//------------------------------//
// Part 3: Here are your answers. 
// Story: True Harmony 
// by Saturni_Rose 
//------------------------------//

Luna swore she last felt this exact weight of burdening heat when traipsing the shifting dunes of Saddle Arabia. A distinct sense of deja vu even set in when she shielded her eyes from the brightness overhead. And anxiously, she fretted that any moment now, her pores would become as miniature waterfalls like they had so long ago on that sandy trek, soaking her borrowed robes with sweat. 
Covering her were not borrowed robes this time; instead, she wore a modern shirt and tie. And above was not sister’s ever-burning sun, but rows of artificial lights powered by a technology she still hadn’t quite wrapped her head around. She thought: What happened to light spells? Were those not good enough? Certainly they don’t give off as much heat as these contraptions. 
Before her, nearly drowned by the relative shadow, sat a sea of reporters, investigators, journalists; in a word, the press. Any moment now, the flood gates would be lifted, and the tide of curious questions would come rolling in like a foamy brine. Hardly could she blame these curious depths, even if they seemed to grow darker the deeper the rows stretched, further and further back into the conference hall. 
Certainly it was likewise not the first time pools of shadow had swallowed her up. Worse yet, she now had to worry about them coming for her all over again. One might hope that would not come up in the questioning. 
All the gobbledygook about welcoming them washed over Luna as Celestia spoke into the microphone as she had instructed her on doing. The dull muffle reminded her of nestling gently beneath the waves. She ought to visit the beach again, come summer. Those calming blue rhythms of salt, sand, and the occasional gull call were all preferable to this noise by many a league. 
“Before we open the floor to questions, I believe Luna has an official statement she’d like to make.” announced Celestia, just as they had rehearsed earlier this morn. 
It was just the two of them. A small desk, a stage, and more lights than she could count. Maybe things would have been better if it had been reduced just like this; the two of them, all alone. Without all the eyes upon them, without all the expectations, things could have been different. Things could have been so much better. 
Celestia made a welcoming gesture. “Luna, the floor is yours.” 
“Thank you, sister.” she said, rising before the rippling audience. “Good folk of Equestria… I, Luna of Canterlot, hereby renounce my crown. And with it, my claim to the throne and rights to rule in Celestia’s stead. Documents have been drawn up, and I have signed. By my own volition, I am a member of the Equestrian royalty no longer.” 
A murmur surged in the quiet crowd, but more noise than that erupted from pencils dictating this quote directly. Once the last of her words were scratched out, she sat back down, surrendering the floor to Celestia. The queen drooped to her microphone and tried to add a little levity. “This was a pretty big surprise to me as well, considering we originally fought because she wanted the exact opposite.” 
That got a few chuckles to pass over the crowd. Luna found it amusing too, but couldn’t shake the dour look she wore. Trying to remember to not press her lips directly against the microphone, she welcomed the part she had dreaded most. “Jokes aside, there must certainly be some curiosity as of yet unsated. So, let us move onto the question portion of the conference.” 
Celestia picked the first one, ripe as any fruit among the raised hooves pockmarked with the occasional claw or two. A winged stallion of a petite nature with pretty hair asked: “Lady Luna, how can we be sure that you have not been coerced by your sister into this decision?” 
Luna shared a trepidatious glance with Celestia. There wasn’t any chance this wouldn’t come up. Leaning back to the mic, she simply said: “I understand the apprehension. But trust me when I say I’ve had long enough to think on this. And I’ve decided a leadership position isn’t for me.” 
“But wasn’t your original usurpation on the grounds that you desired the love of your subjects, as you perceived Celestia as already receiving?”
Luna had to pause to ponder that. Not because she doubted herself, but to marvel at how thoroughly he’d phrased it. “When you spend an entire millennium in a dazed delirium of solitude, one’s desire for the love of all can… easily fade to settling for any interaction at all.” 
A disquieted murmur began, so Celestia moved things along. “Next question.” 
“Will the citizens’ taxes continue to fund your lifestyle, miss Luna?” asked a gangly unicorn filly. “Or have you become one of us, so to speak?” 
Smirking, Luna told her: “I am one of the common folk now, yes. But funnily enough, being my new town’s librarian, I’m still paid via taxes.” Celestia leaned over to whisper something, and Luna’s smirk faded. “I do apologize if my calling the populace ‘common folk’ was out of line. I’m still catching up with modern vernacular.” 
For the next question, Luna decided to call upon one of the few claws she could pick out. A delicate looking griffin with the head of a dove rose from her seat. “Why thank you, miss Luna. I was wondering if you or the queen had any comments on the mistake of your demise at the hooves of these new bearers of the Elements of Harmony?” 
“It was a heavy day when my star apprentice told me I had lost my sister a second time.” Celestia said, voice creaking with a morose wane. She kept her chin up though, when she felt her sister’s doting hoof run across her shoulder and back. 
Luna turned back to her mic. “Also I hope Twilight doesn’t bear the blame for that. In truth, the fault was mine.” Would she say it? Could she? She had to; it was the truth. “Ashamed as I am to admit, at the time I was wearing a disguise.” 
The dove hesitated with the pencil wrapped oh so delicately between her claws. She had to be careful. Too much pressure from her talons, and the tool would splinter. Flipping back a few pages in her notebook, she reluctantly pressed on. “I recall hearing about one Louise Moonshadow? Interesting name for a unicorn.” 
“I suppose.” scoffed Luna with a mild smirk. There was something about how his griffin said that, so dryly, that amused her. “I’ll agree, though, not my best work. But I was put rather on the spot.” 
“Right.” chuckled the dove. It settled easily enough as she clutched the pencil the tiniest bit tighter, ready for an answer to this one. “And why did you feel the need to create this new persona, if you don’t mind me asking?” 
Celestia leaned forth with a thud as she propped her elbows upon the table. With the largest and fakest smile she could muster, she said through gritted teeth: “Well now, that’s been several questions for one reporter. I think we ought to be fair here, and call on someone else, hmm?” 
“Sister.” Gently, Luna pushed Celestia’s hoof down as her sister tried to point to the opposite end of the room. She shook her head, uttering not a word as she watched that frown grow. 
“But--”
“I know.” Luna faced this dove again. “I was scared.” she told her plainly. “I hid who I was at first because I was scared Equestrians would look upon me and recall the monster I became. So I ran away from that pony.” 
“And you’re confident that isn’t who you are anymore?” The words just tumbled out of her. This dove thanked her lucky stars the lights were lower above the reporters, because her heart was catching in her throat. 
“Yes.” said Luna without hesitation. “Because my friends stabbed her with a magic sword, and then we all blasted her the Elements of Harmony.” 
The dove gulped her heart back down. Maybe it was a trick of the light, but she could swear there was glint in Luna’s eye just then, like she enjoyed describing that part in particular. Murmurs surged around her, so she cupped one claw to her beak and said: “Thank you so much for your time, miss Luna. I’ll yield the floor now.” 
“Whew.” said Celestia, wrenching her mic closer in. “Um, how about you over there?” 
Up stood a pegasus who looked an absolute rapscallion. He could hardly calm his rakish brow as he said: “Yeah, I’d like to go back where Luna mentioned princess Twilight? I couldn’t help but notice she didn’t address her as ‘her majesty,’ or ‘princess Twilight.’ Care to comment on your first name basis with her, miss Luna?” 
Luna gawked at the colt a moment. She nodded to Celestia, and answered: “I’m on first name, no title standing with her as well, and she’s the queen.” 
“Right,” he admitted, trying to maintain the thread, “but she’s your sister.” 
“What’s your point?” asked Luna, who became all the more confused when she saw her sister, mortified, bury her face into her hooves. 
“There’s already a familial familiarity, you know?” When she still didn’t seem to get it, he came right out and asked: “How familiar are you with princess Twilight?”
“We’re decent enough friends, I’d say.” Luna’s face began to warm up. She had no idea what this newfound snickering was about. “She’s introduced me to some more modern literature, to help reacclimate me to Equestrian culture.” 
“Right, well…” he trailed, flipping through some notes of his own. “There are also those who say they saw you two share a slow dance at the gala.” 
Luna’s eyes shot wide open. The realization of what he was getting at hit her like a decrepit castle rampart tumbling over. Only this time, she didn’t get a shield spell up. Leaning back in, she said: “Ahem. Princess Twilight and I are good friends. That is all. Also, going further, I think I’d like to keep my private life… private, if that’s alright.” 
“Alright,” chuckled Celestia, pointing somewhere else, “let’s move on then. You there.” 
“What about you, your grace?” asked a lanky earth mare. “Anypony you’ve had your eye on?” 
Joyless, Celestia searched the far wall for a clock she could read. The amount of minutes left were unsatisfying. Returning to the question with a grimace, she tried to remain as polite as she could, saying: “I’m afraid I’ll have to echo my sister’s sentiment toward that line of questioning. But suffice it to say, the general public needn’t worry about me spending their taxes on extravagant dates.” 
Another murmur lightly swept over the small crowd. Luna could tell they were commenting on her and her sister dodging the question. Even back in her day, though, she could recall a similar desire for the gossip surrounding well known figures. But these days, it seemed no longer uncouth to ask them for it directly. How curious. 
Questions not unlike those last few in nature bogged the entire experience in a mire. Marching through them was the exact sort of trudge Luna had fretted. Repeating some variation of “That’s a touch personal.” grew more exhausting by the minute--minutes which seemed to stretch on into the void of time--time that could be better spent searching and researching for her current, far more pressing predicament. 
Surprise struck with the hands of the clock; noon had arrived. The press conference was finally shy of its allotted time. So her grace, queen Celestia, stood up to announce as much. “Good folk of the press, it appears we are out of time. I would like to thank you again for your time, and hope we have been able to sate the concerns of Equestrians together.” 
Luna followed her sister’s gesture and stood with her. “I suppose for closing statements, I would say I actually rather look forward to a quiet, calmer life as a fellow citizen, rather than your ruler. I only hope my fellow Equestrians will accept me.” 
The two of them bowed and the conference was adjourned. Press began to funnel out of the hall, and the queen brought her sister with her to exit stage left. A small gaggle of guards ascended the stage to follow after them. 
It was so much nicer and cooler beyond the precipice of the bright red curtain. No electric lights made a desert of this space back here. So Luna was already loosening her borrowed tie. “How do you think that went?” 
“You did so good!” practically shouted Nimbus, rushing past her queen alongside Petra. 
“Did so well.” corrected Petra. Together they wrapped Luna up in a hug, much to her chagrin as she tried to cool down. 
“Okay, whatever.” said Nimbus, clearing a space for Ruby to gather around Luna with them. 
Behind them came a stamp of one rather impatient hoof. As the four of them peered back, they saw knight captain Marble sneering at them from over her snout. With her head tilted back to do so, she nearly came to merely half a head shorter than her queen. “Soldiers, this display is disgraceful for fledgling pegasus knights such as yourselves. That mare is your charge to guard, not your buddy to throw yourselves onto like a bunch of lovesick puppy dogs.” 
She barked something barely intelligible, but they leapt into a line all the same, rising to postures straight and stiff as boards. With half-hearted salutes, they shouted back: “Yes ma’am.”
“I’m especially disappointed in you, Ruby.” lamented Marble as she walked on by. “I really thought I had taught you better than this.” 
Idle as captain Marble marched by, gesturing for them all to follow, Luna couldn’t help but notice Ruby’s eyes. They were usually bright as tangerines, but now they clouded over as she blinked away a light shower. Luna thought to say something. 
“If you don’t mind my asking, sister, have you eaten?” bade Celestia, sashaying along toward the exit. 
Just when Luna thought the questioning was over. “Well, no, I haven’t.”
“It’s true,” confirmed Marble, “she said she felt too nervous earlier.” 
Celestia’s gaze beamed, and before her sister could grumble about having that bit of information revealed, she said: “Mayhaps you’ll let me treat you and we can catch up?” 
“I’m not so sure--” began Luna. But she noticed a surprised look from her sister. For half a second, she feared her worst expectations had come true, and her shadow had caught up to her at last. But instead of a dark abyss, waiting for her was something much brighter. 
Knight captain Marble stomped, her horn flaring, and bolted across the backstage area in a literal flash. It seemed to be a striker’s variant of a teleport spell, shifting some of its mobility into a more tangible momentum. Not that her brief light dash was going to actually bowl the stranger over, she nevertheless fell back, tail between her legs. Marble demanded: “Just what do you think you’re doing skulking back here, griffin?” 
“Whoa!” shouted Luna, dashing through her fan club. “Moon and stars above, Marble, you can’t just attack someone like that!”
Marble Glade saw her lady’s approach and widened her stance, pitting herself between charge and stranger alike. “Hold, my lady. We don’t know what she’s capable of.” 
When Luna tried to shoulder by, Marble bumped her back a step, and with ease. Luna had been right in assessing their gap in physical strength. But she was not deterred. “Knight captain Marble, I will not tell you a second time to stand down.”
“I… this could be a part of its plan.” She truly did not wish to upset Luna. But every precaution felt necessary--justified even. 
“It?” asked the griffin as she picked herself up, while also sliding out of Marble’s reach. 
A cold chill spread across them as they realized what Marble had just inferred. Luna took the opportunity to help her stand up. “I cannot begin to tell you how sorry I am. Are you hurt at all?” 
“I was mainly startled.” It was the griffin from before, who Luna had called upon. Her dove-like head gave way to a snow leopard’s body and black talons that gripped Luna’s bracing leg gingerly, so as not to scratch. “Hi, I’m Lyone, by the way.” 
“Oh, hello.” fumbled Luna, uncertain how  to recover this into a less awkward exchange. “I’m Luna. Though, erm, I suppose you already know that.” That was not how to do that in the slightest. The gut-clenching pain of it might well have shown on her face. An attempt was made to power through with: “You’re certain you’re alright?” 
Lyone brushed some imaginary dust off her shoulder with the back of her claw. Nearly scoffing, she said: “I’m not as fragile as I look, you know.” 
Mildly taken aback, a bewildered Luna said: “Ah. I see.” 
“Whoa, hey, what’s goin’ on back here?” sounded off from a confused, but moreso irritated earthen colt. He clambered up and briskly moved to the edge of the curtain, beyond which he had spied the griffin sneak. “What’s the big idea, tryin’ to sneak off for a private interview the rest of us ain’t gonna get?” 
“Actually,” interposed Luna, sizing him up with a smile, “Lyone here happens to be a friend of mine.” She completed the illusion with a gesture, unfurling her wing to rest it over Lyone’s shoulder. 
“Yeah,” chuckled Lyone, already getting in line with the lie, “so back off, bud.” 
His initial offense was shortly replaced with a new one. “That’s a bit of a conflict of interest, don’t ya think?” 
Once the offender, now the offended, Lyone pressed her claw against her ruffled up chest feathers. “Me? Breaking my journalistic integrity? I happen to be quite good at keeping my professional and personal lives entirely separate, thank you.” 
“Certainly.” chirped Luna right alongside her, adopting her indignation as a facade. “Didn’t you see when I called on her? She asked the hardest questions of me, while most of you were more concerned with who I might be kissing.” 
He started to say something else, still unsatisfied. But Marble was still on deck. Moving in to loom over him, she said: “You’re acting rather aggressive in the company of royalty there, friend. I’d advise you to calm down.” 
“You’re one to talk.” muttered Luna under her breath. And if Marble hadn’t heard that, she definitely heard when Lyone giggled. Luna’s ears folded back when she received a rather pointed glare, from eyes like daggers of flint.
The colt decided he didn’t want to push his luck. He seemed a little red in the face, maybe, but that might just have been because of his red coat. The lot of them scurried through the backstage door before anymore excitement could come along. And in tow they took one snow-white griffin, reluctantly or otherwise. 
“Sorry for all the trouble I caused.” announced Lyone as they led her down the hall. 
“As you should be.” scoffed Marble. “Approaching the queen unannounced like that could have been a far worse mistake.” 
“It is you who owes her an apology.” insisted Luna, not even realizing she still had Lyone under her wing. Their eyes met, like an onyx hammer striking a sapphire anvil. 
“I am merely performing my duty, in protecting my lady.” Marble bristled up. She was nowhere used to this much push back. Normally, ponies did as she bade, being a mare of her station and all.
To Marble’s surprise, Luna’s ire split from her, and took to a new path. Luna’s gaze pierced forward, and aloud, she complained: “Protection I didn’t ask for.” 
Celestia halted the procession which she had been leading. Just before her awaited the double doors at the end of a corridor which led to an open yard of cobble walkways around the castle grounds. If ever there were a moment to have this conversation in private, this was it. But it wasn’t private. Luna had brought some interloper. So Celestia hesitated. “Lyone, was it?” 
“Y-yes, your grace.” she squeaked out. As she saw the queen peering over her shoulder back at her, she felt not like some bird of prey (or so she was told as a child) she’d unknowingly stolen her visage from, but soft and frail little snow bunny, waiting to be plucked up by the indifferent falcon rising above her. 
“Purely for my own curiosity, mind you,” Celestia droned, politely yet dryly, “why did you follow after us?” 
“If I’m being perfectly honest,” said Lyone, claws twiddling idly as she ran the words through her head to awkwardly tumble from her beak, “and I certainly should be, honest that is, I mean… it’s because I wanted a chance to speak with Luna more personally.” 
Luna blushed, suddenly acutely aware she was still holding onto Lyone with her wing to escort her. “Ah. I see.” She let go and added: “Why?” 
Twiddling her claws, Lyone explained that: “I wanted to make sure you were alright; that I didn’t go too far. Some of my questions couldn’t have been easy to answer.” 
“Well, that’s… certainly kind of you.” Luna leveled her gaze and placed a hoof on her shoulder. “But you can believe me when I say my life has been wrought with plenty of difficult questions. Questions that need answering, and sometimes even answering for.” 
“As long as you’re alright. Then I’ll run this story.” Lyone placed her claw ever so lightly upon Luna’s hoof. 
“Everyone else in that auditorium heard your questions and my answers to them. They’re going to appear in other papers, so they might as well show up in yours.” Luna nodded toward the end of the corridor. “Come now, why don’t I escort you out, lest you frighten the tall unicorn over here once more.” 
Together they made their way past the armored entourage, head held high as Marble scoffed. Happy to see the end of this exchange, Celestia put on her warmest, and fakest smile. She gave Lyone a nod, opening the double doors for the lot of them. Light poured in. It was her light, of course, for the sun was hers and hers alone. She basked in it. “So, Luna, about lunch?” 
“As I had started saying earlier, I really haven’t the time.” 
Celestia tried to hide the sad puppy eyes, since the interloper was still present. But she got the feeling Luna spotted them. “Must you go so soon? Can’t we chat a while?” She nodded very subtly at Lyone as they loped along. “As sisters?” 
“I need to get back to Ponyville to relieve my assistant from having to run the library all by herself.” said Luna dourly. “Hope-Heart has really come through for me lately, so I need to come through for her.” 
“Ponyville?” chirped Lyone. “Small world. I live not too far from there.” 
“You don’t say.” Luna smirked. “What a funny coincidence. You ought to stop by for a visit if you’re ever passing through.” 
Marble snorted at the notion. She picked up the pace, sidling up alongside Luna, leaning in. “Now is not the time, my lady. You’re far too trusting.” 
“And you, far too paranoid.” spat back Luna. Taking her new friend along, she made for the castle gates. “Lest you forget, I was besting beasts and foes in bloody combat long before even your great grandmother was born, you understand? I didn’t need my sister to assign you and Ruby to my protection.” 
“Oh ho,” said Marble with an almost sinister joy, “is that why a colt near half my age was able to best you one on one?” 
Bristling as she moved beyond the threshold of the gate, Luna paid no mind to the guards on watch staring on in confusion. “Queensguard Shining Armor would readily have fallen at my behest,” she growled, growing in intensity with each word of assured violent dominance, “had I not held back!” 
The bickering went on, and on they went. The queen and her two guards stood at the exit of the castle’s wall, gawking. Ruby offered them a shrug that said she was just as perplexed as they were, then bowed to her queen and ran off to catch up. 
Lyone, meanwhile, did nothing to interrupt, and allowed Luna’s comforting wing to guide her along, listening with glee as the two recounted the less comforting battles and brawls of their respective careers, contesting one another on which had earned more glory. The petite and pale griffin thought to herself: This is the single coolest day of my life. 



“I hope you two have made some progress. Luna’s already had enough of the guards I placed to look after her.” 
Sunset peered up from a book on occult rituals for contacting the supernatural. She was glad for the interruption, promptly hiding the horrors away with a resounding thud as the cover did its job. “Pardon me, your grace, I hadn’t noticed you come in.” 
The tucked away section of the Canterlot archive was a dark place, in more ways than one. Placed upon the shelves and within the alcoves here lied knowledge and artifacts alike, of a mysterious and dangerous sort and origin both. Hence the singular way in, and the locks of hard iron and harder arcane sigils. 
“Please, Sunset.” bade Celestia. “There’s no need for such formalities between us.” She stepped further in, nodding to Twilight who was still trying to learn how to draw certain sigils, moving the chalk across the board with care with her face buried in a dingy scroll. “Twilight?” 
Twilight had been a tizzy since she got here, and looked up with a great excitement. “Thank you so much for finally letting me back here, Celestia. I’m learning so much! I even have a theory, based on what we’ve learned about stellar nightmare entities.” 
It was a topic Celestia knew all too well. Shortly after Starswirl had talked her out of breaking the moon to pull her sister back by force, she began a ceaseless hunt for any information on the shadow she’d sunk herself into to become Nightmare Moon. The most common theory had been they lived on the dark side of the moon, coming to life by the will of ponies’ nightmares, lending a writhing form to their most negative emotions. Contacting one, however, that was always the hard part. Not that Celestia didn’t try… 
“Don’t bother her with this, Twilight.” requested Sunset, pushing away from her little desk to stretch. She sidled up beside her queen. “I’m sorry, but we have more pressing matters.” 
“Well, hold on, now I’m curious.” Celestia gestured to open the floor to Twilight. “What’s this theory of yours?” 
“I’ll admit, it’s a stretch.” said Twilight rather sheepishly as she rolled up the scroll as carefully as possible. “If the theory about how these nightmare entities come to be holds water, that they’re born from residual pony magic over time, and taking to consideration how often forces in the universe come with an opposite, such as chaos and order, and that ponies don’t just have bad dreams but good dreams to—”
“Twilight, could you please get to the theory part of your theory?” Hardly did Sunset really wish to flick through that book any further. But it was a part of helping Luna like she promised. 
“I believe it might be possible that similar forces and good dreams containing positive emotions could have also created a theoretical good dream type entity that might reside upon the far side of the sun.” rambled Twilight, breathless from her rapid recitation of information and hypotheticals. 
“Huh.” said Celestia very  unprofoundly. “I never considered that.” 
“It’s purely speculative, mind you.” Twilight reflexively pushed a few stray locks of purple hair back behind one ear. Her bangs were a little frayed from where she hadn’t bothered brushing them in favor of hurrying to the books. Perhaps this was a touch unbecoming of a princess—something she almost forgot she was now and again. “The existence of one force or element does not inherently imply its thematic opposite. And this is to say nothing of mundane and boring dreams where things might still be strange, but the subconscious doesn’t explore any extreme emotions.” 
“No, it’s an interesting avenue. I’d love to explore it sometime. Why, if I had thought of it sooner…” Celestia trailed off, her brows folding in, creasing the space between her eyes in a way that betrayed disappointment of a kind. The grimacing curl of her lip extended the visage as her mind ran away with the far-flung possibilities of what could have been. 
“Not that we could go and find them if they did exist.” bemoaned Sunset, breaking the fade of silence. “Nightmare entities are spirits of a sort, but they don’t fit the usual categories we could more easily pin down.” 
“This much is true.” agreed Twilight with an air of defeat. “Had it been a wraith or banshee, or even fiendish in nature, I could’ve refitted tracking and detection spells half a dozen times over.” She sighed. “Nightmares are simply too underexplored, even here.” 
“Dream walking.” said Celestia rather suddenly. Her eyes lit up. 
Sunset looked up to her with an utter lack of understanding. “Come again?” 
Celestia held up her hoof. Reinvigorated, she told them: “Magic exists that allows you to walk among dreams as though they were but another tangible region of the world. Dream walking.” 
“Old world magic…” whispered Twilight with bated breath. It all made sense now. “Of course. That must be how Luna made contact with these entities in the first place.” 
“Do you think we could use it to seek this one? How would that even work?” Hopeful as she was to have a solution, Sunset still held doubts. 
“They’re born of dreams, right?” gesticulated Twilight. She quickly brushed away the half-baked runes she had been working on and drew a crude cloud and pony upon it. Pointing the chalk piece, she posited: “It stands to reason that if one could somehow manage to maintain their dream walk after ponies started waking up, and the dreams that shaped the landscape you were walking faded, all that would remain visible to you after that would be the subconscious background noise of the id, and maybe even the monsters thereof.” 
Sunset watched on as Twilight tried to demonstrate this by getting rid of the cloud, replacing it with wavy lines going outward as though the cloud had dispersed. Somewhere in the dissipation, she added a simplistic ghost figure for emphasis. But unconvinced, Sunset said: “That’s a lot of ifs and maybes though, Twilight.” 
Celestia sighed. Whatever hope she’d found in her little revelation had begun to fade. “Luna was the best dream walker there ever was, too. I was never able to do it half as well as her.” 
“Then maybe we could ask her to lend a hoof?” suggested Sunset, though she didn’t get quite the reaction she had hoped for. 
“That may not be the best course of action.” said Celestia, ponderous and heavy with her words. “The nightmare wants her, after all. We’d be leading her straight to it.” 
Then Twilight got an idea. “What if I asked her to teach me to dream walk?” 
“Perhaps.” said Celestia. There came a pause, wide as a chasm, separating her from them in that moment of silent contemplation. And in that isolation, she was left to ponder. 
“But?” The anticipation grew too much for the youngest royal in the room. 
“The realm of dreams can be rather… intense.” Heavy is the brow that bears the crown, and Celestia certainly felt its weight. “The rampant, unfiltered desires of a sentient beings’ subconscious minds plague every field and meadow. I sometimes wondered to myself if it was these very treks among them that broke Luna’s morale…”
The air grew still, even if the flitting dust particles suggested otherwise. Royal and regal these three are and shall be, but all are brought low by despair so utter. They all shuffled a bit where they stood, left with little else but to consider. Eventually, Twilight capped the pause by clearing her throat. “Eh-hem. I’ll, uh, see what I can learn of this magic from the archives. We can reconvene later to discuss our next step.” 



Meanwhile, a train trundled along for a town some days’ hike northward of Ponyville. The wind whipped through the dining car as a few patrons took their leave of it. As the doors closed behind them, a set of white feathers shook in an attempt to unruffle. Resettled, Lyone took another bite of her sandwich before looking back at her notepad. 
She flipped back the cover with her pointer talon, flipping through the pages that had been tossed back. A new scrawl upon the papers still perplexed her, despite herself. The taunting graphite read: “It? Why Luna have guards? Guards protect Luna from ‘it?’ Why the secrecy?”
Lyone gulped. A first-claw speculation piece from someone who’d gotten so close to the mare of the hour was a big, big opportunity. There was no doubt in her mind this could nab her a much higher place at work, maybe even her own corner office, and free range to go out to see about more stories just like this one. It was a huge chance, and all she had to do was reach out and grab--really sink those talons in. 
And yet… was that the career she really wanted? Would her boss even run a speculation piece to begin with? Would he run it under her name? She took another bite. The toasted bread crackled like the fire that burned in her gut. The thought that rang out above all others, though, was of Luna herself. 
The way she had been so direct and sincere, during the conference and behind the curtains, Lyone felt it in her heart. To an extent, it made her hate having to ask juicy, loaded questions like that. The thought of doing worse to her, of betraying her trust like this, ate away at her, more voraciously than she could enjoy her lunch. 
That notepad sat open until she’d reduced the bread to crumbs. And in the end, she tore the latest page off the spiral ring, crumpling it to toss into the wastebasket nearby before placing her bits on the counter and leaving.