort of collective chirping chatter, which had been at most an annoyed idle gossip before she broke through the canopy. She couldn’t help but smile--it was a wonder they could even make anything out in the chaos, but she detected the familiar sound of ‘Sun Princess’ more than once long before any of the thestrals started flapping down to meet the subject herself.
Celestia bowed her head to them as they landed before her, doing so before they had a chance to bow to her. It was a quick, courteous affair, and she broke it after several seconds to see that they’d matched it with a bow of their own.
“Good morning,” Celestia said gently. Dusk Ruby and the other thestral scout hadn’t bowed, and instead were waiting for Celestia several paces behind, but they stepped forward when Celestia spoke in Equish. Dusk Ruby chirped out a quick translation, and then added something else who’s meaning Celestia wasn’t quite sure of.
On the far side of the clearing, thestrals were lethargically emerging from several of the treehouses a dozen meters off the forest floor. A balcony had been built around these treehouses, granting a wider breadth of movement compared to the more simplistic and mobile treehouses higher up the canopy. These treehouses were accessible via a series of several steps carved into and out of the tree’s branches and trunk, whereas the others higher up seemed to be inaccessible by any non-winged creature.
Celestia’s eyesight wasn’t nearly good enough to make out much detail of the ponies that had emerged from these treehouses. But their movement, and the extra steps that had clearly been taken to allow them access to the houses without their wings, led her to believe they were the aforementioned elders long before they’d made it to the base of the tree and had started making their way across the village clearing in Celestia’s direction.
The first to arrive was, surprisingly, not a thestral at all. Celestia saw stripes as soon as she emerged from the shade of the treehouse… a zebra mare, and considerably younger than Celestia would have assumed from an elder. Though, she was well aware that her own bias there likely neutered her judgment.
“Your Majesty. A pleasant surprise.” The zebra mare descended in a bow. “I assume you’ve come to ease this forest’s cries.”
“That is correct.” Celestia nodded. “At the risk of seeming presumptuous, you are not from here, are you?”
“I was a proud resident of the Everfree. That is, until its monsters forced me to flee.” She pulled out of the bow, affixing Celestia with a small, curious smile.
“Zecora has been an honorary member of our tribe for five years now.” Another voice. Celestia glanced past the zebra, and saw two other ponies approaching. One of them, an old thestral stallion, who walked with a cane held in one hoof and a wing resting on the other thestral for balance. The mare helping him seemed to be in the same age group as Zecora.
The thestral mare helping the older stallion walk had been the one to speak, and she forgoed a proper bow in favour of a polite nod of her head. “I am called ‘Her Mane Like Flowing Grass’, and this is ‘Looks Hopefully At Distant Horizons’. Our Equestrian names are Flowing Frond and Hopeful Horizons, respectfully.”
Celesta bowed again. “I am pleased to meet you. You are the tribe’s elders?”
This time, the old stallion spoke. “We are amongst them. I am the oldest of the elders, but it is a title given to the experienced, and not simply the oldest.”
Celestia smiled, and she gave an affirming nod. “I am honoured to make your acquaintance.”
“A presumption, but a rather well-founded one.” Zecora drawled thoughtfully. “I anticipate much before us, before the day is done.”
“The machines are coming.” Dusk Ruby piped up. She’d become considerably less bubbly and sociable as soon as the elders had arrived, and there was a somewhat subdued shyness to the young rebel’s voice. “The Sun Princess counted dozens of Tree Eaters in wait at Hayseed.”
At that, the expressions of the Elders became significantly more grave. Flowing Frond bit her lip, glancing at Hopeful Horizons, who himself had a somewhat unreadable frown.
“The purpose of your visit is to fight them off?” he grumbled out, and pointed his cane at Celestia’s slightly crooked horn. “And yet even you put my frailty to shame.”
“I admit I am no longer the spring hen I once was. I certainly lack the energy that your eager farseekers do.” Celestia glanced at Dusk Ruby with a smile. “But the same fire in them still burns in me, too. Don’t mistake my injury for weakness.”
“My dear friend, we simply cannot afford to turn her help away.” Zecora glanced at Hopeful Horizons with a sort of muted annoyance. “It’s not by some coincidence that an alicorn has come to stay.”
“Yes, yes, of course.” Hopeful Horizons let out a huffy snort. “I’m sure the village will be happy to hear of her arrival. Malinalxochitl will alert the village, and we will talk as one so they may listen to us strategize.”
It was a little hectic at first, and for some time Celestia simply stood awkwardly with the other three Elders while Dusk Ruby flew off, her staccato calls quickly being picked up by others in the village, echoing from within the treehouses and the branches and from distant unseen places outside of the village.
Eventually, some manner of order resolved itself from the noisy chaos, the chirrups dying down and the beating of the thestrals wings became less frantic as they settled down on the forest floor. With nearly all of the village’s structures built into the trees, the clearing was quite barren by comparison… a few spots where campfires would have clearly been built, or sturdy lean-tos stockpiled with hay or wood.
They were all peering at Celestia and the Elders with wide-eyed looks. Some looked frightened and uneasy, but the greater majority seemed amazed to see her. A few more bowed, but it seemed a more independently decided affair than anything decided upon via tradition.
Celestia smiled back. Luna would surely have been proud of how her ponies had survived so much adversity with the same hopeful looks on their faces.
Dusk Ruby set down beside Celestia again once her task was complete. Surprisingly, with the village largely gathered, it was Zecora who spoke first. If the zebra had ever been an outsider in the thestral community, there was no clear evidence of it remaining in the village’s curious expressions.
“The tide is turning for Equestria, my friends. The Sun Princess herself has come to help us defend.”
The chattering resumed. A few more of the thestrals bowed, but more often they started discussing eagerly amongst themselves, at least in equal parts Equestrian and Thestralian. Celestia patiently listened, waiting for it to die down a bit before she stepped forward.
“Good day, my dear ponies. I am very pleased to meet all of you, but I fear pleasantries and well-wishes are something that we must delay until after the menace that plagues these hallowed lands is sent back to where it came. I have seen the destruction of the Whitetail Woods with my own eyes. I’ve seen the ruins of what once stood there, and my heart is filled with worry at the thought of such becoming commonplace across Equestria. I will devote myself to stopping it if it’s the last thing I do.”
Hopeful Horizons let out a gruff exhale, clicking out a few frustrated-sounding Thestralian words that Dusk Ruby thankfully translated.
“He says it may very well be if your track record is to be considered.”
Celestia sighed. “I was going for optimism, dear. Regardless, I would like to learn a little bit about the machines, from the ponies who have had to fight them.”
Zecora nodded. “I’ve known of their destruction ever since the Everfree. The thought of facing them in such a number does not inspire me with much glee.”
“They run on steam, yes?” Celestia glanced around the gathered thestrals, dreadfully praying to the stars above her information wasn’t outdated and she wasn’t making a mighty fool of herself.
Zecora shook her head. “They now use petroleum as their primary fuel. They are faster, so their influence is more cruel.”
“I see.”
“This does give them a weakness. But the result fills me with just as much bleakness.” Zecora added tentatively. “The fuel catches fire easily. It would allow a Sun Princess to stop them breezily.”
Beside her, Dusk Ruby translated the exchange with a series of quick clicks. Many of the thestrals were still listening to her from high above the trees, and their sonar-like ears seemed better tuned to Dusk Ruby’s brief summarization than the calmly spoken Equish exchange.
Hopeful Horizons scowled. “During an already drier than ordinary spring! The Sun Princess would find such a method appropriate without a second thought!”
“My dear, I don’t believe I suggested that at all,” Celestia said softly, giving the stallion a patient look. “If they are allowed to overheat within the Shades themselves, I’m well aware of the cost a forest fire would lead to. But not all of my magical talent is based on fire. I may still provide a safe and measured response without endangering your forests.”
“Then the Sun Princess would do well to target their fuel tanks.” Dusk Ruby cut in, in Equish. “We usually stop them using harpoons we fix to the floor of the Shades or the trunk of a Great Cypress. If we’re able to get one underneath the Tree Eaters, they cannot move without tearing out the…”
She broke off, glancing sheepishly over at Zecora for clarification, who chuckled. “Their fuel tanks. Farseeker, much thanks.”
“That’s… exceedingly clever.” Celestia gave the two a beaming smile.
“And then, their corpses poison the soils.” The other thestral Elder said softly. Flowing Frond had largely been silent during Celestia’s exchange with Zecora, instead regarding the two’s exchange with intrigue and one forehoof coyly pawing at the ground, as though she’d been waiting her turn to speak. Her voice was soft, with a few wary pauses in her inflection as she stopped to recall the words in Equish.
“She is correct,” Hopeful Horizons said, in his passively-irate tone. “Their poison has killed as many trees as the Eaters would have.”
“W-well. Not always.” Flowing looked away from the Elders and Celestia, behind her where the clearing broke back into underbrush. “But their fuel does have it’s own effects that usually make us unable to use the combat areas for growing our berry bushes anymore.”
“It is still the only way we’ve been able to stop them shy of flinging ourselves at the machines.” Zecora said. “And I don’t wish for the cost of our success to be a young Farseeker in between.”
Celestia bristled. “They… they would rather let your tribes starve than leave your forest alone. They truly will stop at nothing.”
“We are squatters to them. Rejects of Equestria who refuse to conform.” Flowing Frond said. “They offered us homes, and we refused, and now we remain on land that is theirs.”
“Is this not the fate of your student?” Zecora tilted her head. “A stubborn vagrant on land of the government?”
Celestia exhaled. “Yes, I suppose it is. How about in the fields? If we engage them before they reach the Shades… there’s much empty dirt from their previous successes that would make for ample ground to target them on.”
“That is typically how we fight them.” Hopeful Horizons nodded. “It’s why our Farseekers are so valuable. They must be.”
“The dirt there is far less stable, though,” Flowing Frond added, crossing her hooves. “They usually rip our harpoonbows off their stakes. So, we’re still largely unable to get them to slow before they reach the Shades. Since we anchor them using the trees, they don’t make it too far into the Shades. But it means they are gradually pushing the front line closer and closer to our villages with each attack.”
Celestia was appalled. This really was just another godsdamned war. It was being fought on her godsdamned country’s soil. Her godsdamned little ponies were the ones waging it, against a populace that simply wanted to be left alone. The rest of Equestria had abandoned them to their fates… if they even knew about their fates at all. It would’ve been expensive for any freelance journalist to have mounted an expedition into the Hollow Shades without Celestia. Any journalist of the Industry wouldn’t think to publish about the thestral’s plight, out of fear of the villainous light it would absolutely cast upon the ponies attempting to strip it of its resources.
Celestia certainly hoped Twilight Sparkle had brought along a camera. Equestria deserved to be appalled, after ignoring this little crisis for so long.
No matter, Celestia thought. She was still around to step in and try to set things straight.
“Your harpoons.” Celestia glanced at the young scout. “You shoot them under the excavators?”
Ruby nodded. “It’s a hard shot, and recently they’ve started putting strong sheets of metal against them to prevent the spearheads from sticking. But it only takes one or two harpoons, and the machines cannot move any further without ripping the plating off and exposing themselves.”
“Utterly ingenious.” Celestia smiled. “I can use telekinesis to help anchor the harpoons you shoot. This way, we can engage them on the wastelands outside of the Hollow Shades. But we must mobilize quickly if this is to be the case. I imagine your harpoon devices are still rigged to the cypress?”
“They are.” Hopeful Horizons glanced from Celestia, and then back at the gathered thestrals still listening intently. Some seemed to be eagerly waiting for another translation from Dusk Ruby, who herself had stopped summarizing once she’d been pulled into the discussion herself. “You have the ability to do this? With your magics?”
Celestia nodded her head. “I believe so. As I said. I am old, but I still have fight in me.”
“Then we will prepare to engage the machines in the fields of Hayseed.” Hopeful Horizons nodded his head. For the first time since he’d awoken, he afforded Celestia a friendly smile. “Farseekers, show the Sun Princess to the machine anchors.”
ii
Twilight Sparkle wasn’t sure she’d be able to find the way back if she were separated from the thestral weaving his way through the underbrush.
He Who Sees A Thousand Miles was a stallion on a mission. His ears were moving almost the entire time he ducked and crouched through the underbrush, not rarely sending a wayward branch flinging back in Twilight’s direction for her to hastily catch in her telekinesis. The underbrush of the Hollow Shades was thicker than anything Twilight had ever seen outside of nature magazines--Old Canterlot’s few parks were decrepit and poorly maintained… ghosts, really, of whatever the city had been boasting before the Industry’s bits went elsewhere.
The rainforest of the Hollow Shades was lacking in one thing, though. As He Who Sees A Thousand Miles trotted on, Twilight glanced back at her tail and back. “It’s, ah. Dry.”
He looked back at Twilight, tilting his head. “Too fast?”
“No, no. I said dry. There’s, ah. Not a lot of moisture?” She pointed at the leaves.
“Oh! Rain!”
Twilight nodded eagerly. “Exactly! Isn’t it, ah. Supposed to rain, here?”
The stallion shook his head. “Elder’s say it’s rain season. Big joke with the rest of the tribe.”
“Controlled forest fires, right? That’s how they’re doing it now? The machines?”
He Who Sees A Thousand Miles nodded. “In places. When they don’t need wood. We notice it before they attack. This morning was a nice drizzle, but lately not as much rain.”
“The weather teams in Cloudsdale are supposed to control it, I thought. That’s what my research tells me, anyways.” She tapped her saddlebag--she’d stuffed a few essays from the Library about the types of flora and fauna she’d expect to run into, and at least a few she’d read on the train had mentioned the generous rain donations the Hollow Shades received from run-off rain pollution generated by Cloudsdale’s weather teams.
Extra moisture had allowed the Shades to thrive more significantly than many of the surrounding forests, the flora thicker and the threat of forest fires much lower than those of the Everfree and Whitetail.
“From the city?” Far Seas chuckled. “We have to collect the moisture clouds ourselves. They use them for other things.”
“Considering they’re trying to evict you, that’s probably intentional.”
“I hear they need farmlands. Hayseeds say so.”
Twilight sighed. “Celestia will fix this.”
“I hope so. She is close to you, yes? The Sun Princess?”
“Y-yeah. We’re, uh. Partners.” Twilight blinked. “Like, in the business sense. Er, government business! Not, ah… partners like…”
Far Seas rose an eyebrow as she trailed off. “Well. When she does take country, you’ll tell her 'give the rains back?' Please?”
“Yes, of course! I mean, I’ll… I’ll tell her right away. She’s probably already on it, if she’s chatting with your Elders.”
“Oh!” Far Seas brightened up significantly. “Then I think the Elders will be quite happy.”
“I saw the logging equipment on the way into Hayseed. It’s… when was the last time they ran them here?”
“A cycle.” He pointed up at the skies. The mid-day sun was obscured by foliage and it was still a strange sort of cloudy perpetual early-evening, but Twilight still knew what the thestral was talking about almost immediately. Lunar cycles, meaning it’d been a month.
“Well, we saw a lot.”
“They strike harder each time. It is lucky you and the Sun Princess showed when you did.”
“W-what if we didn’t?”
“We leave the strategies for the Elders, yes?” Far Seas cocked his head in a random direction which Twilight quickly realized was probably where they’d come from. The stallion’s tone was mocking, but innocuously so, and there was a genuine grin on the thestrals face. “Besides, we are at the Remembering Caves. Be silent if you can.”
“Why? Dangerous animals?”
“No, thestrals.” Far Sea’s expression grew more teasing. “The Dream Elder doesn’t like being disturbed from their slumber unless by other dreamwalkers.”
“A-are you a dreamwalker?”
Far Seas shook his head. He stopped in his tracks, one wing idly holding a branch in the air. Twilight could vaguely see a rock-cut jutting up an incline in the foliage ahead, though the size of the Remembering Caves was impossible to deduce. “I cannot. Farseekers are not allowed. Awake in the day means sleep isn’t easy.”
“W-well, he’s not going to be grouchy to see me? I don’t want to impose if he’s--”
“You wish to learn dreamwalking, yes?”
Twilight nodded immediately.
“Then you are a dreamwalker. She will not be ‘grouchy.’” Far Sea’s expression softened. “She will be happy to see horn. They don’t come often, and never for dream magic.”
Twilight relaxed significantly. “Sorry. I… have a habit of worrying. Celestia says I should stop doing it so much.”
“Sun Princess is wise for many reasons,” Far Seas said, and then turned back towards the rockcut ahead. Twilight followed closely behind, doing her best to remain silent as the thestral led the way towards a narrow indentation in the rockcut. They jutted out like arrowheads struck into the earth, the dirt long since settled around them over the centuries. The gaps in between them was just narrow enough for a pony to squeeze through… Celestia certainly wouldn’t have been able to, and Twilight was instantly thankful she hadn’t come.
“The caves open more on the inside,” Far Seas said, keeping his voice low. He peered into one of the entrances, and then let out a small series of chirrups which echoed off the cavern walls. They were gentle, trilling off the thestral’s tongue like birdsong.
Silence. Far Seas’s ear twitched, a vaguely disinterested look on the stallion’s face.
Then, after about thirty seconds, a series of chirrups echoed back. They were louder, harsher, and distinctly more hostile than Far Seas’ welcoming tone, and Twilight instantly heard rustling from within.
After a moment, a figure stirred from the deep darkness of the cavern. The thestral mare was old and moved with a sort of frailty, letting out a series of staccato chirrups, which Far Seas answered calmly. As she emerged, she did so with her eyes wide. They were without retinas, something that gave Twilight start for a moment, but it did not seem to impeded the old mare as she blindly made her way out of the cavern with her ears twitching the whole while.
“Ichtaga’itotia.” Far Seas introduced her in Equish, nodding at the old mare as she settled down, listening intently. “Eager Eyes Lit By Moonlight.”
“Hello. My name is Twilight Sparkle,” Twilight said softly. “I’m… visiting. From Old Canterlot.”
Far Seas clicked a few times in Thestralian, but the older mare shook her head. Her voice was hardly gentle, and it came at a dramatically low register that Twilight had to trot a little closer to make out. “You are a unicorn. From the city.”
“Yeah. I’m… I’m a student of Luna’s, actually.”
Eager Eyes laughed. “Is that so? She is well, I hope?”
“I-I mean… she, ah… has been better?”
“You are a poor liar, unicorn.” Eager Eyes shook her head, meandering into the clearing around the caves and settling down on her rump after a few meters. “If you awake me, you must have reason. If not, I return to sleep.”
“R-right, sorry! I know you’re probably a… ah. Busy mare…” Twilight looked around helplessly at the lonely series of tiny caverns. “I came because a trusted source mentioned I could learn dreamwalking from the thestrals.”
“This is a secret of the thestrals,” Eager Eyes said, her ear tilted in Twilight’s direction.. “Unicorns from city don’t ask this often anymore.”
“I know. I know it’s a dead magic.”
Eager Eyes laughed again. “I am not yet, unicorn Twilight. And the Remembering Caves not. They can teach when I cannot.”
“Not if they’re destroyed.” Far Seas grumbled, earning a glance from Eager Eyes.
“This is why you protect, chicahua.” Eager Eyes shot back, earning a pouting expression from the young stallion.
“We could protect you better in the village.”
“And who, then, would protect the caves?” Eager Eyes shook her head, a smug smirk on the old mare’s face. “Twilight unicorn has trusted source? She is student of Luna? Luna is dead.”
“It’s… it’s a term that we use. Like, if you study nature, you’re a Student of Nature. That sorta thing. I didn’t mean to imply…”
“You believe Luna existed.”
Twilight nodded. Then, she realized what she was doing and said it aloud. “Yes. And I know the thestrals had a connection to her.”
“Have,” Eager Eyes corrected. “You wish to visit Remembering Caves? You are… student of dreams, as they say?”
“Yes. I know it’s probably sacred amongst your kind, but I just--”
Eager Eyes laughed, the sound rumbling out of the ancient mare like thunder. “Sacred yes. I cannot get the young farseekers to listen. Nopony wishes to dream their lives away with what happens outside the Hollow Shades.”
“B-but it’s sacred magic! Surely your tribe would want to protect it!”
“And try we do. The Remembering Caves do not tend to themselves. Twilight unicorn wishes to learn, and I wish to teach.”
“Ichtaga’itotia has visited this place since she was a filly. She says she found it running from a dragon, but we think she dreamed that.”
The old mare erupted in a series of sharp staccato cries in Far Seas’ direction, and the stallion returned with a tongue stuck-out in her direction. Eager Eyes was predictably oblivious to the response, and Far Seas turned to Twilight. “She visited so often eventually she started sleeping here. She… hasn’t exactly stopped.”
“You say you are a student of Luna.” Eager Eyes’ tone changed significantly when she next spoke Equish. The lighthearted, teasing tone was gone entirely from the mare’s voice, now a flat and authoritative drone. “You learn of her how?”
“From research of my own. I’m a student of magic, and I’m self-taught.”
“City ponies have jobs. Agendas. Yours are?” Eager Eyes tilted her head knowingly. “A study of dreams does not help one survive in the city.”
“I’m a journalist. I write about Equestria, and the Equestrian people.”
“A curious unicorn writer who studies the arcane. Who wishes to study Luna’s magics. You have my blessing, then. I shall show you the Remembering Caves, and teach you how to use Luna’s gift.”
The thestral mare stirred, slowly rising back to her hooves. Then, she began her way towards one of the caverns. Far Seas trotted over to help the old mare walk, but she chattered at him irritably in Thestralian, sending the young stallion trailing behind Twilight instead with an expression somewhere between annoyed and embarrassed.
As Eager Eyes led the way back to the caverns, Twilight instinctively brough magic to her horn, casting the dark maws in a modest purple glow. The cavern that they’d awakened Eager Eyes in was, true to Far Seas’s word, much more welcoming once it moved passed the abrupt bottleneck. The thestral had set up a living area, a cooking area, and the walls had even been painted a deep blue. It was no wonder the cavern had been impossible to see into--it was as though the thestral had specifically designed it in such a way that as little light as possible could penetrate.
It was no wonder, Twilight thought, that the old mare was blind.
She kept those thoughts to herself, though, and instead followed Eager Eyes into a cavern that the thestral seemingly led the way to at random. She chirruped a few more times, this time earning no answer from Far Seas, and it took Twilight a moment to realize they were echolocation chirrups, and not Thestralian at all.
“The inscriptions. Twilight Unicorn can see, yes?” Eager Eyes stopped at the entrance of the cavern, glancing back in Twilight’s direction. “Because Eager Eyes cannot. Eager Eyes remembers, but the Caves do, too.”
Twilight entered the cavern with a wary frown, but Eager Eyes’ cryptic explanation was instantly irrelevant as soon as her aura illuminated the cave. The walls were covered in burn marks of such excruciating precision that Twilight had no doubt a unicorn’s horn was the culprit.
Or an alicorn.
They depicted thestrals, all gathered together, before a smouldering fire. Simplistic and minimalistic, but with a certain particular artistic flare seemingly scattered across the depictions as if at random. As though the pony burning them into the cavern walls had been unsure if it had been an art project or a lecture.
In the depictions of the thestrals, they weren’t particularly enamoured by the fire itself. They certainly weren’t gathered around it for warmth, instead it looked like they were peacefully sleeping by it.
There were several of the same general picture. Different focus put on different things… sometimes the fire was present in the painting only as a torch held in a thestrals hoof. On one of them, it was the flaming tip of an arrow being shot over a canopy of trees. All drawn with differing styles and methods… sometimes burned into the rock, others were paints of different colours and varying states of decay… some done in old, long faded paints, and yet others no more than several years old.
The various scenes were organized at random as though the wall itself were some sort of scrapbook, but they were all anchored via the unicorn’s more precise burn-marks that made up the campfire and the thestrals slumbering by it. Usually this was done in creative, nearly seamless ways... the various scenes looked like branches, jutting from the same anchors that were the peaceful thestrals originally burned into the stone.
Twilight fiddled with her saddlebag, drawing out her instant camera and levitating a roll of film into it.
The opposite wall of the cavern was different.
It had the same general idea, of anchoring scenes to one source, but the source this time was a flower, from which various roots cross-faded into scenes of thestrals caring for them, growing them, using the leaves to prepare a steaming tea…
The flower itself was surrounded in a glowing aura that, even without colour beyond charred black, Twilight knew was supposed to represent a unicorn or alicorn’s magic.
“A magical flower. Or… or an enchanted one, anyways.” Twilight said it aloud, snapping another picture. She had read about them. There was poison joke, which had been largely eradicated from the Everfree in the first half of the decade, but plenty of documented and undocumented additional plants along its genus long sought after for their varying use. It had all seemed tinged in just enough pseudoscience for Twilight to have been skeptical of the claims, but she wasn’t exactly an expert in the flora of forests she’d never set her hooves in. And especially none of the magical properties of them that had more or less been labelled ‘pests’ and eradicated.
She exited back into the bright early-afternoon light. Some distance away, no longer blocked by the oppressive walls of the Remembering Cave, Twilight could hear Eager Eyes chastising Twilight’s young guide.
“...arrogant little seeker! Twilight unicorn requires a demonstration, yes? Not indigestion? Do they not teach what dreamroot looks like?”
“Looks the exact same to me.” Far Seas grumbled out, and instantly he instantly flushed red in embarrassment when Twilight herself came trotting towards them.
“I looked at the murals,” Twilight reported, and Eager Eyes twitched an ear.
“And?”
“And I heard you mention the flower by name. Did… did Luna create it? I know she liked the experiment with dark magic… I always figured she was…”
Twilight trailed off when Eager Eyes fixed her with a small smile. “These are things the Remembering Caves don’t tell us, yes? I may seem old to you, but I am still a filly compared to many of the inscriptions in there.”
“You just found them? Meaning… meaning it could’ve been lost forever?”
“As an infinite number of secrets are.” Eager Eyes gave a single nod. Then, her expression softened a little.“But just as infinite are eager young ponies willing to dig them back up again. So, you looked at the mural, yes?”
“Yeah. It… it grows here?”
“It is rare. But even magical flowers can be cared for with a careful hoof. I discovered these caves when I was younger than even this sharp-tongued farseeker. However long the secret had been slumbering hadn’t mattered, because it was woken again regardless. As Luna had clearly intended.”
“I think it was her, initially. The burn marks look like they came from a unicorn.”
“Do they?” Eager Eyes rose an eyebrow… it looked a little strange looking, with the thestrals empty black sclera betraying much of her expression. “And why not dragonfire?”
“Dragonfire would spread when it hit the stone. It’d be impossible to get it as detailed as that. It’d be hard even with a hot iron. But a powerful unicorn could do it as easily as writing their name.”
“Clever mare.” Eager Eyes smiled. “I worked to preserve the paint, when I still had my eyesight. Then, when I no longer did, I asked the village for help. Still, not many ponies have much use for dreamwalking. I believe it helps ease the woes of the world, but many believe all I do is distract.”
“No, I think it’s helpful. My… my… uh, partner. Has been having some nightmares that, uh. I think me being able to help soothe would help.”
“Mm. You believe it wouldn’t simply distract her from the things she worries about?”
“I… I don’t think she’s that sort of pony. She dreams that stuff because part of her thinks she deserves to. Like, it’s a penance to her.”
“Is it?”
“No, it’s not fair. It’s a kind mare being tormented by things she can’t change anymore.”
“And you believe you have the power to help her?”
“I believe I would be a terrible partner and friend to her if I didn’t try to.”
“You make a promising case for yourself, Twilight unicorn. You want a demonstration, yes? To see yourself?”
Twilight nodded eagerly. “If… if it’s not too much trouble. If you’re sure you can trust me.”
Eager Eyes laughed. “I do not have much youth in me not to trust the first mare to come asking about my magic in more than a decade. No, the only trouble I envision is if young Sees A Thousand Miles keeps assuming my blindness will save him from his sarcastic looks.”
For all her eagerness, it had taken Twilight nearly thirty minutes to gather the plant in question. It was in part Twilight’s own fault… she’d only briefly skimmed the Hollow Shades entry on the third chapter in the Equestrian Forest Friend’s Flora and Fauna Field Guide that she had taken with her on the train. Most of the information the textbook had offered was general, more focused on what plants to avoid than which to collect.
Eager Eyes had made it quite clear early on--after Twilight and Far Seas had returned with various offerings of what they’d assumed the blind old thestral was describing--but everytime she’d responded with some irate prediction of all the horrible things the plant could do to them.
It all seemed rather preposterous to Twilight, but she’d never encountered poison joke in her life. Clearly, Princess Luna had been more acquainted with the old forest’s innerworkings than Twilight had ever been. She was just happy for the chance to learn.
The whole time she was searching, Twilight idly wondered if Nightmare Moon would have known what the dreamroot had looked like. She felt the alicorn’s absence as they searched--as nasty and unpleasant as Nightmare Moon was, part of her would have liked her to have been around for this.
Eventually, Twilight’s luck caught up with her. The old thestral took Twilight’s most recent offering in her hooves, carrying the flower gently to her nostrils. “Ah! Here we are. Twilight unicorn gets it eventually.”
Twilight exhaled, forcing a smile. “That’s the dreamroot?”
Eager Eyes nodded. “And you have collected a good amount, too. Enough to prepare.”
“It’s, uh. Safe?” Twilight ventured cautiously. “It’s not, like. Poison joke, or something? It’s not gonna make me grow another nose or turn my horn into a pair of wings or something?”
Shaking her head, Eager Eyes chuckled and pointed an ear back towards the Remembering Caves. “I will prepare it as a tea. You drink it. The worse outcome is a rather frightening nightmare, but even nightmares end.”
Twilight gulped a little, but followed Eager Eyes as the old thestral hobbled back to the clearing. She was well aware of the reaction her brother would have given her upon learning she’d been drinking teas made from subspecies of poison joke with an old blind mare she’d met in a cave, but Nightmare Moon had seemed confident in the thestrals abilities.
...in the passing, off-hoof remark she’d offered by way of context.
In the clearing around the Remembering Caves, Eager Eyes dropped the dreamroot she’d been carrying in her maw gently on a flattened rock. She motioned for Twilight to sit, while she trotted into her cave.
There was a rustling of pots and pans and various affairs from inside, and a few minutes later Eager Eyes returned with a little clay tea-kettle held in her wing.
“Farseeker!” she barked, outstretching the wing to present the kettle, which the young thestral quickly scurried to grab. “Go fill at the stream. Unicorn knows fire magic, yes?”
Twilight nodded. “I can boil the water. I do it all the time with my coffee at home. Do you need my help preparing the dreamroot at all while he’s…”
She broke off as Eager Eyes shook her head. She settled down before the discarded dreamroot flowers, and her other wing unfurled. A few clay cups rolled out onto the grass, and with one of her wingjoints she was carrying a little clay rod. The thestrals seemed a bit more nimble with the more obviously protruding joints on their wings than Twilight had seen from pegasi, and in no time Eager Eyes had begun using the clay rod to gently grind the dreamroot leaves against the stone.
“Twilight unicorn will not be discouraged if she does not dream well, yes? It is a gift Luna has not been able to share with many.”
“It’s why I want to help bring it back,” Twilight said firmly. “If it doesn’t work the first time, I won’t give up.”
“You may take the dreamroot plant you found. I will help you de-root it. You promise to care for it in the city, yes?”
“Yes. I promise.”
“You have friends? Who know plants?”
Smiling, Twilight had a mental image of Fluttershy, spitefully proclaiming herself a dirt scientist as if it had been some useless condemnation. She couldn’t wait to show the pegasus how wrong she had been. “I do indeed. A pegasus pony.”
“Good,” Eager Eyes said. She turned her focus to the dreamroot leaves, bringing one hoof close to the mortar and pestle to make sure she wasn’t dropping any of the ground leaves off the flattened stone.
Far Seas returned shortly with the kettle filled with water from a nearby running stream. He presented it to Twilight, who took it in her magic with a smile and instantly began feeding heat magic gently onto the bottom of the clay kettle.
When the dreamroot tea had finally been brewed, it both smelt and tasted awful. Twilight had extended her tongue slowly into the clay cup and instantly pulled back. She’d never eaten dirt before, but she imagined if she would have the taste would have been comparable. Eager Eyes regarded her gentle-but-telling hacking cough with a little frown and ginger sip of her own tea.
“It is acquired taste,” she said, a little smirk forming. “Like tasting mud, yes?”
Twilight gave a little chuckle. “I was going to say it tasted ‘earthy’, which seems a little more polite.”
Eager Eyes laughed back. “Yes, well. City ponies can add sweets to the tea if they wish.”
Twilight grinned, but it was a little shaky as she sipped on the tea once again. The taste was, admittedly, not nearly as bad on the second try. She did her best to not drain it like it was a shot of vodka, and instead matched the gentle sipping of the older thestral before her.
“You will feel tired. This is normal.” Eager Eyes said, doing her best to say it softly despite her raspy voice. “Grass is nice for sleep. Farseeker and I will protect from animals, if you are frightened.”
Eager Eyes hadn’t been lying. Twilight had occasionally used the dreadful sleeping pills one could get over the counter in Old Canterlot while the drunken racket outside her library had been particularly unavoidable, and the effect of the dreamroot was rather comparable.
It, however, came upon Twilight far quicker than they did, and she indeed did find herself gently finding herself a comfortable position on the grass clearing.
Sleep was what she’d come here looking for, after all, and so she let it find her to the tune of gentle birdsong echoing around them.
iii
Celestia had been followed when she’d left the village in the Hollow Shades.
As they made their way back from where they had come, the younger thestrals followed from above, gliding from tree to tree. The forest was alight with their excited chattering. Some were young, as young as sixteen. Celestia couldn’t believe this was normal for them. They didn’t sound fearful, and Celestia could only hope that her promises to take the frontlines of the conflict had some influence.
Zecora and Her Mane Like Flowing Grass had followed Celestia on the forest-floor, and Zecora had used the time to continue strategizing with Celestia as they’d made their way to the harpoonbow devices that the little thestral scout had been describing.
“The machines travel quickly on treads,” Zecora had been explaining. “It is easy to find purchase where the land is dead.”
Celestia nodded. “The Brothers had been developing something similar to help Equestria during the Crystal War. More meant for travelling the snowy tundra back then, but the principle is the same, I suppose.”
“It is on days with rain that the machines strain.” Zecora pursed her lips thoughtfully. “The Everfree Forest was mostly grass. Then, it was an effect they could bypass.”
“But on dirt, it would be a different story,” Celestia caught Zecora’s hint with a growing sly smile. “Dirt after the rains turns to mud.”
“Mud gives the machines woe. They would likely move slow.” Zecora pointed a hoof up at the clouds peaking through the forest canopy as they walked. “Though to expect rain so quickly is to expect a lot. It would be a strategy better used with more forethought.”
“Something we do not have.” Celestia gave a grim nod. “I do believe I still recall some of my cloud-moulding lessons during my Cloudsdale visits. If the thestrals can bring me some clouds, I should be able to convert them into rainclouds we could use to create a perimeter.”
Zecora had been listening intently, her gaze ahead at the open sky now starting to expose itself from the thinning forest canopy on the edges of the Shades. “This would give us much? Or is there some sort of crutch?”
Flowing Frond, who’d been listening to the two talk in silence, piped up. “Thestrals are generally poorer cloud-wranglers. We used to get our rain from Cloudsdale until recently, so we haven’t had that much time to learn.”
Celestia gave a somber little nod. “It’s a talent sadly kept mostly within Cloudsdale itself.”
Zecora gave a little shrug. “Truthfully, this much I somewhat assumed. Still, I doubt their talent is completely doomed.”
Celestia nodded, and before she could say anything further, a young thestral farseeker gingerly set down before them, giving Flowing Frond and Zecora a nod and Celestia a more complete bow. “Sun Princess, we are at the harpoonbows.”
“Good. I would love to see how these fascinating devices operate.” Celestia followed the thestral as he led her to a large device that had been built next to a strong and old eucalyptus tree. There were several more at regular intervals all along the threshold where the forest ended.
It was about the size of a wagon or sleigh, and looked like a crossbow that had been built to an exaggerated height. It still looked small enough that it could have been moved and fired by a single pony, but they would most certainly have to stop and fire it from a stationary position if so. The harpoonbow was immense, heavy, and anchored to the tree with an intricately designed braid-rope of the same twine that had bounded the thestrals spears to their backs.
The same twine had also been fixed to several javelin-sized bolts tied around the tree and on the side of the harpoonbow. True to its name, it was a strange and creative device who’s necessity filled Celestia with a profound mixture of sorrow and pride in her ponies.
“I will help move several into the fields.” Celestia announced. “We will anchor them in the dirt to the best of our ability, but if they begin to slip, I will serve as an anchor for the harpoons myself.”
“The Sun Princess requires weather clouds!” Flowing Frond added, crying the sentence out in Equish and then chirruping it again in Thestralian. “Fly quickly, and Luna guide you all!”
It felt strange to smile before going to war, but Celestia couldn’t help but think Luna would have been proud to have seen how her own little ponies had grown up.
iv
It felt strange to awake into a dream.
Her mind was already aflutter with her material concerns when the oddness of the universe struck her, Twilight stopping what she was doing at her writing desk and looking around at the hazy construct of her library’s study. She’d been in the middle of poring over the day’s newspaper and planning a measured response to its lies, but the idea instantly seemed ridiculous to her as the rest of her reality caught up.
What did it matter? Who would even care?
She wasn’t here. She was asleep on the grass in the Hollow Shades. It was a strange inverse to a rudely interrupted dream; the memory of her last waking moments still existed, but as an uncertain blur that seemed to be slipping away from her every second.
She began to walk outside. It was midnight--Twilight didn’t know how she’d decided, but she was certain that it was. The door to her study took her into a cold and sterile hallway, cool electric lights humming and flickering.
The hallway ended at a steel wall. A freight-elevator.
Twilight’s hooves clacked against the concrete floors, warily and nervously. Already, she’d forgotten how she’d gotten here. What did it matter? There were no other doors besides the study she’d come from, and there’d been nothing but old newspapers and furniture there.
She carried on towards the freight-elevator, instead. As she got closer, she knew it was descending long before the little bell on the top of the steel wall let out it’s telling chirp. It opened slowly, and Twilight’s horn lit instinctively, preparing herself for whatever was coming.
Nightmare Moon stepped out of the elevator, a calm smile on her face. “Easy, Sparkle. It’s me.”
Twilight’s magic vanished, and she let out a sigh of relief. “H-how did you…”
“You’re dreaming, Twilight Sparkle. We’re dreaming.” Nightmare Moon looked around their setting, a curious frown on her face. “Though I am quite curious how you know of this place.”
“W-w-what place? Where am I?!”
Nightmare Moon’s frown shifted to a little smile. “Just calm yourself, Sparkle. Lucid, conscious memory takes practice to retain in the dreamworld.”
Nightmare Moon outstretched one wing and used it to shove Twilight forwards by her flank. Twilight was pushed unceremoniously through the still-open doors of the freight-elevator, and Nightmare Moon followed her in with her horn lit.
“Contemporary.” Nightmare Moon mused, looking around the elevator as she entered. “Luna used doors for hers. A bit on the nose, but it did the job.”
“Doors for her what? What are you talking about?”
Nightmare Moon let out a long groan. “Her dreamworld, you twit. Have you seriously not caught onto that by now? If it weren’t sunny out in the waking world, I’d offer a backhoof to the forehead to help jog your memory.”
Twilight blinked. “O-oh. Wait, hold on. The thestrals…” she exhaled, facehoofing and nodding her head. “Alright, it’s coming back to me. Though I wasn’t expecting it to be like this...”
“And I must say…” Nightmare Moon mused thoughtfully. “You worked quickly getting here. As for ‘like this’... well, what were you expecting?”
“I… I dunno. I guess I expected to just kinda be flung into a nightmare or something. This all seems kinda, uh….” Twilight motioned at the elevator. “Mundane.”
“Yes, well. That is to some extent an expression of the dreamer themselves. Creatures who keep their thoughts and worries orderly and mundane will have dreamscapes that reflect this. Ponies less stable in their subconscious worries would have dreamscapes that shift and alter abruptly, and are significantly less simple to navigate. I would imagine the amount of monsters and genuine unsettlement to be more common in either children, or individuals suffering from trauma.”
“So, it wouldn’t always look like this for me?”
“No. Physical or emotional distress would change the appearance of your dreamscape. Perhaps it will feel rotted, or overgrown. Perhaps it will be dark, and difficult to navigate. Do keep in mind, normally this stage of a dream is skipped over. You don’t have control over what dream you’re flung into, and you instead wake up in the midst of it. Luna’s little magical botany experiment carries the purpose of tapping into that preliminary period where your mind has not decided where it would like to send you yet.”
“That’s… really interesting, actually. And… botany experiments?” Twilight tilted her head. “Can… can I ask what she was like?”
Nightmare Moon chuckled. “Hit a button on the elevator, first. We’ll discuss while I explore your subconscious mind and offer helpful critiques of your taciturn innermost desires.”
“Right, right,” Twilight said, nodding and turning back to the array of buttons. There was about a dozen of them, and the illuminated floor told her she was only about halfway up whatever abstract ‘building’ her dreaming mind had built. “Uh… which one do I press?”
“I do not know. I have never seen a dreamscape visualized in such a way. Luna used the appearance and decor of various doors along a stationary hallway in order to predict what they contained.”
Twilight shrugged, and hit a button at random. Beside her, Nightmare Moon’s horn lit, and the alicorn slammed the guard-rail of the freight-elevator shut. A heavy rattling flooded the freight-elevator as it was drawn upwards.
“That hallway was one of the hallways of the facility that had imprisoned your white dove mentor, by the way.” Nightmare Moon reported. “The locations of your dreamscape will largely be based upon places you recently recall visiting. I am curious how you know its appearance enough to recall with accuracy.”
Twilight shook her head. She couldn’t recall… she was sure there was some logical reason, but whatever she’d been doing in the waking world for the past few days still felt like it was something she’d done in a trance. “I’m sorry, I couldn’t tell you.”
“No matter.” Nightmare Moon shrugged. The elevator dinged again, and the steel-wall opened to the solarium of Princess Celestia’s remote beach house. The one they’d visited after the disastrous hearing with Florina Harshwhinny.
Nightmare Moon scowled at the sight. “Really? Here, Sparkle? We’re discussing Luna’s past here?”
“I’m, uh. Not in control of any of this.” Twilight rolled her eyes. “Just along for the ride.”
Chuckling, Nightmare Moon shook her head and once again parted the guardrail, leading the way onto the solarium. “It seems your subconscious mind wishes to take a vacation, too. Perhaps it can waste away in the sunlight with your common sense and your dietary restraint.”
“Very funny,” Twilight grumbled, following Nightmare Moon.
Outside of the solarium, it was night. Dull, unfocused, and starless. The world outside the beach house looked like an abstract impressionist painting; just enough for the general time of day and surroundings to be visible, but without any degree of precision. The solarium however, was impeccably detailed. Every board and crack on the wall was unique and believable. Twilight doubted they matched the real thing, but it was more than enough to fool her subconscious mind.
The black alicorn looked thoughtfully at the blurred landscape. “You are a pony of details, Twilight Sparkle. Very much isolated in your focus.” She pointed a hoof at the bay and the waves of the ocean ahead. “It is subtle, but you will learn much from somepony by how their mind builds in dreams.”
“Nightmare Moon, why are you teaching me all of this?” Twilight frowned, settling down on the solarium floor. The last time they’d been here together in the waking world, Nightmare Moon had been full of derision and snark and plenty of threats against Twilight’s wellbeing.
“Because I was created to serve Princess Luna,” Nightmare Moon returned, waving a hoof. “She is now deceased, and her influence on me is gone. I believe the magic she tried to purge from the world should not die with her, and I believe she would have trusted you with it. Any other silly questions?”
Twilight blushed. “That almost sounded like a compliment.”
Nightmare Moon glared. “I may rescind my offers at any time, you know. They are easily transferable to other clueless pudgy unicorns who know how to follow basic instruction.”
Twilight snickered. “Fine, fine. Another silly question, then?”
“I am quite used to answering them by now.”
“The dreamroot. It’s… magical in nature, right?”
Nightmare Moon nodded. “Obviously, yes.”
“You said Princess Luna… cultivated it? Like, intentionally?”
“Yes. To provide some context, Luna was a sorcerer unlike her sister, and unlike you.” Nightmare Moon gave a little shrug. “Where Celestia and you see magic for it’s practical usages, Luna saw experimental usages. She saw an untapped well of unlimited potential. She delved into darker magics, she worked diligently to combine different schools of magics, and over centuries she built an approach to magic that was distinct and personal. An experimenter and an innovator, Luna was. You likely saw some of that when you recovered the Starstone.”
“I did, yeah.” Twilight exhaled. “She sounded like an interesting mare.”
“Yes, and a dangerous one, too. Because innovation cannot happen under the constraints of safety.” Nightmare Moon’s horn lit as she spoke, and gradually, the unfocused night sky began to glow with soft, intricately woven starlight. “I am… perhaps the best example of this.”
Twilight wasn’t sure how exactly to answer that, and so she didn’t. Watching Nightmare Moon wordlessly weave a tapestry of stars above waves gradually coming into focus was more entertaining than any conversation, regardless, and she watched the show with a small smile.
“Truthfully, I know little of Luna’s relationship with the thestrals, and her development of the dreamroot. She… blocked me out of it when she could. I do not know if it would provide aid with dreamwalking, but it seems to have induced a dramatically lucid dreamstate for you, so it is at least a start in the direction.”
“Maybe we can experiment with the magic, like Luna did.” Twilight glanced over at Nightmare Moon hopefully. “If… if you’d like. If you think that would be… respectful.”
“Sparkle…” Nightmare Moon met her look, and Twilight was amazed to see a small smile form on the somber alicorn’s face. “I would like that a lot.”
Beyond the deck of the beach house, the carefully created landscape ahead had once again started to blur. This time, it was followed by a gradually growing haze, as if a fog had rolled in across the bay. Nightmare Moon frowned thoughtfully at the sight.
“It seems you are waking, Twilight Sparkle,” she said, pointing a hoof at the growing clouds. “I hope to see you in the dreamscape again soon. I feel… freer here than I am in Equestria. More… present.”
Twilight nodded. “You haven’t really been around much, lately.”
“I haven’t felt the same motivation to cause Celestia physical distress, lately.” Nightmare Moon returned shortly, raising her snout smugly. “If that is a crime, I will not apologize for it.”
Twilight could have hugged Nightmare Moon in that moment, but she knew where to pick her battles.
She let the waking world take her into its hooves, instead.
v
It wasn’t until noon when Dusk Ruby returned to her perch above the Hollow Shades.
The Sun Princess was below them, having elected to stay closer to the ground during the battle. It had seemed a wise decision to Ruby… the alicorn may have had a proud stature on her hooves, but she was clearly built more for standing than flying. Her wings tripled the wingspan of even most pegasus fliers, and Ruby couldn’t imagine how much energy it must take the old mare to lift herself off the ground at all.
It was thrilling, watching the Sun Princess work. When news spread through the village and away from it, the number of wings through the trees had increased dramatically. The twine rigging that had fixed their harpoon-crossbow hybrids to the trees had been dismantled, and dragged into the deadlands outside of the Shades. The Sun Princess had stood close to them, helping move them in her magic--though it seemed to Dusk Ruby like she’d been just as much using the offer to help as a warm-up for her telekinetic prowess.
By-time they had dismantled the equipment and dragged it out onto the fields, the sun had completed its uneasy rise--always poking out from beyond someplace in the blurred sludge that was the late-morning sky.
The machines had departed from Hayseed since then. They could all hear their drone the moment they’d set out, the sound coating the gathered thestrals in the same tense anticipation that the piercing machine’s cries always did. They were travelling faster than ordinary, and Dusk Ruby doubted the Sun Princess's presence was a coincidence
The Sun Princess also seemed to hear it early, though. She wordlessly rose, trotting forwards several paces and kicking into the air. Her wings beat twice, and she was airborne. Dusk Ruby, and a half-dozen other farseekers from the nearby trees, kicked off their perches along the Cypresses, too, and their wingbeats were silenced against the shrieking engines ahead.
They’d sent a dozen of the Tree Eaters, grinding the deadlands beneath their thunderous treads. And yet, for all their rumbling ferocity, they slowed to a halt when they saw the Sun Princess approaching.
Celestia set down some forty meters before them, rustling her wings a little and starting towards the slowing machines with an angry frown. The following thestrals set down before her, but she’d commanded them earlier to stay back several meters while she initially engaged them.
Dusk Ruby was morbidly curious, as she walked slowly to the leading Tree Eater, if the Princess’s affinity for fire magic had been the reason for the arbitrary distance she’d asked the farseekers to stay back.
“This ends today,” Celestia said. Without magic flared, but her voice seemed booming. “You will turn, and go back to the city that sent you, and that will be it. This land is protected.”
Her words carried over the machine’s still idling engine, but only barely. Ruby and a few of the thestrals trotted a little closer, as a yellow helmeted figure emerged from the leading Tree Eater. The machine he had been piloted rumbled to silence, and the rest of the machines quickly followed suit as their foreman’s hooves hit dirt and began trodding closer to the standing Princess.
He was an earth pony… young, tall and well-built, though still a head shorter than the Sun Princess herself. His expression was surprisingly unfazed. “Ma’am, you’re trespassing. You lot all are.”
“Did you not hear me?” Celestia dug a hoof into the dirt. “I said turn back. Whatever grounds you think you have to do this are irrelevant. These ponies live here. There are children in their villages. You are endangering their survival with your greed, and it has to stop now.”
“Ma’am…” The foreman began, and exhaled deeply. “Look, we don’t have to do this whole Appaloosa Standoff routine. We have permission to be doin’ what we’re doin’, so if you have a complaint with that, it’s really not somethin’ I can help you with.” He extended a hoof. “Full Steam, ma’am. If you want, we can cover what grounds we’re here to cut, and you can make sure there are no thestrals living there before we do. Then we’ll do our business and be off.”
“You really have no idea what you’re talking about.” Celestia glared. “Why would you?”
“Ma’am…” the Foreman gave a glance back at the waiting Tree Eaters behind him. “You are interrupting a licensed demolition project. These ponies have been destroying government property for years, while living illegally on land that is not their own anymore.”
Celestia glared. “Then go ahead. Try your former Princess’s anger. I might not be your ruler anymore, but my promises to this nation’s safety haven’t changed.”
“Then perhaps you would do well to avoid interfering with its affairs.” Full Steam shook his head, and to Dusk Ruby’s awe, the stallion turned from the Sun Princess herself and started back towards his machine.
The others behind him growled back to life, and the one before Princess Celestia began advancing towards the mare a few feet and stopping. She remained unflinching, but the other Tree Eaters around the other thestrals began crawling towards a rapid streak in the direction of the Hollow Shades.
The Sun Princess kicked off the ground again, swirling above the machines and motioning for the thestrals to follow.
Dusk Ruby felt adrenaline course into her veins as soon as she was airborne again.
Below them, the machines crossed over the threshold where the rain clouds had been. The effect was instantaneous, a tidal wave of wet mud shooting from the deadlands and into the air already rich with petroleum fumes. The treads of the Tree Eaters slowed in the mud, but not by a lot.
It was time for the next part of their plan. The Sun Princess touched down by the first anchor for the harpoonbows with her horn already lit. The Tree Eater thundered past the anchor stand, and the thestral that had been operating let a harpoon fly. She landed a shot directly into the treads of the Tree Eater as it rolled past, the harpoon letting out a dull ‘thunk!’ as it drove into the treads. Beside her, the Sun Princess’s horn lit instantly.
The twine glowed orange as it was held in the Sun Princess’s grasp, as the alicorn stood her ground with her horn lit. The ground she had been standing on, once muddy puddles, began to sizzle and crackle as her horn glowed. Steamy vapours rising all around her, turning the once unstable ground to clay. Her hooves dug into the newly found surface, and then there was an earshaking thud as the twine grew taught and the Tree Eater ground to a halt almost instantly, the arm on the top cracking from the pressure and thudding down onto the deadlands.
There was no time to stop and cheer, and it seemed the Sun Princess was well aware. She lifted off again, making her way towards the next harpoonbow some hundred meters closer to the Shades. This time, the thestral shot it before Celestia had arrived. The Sun Princess had grabbed the twine in her magic before she’d even set down. The harpoon had wedged itself into the plating between the spinning wheels of the tracks, and instead of stopping instantly, it lurched on for some dozen more meters ahead before coming to a stop with steady black smoke starting to lurch from the spent tracks.
Looking around, Ruby could see that a few of the thestrals had managed to slow the machines with their own harpoonbow stations that the Princess had helped rig. Still, at least half-a-dozen more Tree Eaters were bounding towards the Shades at their horrifying speed. The distance between them was closing every moment, and soon they’d crossed back onto the deadlands they hadn’t enough stormclouds to turn to mud. There was only one more harpoonbow station before the ones rigged to the Great Cypress, and Celestia made her way to it via a few heavy beats of her wings.
The harpoon went astray, whizzing through the air and sticking harmlessly into the deadlands ahead of the Tree Eater. It ground over the harpoon with ease, and then Dusk Ruby heard something she’d never thought she would have heard in her life.
The Sun Princess snarled. It was like a war cry, one cried out in tune with her glowing horn. The entire Tree Eater glowed in her orange magic, and Dusk Ruby felt her ears pop as the Sun Princess began to cast. It felt as though all the pressure in the field was slowly being sucked towards the slowing Tree Eater. She winced, and as she flew over the Tree Eater she glanced down at the Sun Princess’s expression--grim, and full of fiery determination. The regal, soft-spoken mare who had helped them strategize was gone. Somepony else was standing in her regalia now.
One of the treads of the Tree Eater crumbled, and snapped. The ground spat out heavy chunks of dirt and rocks and old deadwood, and the mighty machine lurched to a pathetic stop with one side leaning closer to the deadlands.
The Sun Princess exhaled. Dusk Ruby could see it as she lifted off and began to fly again--whatever she had just done, it had been tiring to her. She wasn’t slowing, but she wasn’t flying with the same exhilarating speed she’d been at the beginning of the battle.
Or perhaps, Ruby reasoned… she was simply saving her strength.
There were five more Tree Eaters, and less than a hundred meters between them and the Shades. Ruby knew there were only three or four harpoonbows there--they’d hauled nearly all of them out onto the deadlands already, and the Shades themselves were largely defenseless now that their front-line had been broken. The machines were filthy and the earsplitting wailing of their engines had turned her hearing to little else but a steady, static sine tone Dusk Ruby prayed to Luna was temporary.
Celestia landed once more in front of the approaching Tree Eaters. Her stance was the same it had been when she’d first confronted them. Her horn was lit, and then the entire deadlands once again felt as though they were collapsing towards the Sun Princess, like an asteroid caught in a mighty gravity well.
The Sun Princess closed her eyes as she focused. The machines… all five of them, at the same time, began to glow orange as the first had.
The feeling of unnatural gravity shifted. Now, it seemed as though it were not drawing towards the Princess, but away from her. Away from the Shades entirely, and back towards Hayseed.
Dusk Ruby, and most of the other thestrals, were forced to land, and dig their hooves into the dirt as the Sun Princess had done. Her magic was simply too much… it felt like Ruby was trying to fly through turbulence.
The machines continued to advance even when captured in Celestia’s glowing aura. She squeezed her eyes shut tight. She was panting, her eyes watering and her legs quivering. Slowly, a dawning feeling of horror crept over Dusk Ruby as she watched, helpless, as the Sun Princess struggled. Her mind was already projecting the scene for her--the proud alicorn crumbling. Luna’s gentle hoof hastily grasping her and pulling her into the dreaming world, so she might recover. The machines, continuing unimpeded now, and laying waste to the Shades ahead.
The grim vision didn’t come to pass, though. Celestia exhaled once, twice. Her eyes opened, and the machines slowed against the tidal wave of gravity the Princess seemed to be flinging at them.
They stopped, each in slightly different ways. Some closer to the Shades than others, but none made it past the Sun Princess. One of them caught fire, while another was content simply coming to rest in the same position it had been when it had started up again.
It wasn’t until after the machines had come to a halt that Princess Celestia crumbled, too. The magic she’d been casting vanished in an instant, and a dozen thestrals lifted off at the same time in her direction.
Dusk Ruby hadn’t made it on time, but she’d had a clear enough view to see that not a single one had let the Princess fall to the dirt on her own. Instead, they let her lay gently, her sides heaving as she breathed, but slowly working their way into a more gradual rhythm.
A resting goddess, Ruby thought. Not a defeated one. Even the Sun and Moon deserved to rest after their successes, after all. A few of the thestrals bowed to her even without her conscious mind present to appreciate the gesture, and Ruby was one of them.
She hadn’t been thinking at the time how far the reverberations from that day’s Tree Eater attack would echo through Equestria. It hadn’t been a priority in her mind too busy with elation at their success.
The unicorn that had accompanied Celestia would surely be back soon. With more of her questions, and more of the bright flares of light that she summoned with the devices she brought from the city. Dusk Ruby was content leaving those worries to the unicorn.
She wasn’t oblivious to the changes it seemed Equestria was being pushed through, of course. More, now, when the Equestrians learned of the Sun Princess’s physical stand in their favour. But Dusk Ruby had her own worries. The only thing she could do to help a goddess was pray that Luna gave her warm, comforting dreams, after all. And she whispered them softly to the slumbering princess, before spreading her wings and making her way back to her Cypress.