Drunken philosophical ramblings had nothing on dreamy, stream-of-consciousness philosophical ramblings.
“…and you know who else organizes like the best of ’em?” said Golden Gleam, gesturing with his soda-filled wine glass. “Ants! You know who else is everywhere in spite of attempts by supposedly more powerful species to stomp them out? Ants! You know who else has a social, caste-based civilization that keeps marching on without a care for disasters and is centered around powerful females for the group?”
“Aunts?” suggested Moondog.
“No, ants,” enunciated Gleam. “The one with no silent letters.” He took a long drink of cola.
Gleam was a night watchstallion, spending his afternoon sleeping off a shift. Moondog liked managing daytime dreams more than she liked to admit, mostly because the lighter workload gave her time to relax a bit and, say, listen to a nonlucid pony’s ramblings on why ponies and ants were a lot alike.
“We’re all ants, mare!” said Gleam. “Evolved ants!” He wiped his mouth down. “I mean, how many other chordates have six limbs?”
“Griffons, hippogriffs, dragons, manticores, changelings-”
“Changelings aren’t chordates,” interrupted Gleam. “So you see? None!”
Moondog didn’t bother hiding her grin. Gleam wouldn’t notice it. “So ponies are ants. Are you saying we need to treat ants with respect, now?”
“No, I’m saying that all stallions in Equestria should be part of the princesses’ reverse harems.”
“Including you?”
“What part of ‘all’ don’tcha get?” Gleam pursed his lips and tilted his head. “I think Luna would disappreciate me the least. She’s the most punchy.”
Moondog wasn’t sure about how Mom would feel about this, but hey; what she didn’t know wouldn’t hurt her, right? “If you insist,” Moondog said, shrugging. She downed champoney from a beer stein.
create(momCopy);
--Error; UnknownException eIf she’d been solid, Moondog might’ve choked from the shock. She’d sent out the usual wispy tendrils of magic, but something — something she’d never felt before — had yanked them away almost as soon as they’d left her, yanked them violently and painfully, taking far more than she’d meant to use. It was like she’d cleaned out her pores with a pressure washer. She was left shivering, gasping for breath that she didn’t need.
Yet right next to them, a copy of Mom appeared out of the air, just like she’d wanted. Although the moon on her peytral was facing the wrong direction and her mane wasn’t as sparkly as it should’ve been. “Mom” sidled up to Gleam and put a hoof on his shoulders. “You. You are mine. Tia isn’t getting you. She has thousands already!”
Gleam didn’t even glance at her. “All right.” Sip.
Moondog wasn’t watching. What was that? What had dispersed her magic like that? Nothing Mom had mentioned. Nothing Moondog had ever encountered in other ponies’ memories. And was it all spells?
momCopy.feedLines(testing);
--Error; UnknownException e“Testing, testing, 1, 2, 3,” said “Mom”. “How much wood would a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood? A woodchuck would chuck as mach wold as blah bleh wleh.” “Mom” made a face, shook her head, and started over. “A woodchuck would chuck as much wood as a woodchuck could chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood.”
“Which is about seven hundred pounds on a good day with the wind at his back,” added Gleam.
Moondog paid them little attention; she just grit her teeth as her magic was torn away from her. That wasn’t right. Dream projections should’ve been able to say that line flawlessly. Had the spell gotten corrupted somewhere along the line? She eyed Gleam and “Mom”, deep in conversation about redecorating Canterlot Castle. Could she personalize the dream at all? Set the color of his glass to his favorite?
dreamer.getFavoriteColor();
--Error; UnknownException eMoondog rubbed her head, already loathing the wonderful new experience of migraines. No color and no dice. Seriously, that was one of the most trivial spells she knew. Why couldn’t she do that?
After giving Gleam one last look, Moondog quietly slipped out. She didn’t need to do anything more here and she needed to learn more about what was going wrong. She didn’t think it was her spells; they’d been working perfectly fine beforehoof. Maybe it was just something to do with Gleam? Maybe it wasn’t every pony?
It was every pony.
No matter which dream Moondog went into, any effort at tweaking it meant her magic was pulled away, like she was being skinned alive. Not only that, nightmares about a lack of control were popping up with alarming frequency. Pegasus wings disappearing mid-flight, unicorn magic turning on the caster, earth ponies starving to death when their crops inexplicably withered. Moondog did her best, but each tweak drove another nail into her and was quietly off in some way. The colors weren’t right, or the air was too cold, or the time dilation was too dilated, or the bricks were out of alignment. Moondog wasn’t remotely worried about ponies noticing, but those could be small symptoms of a big problem.
What was going on?
Moondog had tried to reach Mom, but she wasn’t in the dream realm. She’d probably been awoken to help deal with… whatever. Mom could do it. Of course she could. But Moondog kept trying to ping her with tracking spells, ready to go to her the moment she returned.
When the moment came, Moondog, grateful to get out of the acid bath that was other ponies’ dream, plunged into her dream and came to a stop in a Canterlot Castle infested with vines. Nopony seemed to mind, least of all Mom. “Be a dear and fetch the fertilizer, will you, Raven?” she asked an aide. “The throne vineyard is looking a little pale.”
Moondog glanced at one of the vines. Green, like most plants. She poked nervously at it.
vine.setColor(COLOR.Red);
--Error; UnknownException eA sort of splotchy red that should’ve been uniform rippled down the vine. Most of the time it was crimson, sometimes it was orange-y, a select few times it was looking dangerously close to yellow. Moondog swallowed and ran up to Mom. “Uh, hey, Mom?” she asked. “What’s going on?”
When Mom looked at Moondog, there was something flat in her gaze, like she didn’t really know what was happening. “We’re tending the vines, letting the earth ponies do their part,” she said in a water-is-wet sort of voice. “What does it look like?”
“No, I mean outside.”
Mom tilted her head. “More vine-tending in the garden, although those are more colorful. What else? And what are you doing in the real world?”
Moondog blinked. “Mom, I- I’m not. You’re dreaming.” But she began to feel very cold.
“Pfft. I am most certainly not dreaming,” snorted Mom. “I would know.”
“What? You’re-” Moondog facehooved. “…not lucid. Figures.”
dreamer.allowLucidity(TRUE);
--Error; ObjectOutOfBoundsException eMoondog gagged as the worst pain yet swept over her, needles driving into her wings. She hadn’t even managed to touch Mom’s mind before her magic splintered and vanished. Mom stared at her, increasingly concerned, yet not in the way she should’ve been. “Are you hurt? Perhaps you should re-enter the dream realm.”
“No, it’s- I am in dreams! Yours! Look-”
dreamer.allowLucidity(TRUE);
--Error; ObjectOutOfBoundsException eAnother failed spell, another bout of pain. Why couldn’t she make Mom lucid?
“Your Highness? I’ve got the fertilizer right here.”
“I’ll be with you shortly,” called Mom. “Moondog, can you walk and talk? I have urgent matters that need to be attended to.” She set off towards the far end of the throne room.
Moondog ran in front of her and put a hoof on her chest to stop her. One last chance. “Mom, listen,” she said, her voice strained. “There’s something going on with the dream realm and I don’t know what.” Sometimes, talking with ponies could jar them into lucidity without any magic on her part. Hopefully… “Working with dreams is painful and my magic’s getting pulled away by something and my spells aren’t working quite right when they land and I don’t know if I can keep working with dreams if this keeps up, so if you-”
But Mom slapped her away. “Moondog, I am busy,” she said in a voice of iron. “I can get to you in time. Until then, there is nothing so important that it cannot wait.” She stalked away, her head held high.
Moondog didn’t move. She was rooted to the spot, staring after the pony that was and wasn’t her creator. “Mom,” she whispered. “Mom, please…”
dreamer.allowLucidity(TRUE);
--Error; ObjectOutOfBoundsException e“I… I don’t know what to do…”
dreamer.allowLucidity(TRUE); --Error; ObjectOutOfBoundsException e dreamer.allowLucidity(TRUE); --Error; ObjectOutOfBoundsException e dreamer.allowLucidity(TRUE); --Error; ObjectOutOfBoundsException e
Mom was a constant. It wasn’t fair. Mom was a constant.
dreamer.allowLucidity(TRUE);
--Error; ObjectOutOfBoundsException eBut she wasn’t.
dreamer.allowLucidity(TRUE);
--Error; ObjectOutOfBoundsException eCurled up in a barely-coherent corner of nonimportance, Moondog watched the dream play out without her input and Mom performed whatever role her brain was conjuring. Nothing Moondog did affected her lucidity. She stayed locked up in her little bubble of self-unaware consciousness. What was wrong with her? Why wasn’t she helping with dreams? Why was she sleeping normally? Why hadn’t she even sent a message?
dreamer.allowLucidity(TRUE);
--Error; ObjectOutOfBoundsException eIt was something outside. It had to be. Something was affecting ponies’ links with the dream realm, at the bare minimum. Probably more. It’d be the source of all the other current nightmares. Mom hadn’t sent a message before because she hadn’t known, and she didn’t send a message now because she couldn’t. She probably couldn’t enter the dream realm through her usual magic. And even if she could, she probably couldn’t dreamhop.
Then Moondog realized: she was alone.
If she couldn’t make Mom, of all ponies, lucid, she couldn’t make anypony lucid. Moondog wasn’t a chatty sort of automaton, but she needed lucidity for a conversation about what in Tartarus was going on. Or any conversation at all. But all across the dreamscape, that was impossible. Ponies would only see her as a flight of fancy and she couldn’t convince them otherwise. Such was the nature of dreams. She had absolutely no one. Unless the million-to-one odds fell in her favor and she just so happened to stumble on a lucid-
Meadow.
She’d learned dream magic. She knew lucidity. If anypony could tell Moondog about what was going on, it’d be her. Which wasn’t very reassuring.
Moondog stood up, flexed her wings, and looked at Mom. Physically, Mom was almost certainly okay. That wasn’t much of a comfort when Moondog couldn’t even talk to her. “Stay safe, Mom,” she whispered.
self.setLocation("adwl://dreamer.uncn/surface?hexID=4d6f6f6e6c6974204d6561646f77&lucid=y");
--Error; UnknownException eMoondog gasped and flexed her wings. She was in Meadow’s dream — some sort of crowded marketplace — but something had gone wrong. With the way things were going lately, she’d failed to make Meadow lucid. A bit of poking and she found Meadow, walking straight through the crowd with her nose in a book. Moondog ran up to her and tapped her on the shoulder. “Hey. Hey, Meadow.”
“Not now,” said Meadow. “I’m busy.” She batted Moondog’s hoof away and didn’t look away from her book.
Not lucid. Maybe Moondog could change that. Maybe. First, she needed Meadow’s attention on her.
crowd = NULL;
--Error; UnknownException eThe pain nearly knocked Moondog flat, but most of the crowd still vanished. A few more pushes, and they were all gone. All except for Meadow. She looked up and twitched. “Hello?” she called out. “Where’d everypony go?”
Moondog swallowed. “Meadow? You’re dreaming. I need to talk to you so you need to be lucid. You’re dreaming.”
Meadow whirled around, but it was easy to tell that she was still caught up in the dream. “Who’re you?” she asked, her voice bold. “Where did you take everyone?”
Deep breath. “Meadow, it’s me, it’s Moondog. You’re dreaming. C’mon, get lucid!”
“Well, of course I’m dreaming,” said Meadow, “I don’t know… why…” She blinked, a spark of recognition flaring in her eyes. “Wait… I am dreaming, aren’t I? So-”
self.setRelief(100.0);
“Yeah,” said Moondog. “Listen, Meadow, is something going on in the real world? Dreams are acting up, like my spells aren’t working right.”
“Um…” Meadow folded her ears back. “I don’t know. I heard something about magic being drained or something. Dad’s spells and other unicorn magic keep failing, so I guess that might be what’s up? Mom and Dad don’t know, either. It’s- Everypony’s scared and I don’t think anypony really knows what’s going on.”
“Oh,” said Moondog dully. “Super.”
“But why are you asking me? Can’t you ask, like, literally anypony else?”
“I wish. The parts of my magic that are going wrong include making ponies lucid. Since you can lucid dream without my help, you’re practically the only person in the world I can talk to. Everyone else, they’re…” Moondog made some vague gesture off into the distance. “I’m just a part of their dream. They can’t recognize me. Not- Not even Mom. Any time I try to reach into Equestria to pull their mind here, my magic gets destroyed.”
She flexed her wings and kept babbling. “And that’s not all. Dreams are- It’s like something about them just poof, changed. They’re resisting me changing them, and it hurts when I do change them, and I’m having trouble with personalization, and-” She hung her head in her hooves and mumbled, “I’m having trouble doing the thing I was made for. I have one job and- I was good at making dreams, you know. I could just waltz in, do what needed to be done, and tango out in seconds. Now I- If I can’t handle this, what good am I?” She kicked at nothing in particular.
Meadow put a hoof to her mouth in horror. “Oh, Celestia, that’s terrible.”
“I- I’m really sorry to drop this on you, but I don’t know what to do. Dreams are all weird, I can’t talk to Mom about it, I barely even know what’s going on, and nopony else in the world would recognize me. I just-” Moondog curled up on the ground. “I think I just need a shoulder to cry on.”
“Oh. Um.” Meadow curled up next to Moondog and leaned against her. “I’m. I can do that, I guess. …Am I doing this right?”
“Good enough.” Moondog draped a wing over Meadow’s withers. “Thanks.”
Now that she finally had some idea of what was going on, Moondog could force herself to stop and think. Getting to Mom or anyone else who didn’t know lucid dreaming was impossible. And magic getting drained explained the pain; whenever she reached into somepony’s dreams to actively change it, as opposed to just existing passively inside it, her magic briefly connected with the real world’s and started getting pulled away. Not at any great rate, thank goodness — even keeping up her normal activities, she’d probably still be hale and hearty for at least a decade — but still.
So could she do it? Keep working with dreams even though she couldn’t do it right and they were slowly and painfully killing her? Even Mom couldn’t do it anymore. Moondog suspected she’d have to learn all sorts of new techniques to get dreams to work right, without any help from anypony. It wasn’t like-
“What did you do when Tirek was around?” Meadow asked suddenly. “He’s, I know it’s not the same, but-”
“I wasn’t around when Tirek was here.” And Tirek only drained ponies’ magic, not all magic in Equestria. Moondog still should’ve been able to make dreamers lucid.
“You weren’t? Where were you?”
“Remember how I said Mom made me? I hadn’t been thought of just yet.”
Meadow pulled her head back in shock. “But- I thought- And that would make you- When were you made?”
“Just over a year ago.”
“You- You’re one?” Meadow jumped to her hooves and jabbed an accusative hoof at Moondog. “You’ve been calling me ‘kid’ when I’m fifteen times older than you?!”
“Yeah.”
“Holy ----.” Meadow frowned. “Holy ----.”
“Language,” mumbled Moondog, even as she twitched from the ache of the magic. “You’re too young to use those words.”
“Am not. —---! So that’s you?”
“Yep.”
“So if you can keep me from swearing, why can’t you do anything else in dreams?”
Moondog looked up. “What do you mean?”
“You said dreams were acting up,” Meadow said. “I thought that meant you couldn’t make them better at all.”
“I- Well- I can, but- It’s just-” Moondog rustled her wings. “It’s hard to describe. Yes, technically, but it hurts.”
“Then shouldn’t you still be helping ponies with nightmares? If magic’s going away, they’ll be having more now than ever. I mean, you woke me up from a coma. I- If you can do that, you should be able to do this!”
Moondog stared at the ground. “That was… different,” she mumbled. “I could still sculpt your dreams no problem, but this- I don’t know. I- I should be able to fix them just like that, but I can’t, and I feel so…”
“Is it really that bad?” asked Meadow, sitting down again. “Call me crazy, but I don’t think Luna ever imagined you working in a place with no magic. I mean, you’re doing better with dreams than her right now, aren’t you?”
Moondog snorted. And yet-
dreamer.hasPoint();
return: TRUE
--Error; UnknownException e“And you’re- I think you can adjust if you keep trying,” said Meadow. “You weren’t made to fix comas, but you did it anyway. You weren’t made to teach others dream magic, but you did it anyway. Even if it took a few tries. And if you can still work with dreams at all even at a time like this, I- I think you can figure out how to do your job just as good as you did. You just need to try a bit harder.” She lightly, self-consciously patted Moondog on the shoulder. “You can do it, Doggo.”
Yes, dreams were harder to manipulate. But “harder” wasn’t equal to “impossible”. She could bear the pain. And, Moondog realized, if she could do something even Mom couldn’t- No. Bad thoughts. She wasn’t doing this to brag. She was doing this because it was the right thing.
“You know what? Yeah.” Deep breath in. Deep breath out. No sense in waiting. Moondog stood up. “I- I’ve got a lot to do, so I’ve- gotta go. Thanks for the pep talk. Stay safe out there.”
Meadow reared to wrap her front legs around Moondog’s neck. “You stay safe in here.”
“Thanks, Meadow.” And Moondog was gone.
Mom had sometimes said that Moondog relied a bit much on large-scale, brute-force dream manipulation to get rid of nightmares and that would come back to bite her. Moondog had scoffed. She could control the dream realm near-freely; how could that hurt her?
wind.tune(KEY.C_sharp_major);
--Error; UnknownException eHow, indeed.
Moondog had thought herself creative on an artistic level; now she needed to get creative on a technical level. What changes would have the largest impact-to-power-consumed ratio? There wasn’t any easy-to-use formula; Moondog had to look at each dream individually and find out on the fly. Which thing would lead to another which would lead to another and another and another… It was an avalanche. Or dominos. Or an avalanche of dominos.
shark.setTeeth(NULL);
--Error; UnknownException eSometimes it was obvious and Moondog just needed to make the monster trip. Sometimes she had less of a clue than Rarity had a tolerance for beige. But she managed, slowly learning a thing or two about which changes were most likely to have which results.. The small inconsistencies between her intent for her spells and the final results weren’t quite as bad as she thought they’d be, but it still pained her (not literally) when something that was supposed to be emerald was just viridian.
erase(doodle);
--Error; UnknownException eBut no matter how not-bad she was doing, no matter how much she adjusted, Moondog couldn’t stop thinking about the drain on magic. It was bad enough for her; just how much worse was it for ponies? Hard to say. Moondog didn’t know if ponies relied on magic as much as she did and she couldn’t talk with them to find out. Especially not one specific pony.
She looked like Mom. She talked like Mom. She felt like Mom. She was Mom, but she wasn’t.
As dawn approached, Moondog stared at the dream projection of Mom as she stood on the prow of the pirate ship. That figure was so close to Mom in just about everything… except, of course, the important parts. She didn’t know the truth about her situation when knowing she was in a dream was kind of Mom’s whole thing. The result was uncanny; Moondog alternately felt repulsed by the thing that obviously wasn’t Mom and sick for being repulsed by the thing that obviously was Mom. She had to force herself to call out, “Hey, Mom? Can I talk to you?”
After swinging down from the bowsprit and adjusting her tricorner, Not-Mom said, “You look troubled. Is something wrong?”
“Yeah.” Moondog swallowed. “Mom, I… I don’t know if you’ll remember this, but I’ll say it anyway.”
Not-Mom tilted her head. “Whatever do you mean? Of course I shall remember it.”
dreamer.getLucidity();
return: FALSE
--Error; UnknownException eMoondog hid her grimace. “I’m… I’m doing alright. Manipulating dreams is screwy, but I’m doing my best and I think it’s working. Ponies are scared, but you already knew that, right? It’s tough, with all of them freaking out. Really wishing I’d paid attention to those priority lessons you tried to teach me. Still managing. I’d say I hope you get better, but there’s nothing wrong with you. It’s just the connection between there and here. I’d make you lucid if I could, but I can’t, so, um, yeah. Sorry. …I… I love you, Mom. Stay safe.”
“I love you, too,” said Not-Mom. She glanced to one side. “That barber is certainly taking a long time with that chainsaw. Pardon.”
I love you, too. Not-Mom wouldn’t have said that if Mom didn’t mean it. Moondog wasn’t sure if that made things better or worse.
When morning finally came, Moondog felt something she’d never felt before: exhaustion, like a bridge that’d been walked over too many times. She was exercising spells she’d never exercised before, opening up mana channels she hadn’t known existed. She was half-convinced she could feel her magic bleeding away. For third-shifters, she limited herself to small changes, expending as little energy as possible. Between that and the lightened load of daytime in general, Moondog returned to some semblance of her normal self over the course of several hours.
Then the night returned, and it was time to do it all over again. But this time, she was ready.
The magic drain was good in one unexpected way: nocnice couldn’t feed on ponies.
They caused nightmares and fed on negative emotions using magic. Magic was being drained. Ergo, the more they tried to feed, the more they were drained. Moondog stopped by one nocnica-infested dream only to see them basically get flensed to near-nonexistence. (Perhaps total nonexistence. Wings crossed.) Other magical sources of nightmares suffered similar fates as the drain rolled through the dream realm like acid rain.
It was barely anything. Stress and anxiety could still make plain old regular nightmares, and a lot more of them. But it was something.
“Hi, Mom. Still around. Nothing’s changed. Just stopping by to say ‘hey’. Um… Sorry, I, I know I suck at small talk, b-but… What am I s-supposed to say? It’s n-not like you’re gonna respond or anything. You’re just g-gonna sit there and- I’m sorry, that, that was out of line. Or maybe you get it, I don’t know. Um. I still love you. Still working. Nightmares are manageable. Be seeing you. I hope.”
It was the lack of knowledge that was the worst part. Not knowing what was being done on the outside. Moondog didn’t fault Meadow at all for being a teen who wasn’t omniscient, but it was still frustrating. Moondog knew Mom, knew Twilight, knew the other Elements, knew Aunt Celly. They would absolutely have a plan, and yet she couldn’t ask them about it.
dreamer.addToAppearance(GLASSES.Rimmed);
--Error; UnknownException eIt was one of those times where Moondog got a wakeup call on just how limited dreams could really be. She had phenomenal power within them, but the outside might as well not exist if nopony told her anything. Except that most of the time, ponies told her things, so that was barely even an issue. And right now, sure, she could try going out, but with magic being drained, that was like a pony trying to swim in sulfuric acid.
chimera.setCorporeality(TRUE);
--Error; UnknownException eTo make matters worse, although Moondog’s drive was focused on dreams, she still wanted to help, even if “helping” amounted to being a sounding board for… whatever. Or just standing on the sidelines, offering moral support. Moral support was good. (Making good dreams pretty much amounted to moral support.) But dreams were all she could do, and that only applied when ponies were asleep. Whatever help she could offer would be minimal.
remove(fence);
--Error; UnknownException eAs a cherry of annoyance on top of the bad-times sundae, there was the pain from the magic drain. It didn’t make her want to vomit anymore, but it was always there. Moondog could concentrate a lot more if it just went away.
tree.grow();
Like that. Much better.
avalanche.stop();
But only relatively. Moondog still knew things were bad out there. She was tied up in a crate on a runaway train, only able to provide minimal help in extremely limited circumstances and with no way to see how close anypony else was to solving the problem. Okay, she could talk with Meadow, but since Meadow didn’t know anything, she might as wait just a sunblasted rink-a-dink minute.
Moondog hastily grabbed a tuft of dust and blew on it, twisting it in just the right way. It ballooned smoothly into a snowstorm, albeit one where the flakes fell up. More importantly, it didn’t hurt.
Dreams were working again. Which meant-
mom.inDreams(); return: FALSE
Okay. Okay. Not what Moondog had wanted, but no cause for panic yet. Right? Right. Mom was probably just still awake. Okay. Maybe, Moondog thought, she could set up a spell that would automatically tell her once Mom entered the dreamscape, astrally or somnionically. Right?
while(TRUE) {
if(mom.inDreams()) {
self.notify();
break;
}
}Right. Easy. Moondog took a deep breath and kept at it. She could wait.
If somepony had done the remarkably specific study of seeing what ponies were dreaming of the night after magic was returned to Equestria, clocks would’ve popped up with surprising regularity. Not necessarily as the focus of the dream, but at least one clock would make an appearance somewhere. Moondog couldn’t help it. She kept waiting, but her mind kept running back to how much time was left until Mom came back, and time meant clocks. Since this was all in a dream and clocks didn’t make the dream any better or worse, Moondog did the oneiric equivalent of sweeping them all under the rug by leaving them out in the open. Nopony would notice, right? It was like trying to-
notify(self, delayedLocatorSpell); self.setLocation(mom.getLocation());
Mom was asleep, not projecting herself. Moondog kept her wings crossed as she blipped over to Mom’s dream, a clearing in an ethereal forest. She poked at one of the trees. It collapsed into smoke, just like she’d wanted, and it didn’t hurt while doing so. Okay. Okay.
Mom looked up as Moondog approached, but that could’ve meant anything. Her eyes lit up, but that could’ve meant anything. “Moondog?” she asked.
Moondog swallowed. It was hard to not get her hopes up. “Mom?”
“I remember your messages, and-”
dreamer.getLucidity(); return: TRUE
“MOM!” Moondog lunged forward and wrapped herself around Mom. “M-Mom,” she whimpered. “I- I thought I’d-”
“Shh, shh, easy, child.” Mom hugged Moondog back. “Calm yourself. I’m here.”
“Y-you were… You…” Moondog couldn’t bring herself to say anything more. She simply sat as she and Mom held each other. For one long moment, she didn’t care about anything else in the slightest.
“Why are you so troubled?” Mom asked eventually. “I know that weaving dreams was more difficult, but I was gone for but two nights.”
“It’s not that you weren’t here, it’s… Suddenly, you weren’t you. I-” Moondog took a long, shuddering breath. “It was you, but you didn’t recognize me as me. Whenever you were dreaming, I couldn’t talk to you or- or anything. You were just- there, like somepony was wearing your skin. If you were just gone, I… Things wouldn’t’ve been so bad.” She hugged Mom even more tightly. “I wouldn’t’ve had to hear somepony say she loved me when she didn’t even recognize me.”
“Oh, stars above, of course,” gasped Mom. Now she was the one with the tighter hold. “I- never imagined-”
“But you’re here now, so…” Moondog gave Mom one last squeeze and flowed out of the hug. “This whole thing is done, right? All I heard was that magic was being drained, and that was just a guess.”
“Yes, ’tis over, thank the heavens,” said Mom. “A filly known as Cozy Glow was using a complex ritual and a supreme misunderstanding of friendship to drain magic from Equestria and take it over. Some of Twilight’s students managed to stop her before our magic was fully gone and, from what little I’ve seen, Equestria appears to be back to normal in the magical sense.”
“Huh,” said Moondog vaguely. “Soooo… is each new major Equestrian incident trying to one-up the last in terms of weirdness?”
Mom sagged a little and shrugged helplessly. “It can certainly seem that way.”
“Hmm.”
“Also, stay out of Cozy Glow’s dreams.”
Moondog opened her mouth and promptly closed it again. “Right. Yeah.”
“I know that merely standing by is not in your nature,” Mom said, putting a hoof on Moondog’s shoulder, “but in the dream realm, we are not enforcers. We are stewards. She is seeing justice in the real world.”
Deep breath in. Deep breath out. Moondog still ached from all the work she’d been doing, but she trusted Mom. She could ignore one pony. “Okay. No dream revenge.”
“Good. So how did the drain treat you? If you were unable to bring me into lucidity…”
“Could’ve been worse.” Moondog shrugged. “I’ve, I’ve been keeping watch over the dream realm these past few nights. It was- Making good dreams was hard, since every time I did something more complicated than just existing, it meant I was reaching into their minds just enough for my magic to technically be in Equestria and for some of it to get pulled away. I’m fine, I didn’t lose anything I can’t replace, and I think I did pretty good. Not my best work, but still good.” She smiled hesitantly.
Mom flexed her wings and stared. “You went through all that last few nights and still managed to keep ponies’ dreams in order? You were very brave.”
“No, I wasn’t. I didn’t ask for any of that. I was just doing the only thing I could do. What, was I supposed to just curl up in a ball and wait for it all to be over?” Moondog snorted.
“You could have. Yet you did not.” Mom put a hoof on Moondog’s shoulders. “You faced an uphill battle. I was gone. You couldn’t communicate with ponies. Dreams were behaving improperly. And yet your response to all that was to work harder. You still made good dreams. You-” She gasped and wiped her eyes. “You did everything I could have hoped for and more,” she whispered. “Thank you.”
truth.tell();
Moondog laughed nervously. “W-well, uh… I almost didn’t. Remember Moonlit Meadow? How I’ve been teaching her dream magic?”
Mom frowned — thoughtfully, not disapprovingly. “Of course.”
“Part of learning dream magic is learning lucidity, so I visited her since she, y’know, could lucid dream. She told me what was going on and basically gave me a pep talk. I was… kinda freaking out something fierce at the time. She got me moving. So… it’s not like I just went on without you. I needed to be told I could.” Moondog hung her head. “Sorry.”
Mom frowned, again thoughtfully. “But,” she muttered to herself, “you gave your first message to me on that first night.”
“Yeah. Meadow was pretty quick to let me have it.”
“Then you were convinced to go back to managing dreams, in spite of its difficulty, within the space of a single conversation.” Mom draped a wing over Moondog. “I think, even had Meadow not been there, you would have eventually gone back to making dreams on your own, regardless of the difficulty.”
“You really think so?” Moondog asked, looking up.
“You were created to figure out how to make good dreams. You would have figured out how to make good dreams.”
Moondog managed a smile. “Thanks, Mom.” She rubbed her head against Mom’s neck.
“Still, Meadow did shorten the time you were doing nothing,” Mom said as she stroked Moondog’s mane, “and being able to get sleep untroubled by nightmares must have helped a great many ponies deal with these events. We should give her our thanks.”
“I’ve already thanked her, but making it official would be nice.” Moondog paused. “She’s probably asleep by now, if you want to just go and do it.”
“I cannot see why not, then. Come.”
Meadow was lounging on clouds beneath an aurora when Moondog found her. Seeing her guest, Meadow rolled onto a futon of clouds. “Dad’s magic was working again before I went to bed,” said Meadow. “How’re dreams?”
“Perfect. Fantastic. Like new,” said Moondog, pointing her wings this way and that. “Pretty sure whatever was draining magic has been shut off. Thanks for that little talk, it helped a lot.”
One of Meadow’s ears went down. “Seriously?”
“Seriously. And since you helped me, there’s somepony else who wants to thank you.”
“Who?”
Absolute silence fell, to the point that one could hear the stars twinkling. Above them, the night sky began turning. Tendrils of blue mist, with the stars embedded in them, peeled away from nothing and spun like they were caught in a hurricane, though there was no wind. One by one, the tendrils wrapped around each other and plunged into the clouds right next to Moondog. As the mists gathered, they coalesced into Mom, the moon on her peytral shining brighter than the one in the sky, superclusters twisting through her mane, auroral wisps dancing on her feathers.
“Showoff,” muttered Moondog.
“Jealous,” whispered Mom. To Meadow, she said, “Moonlit Meadow, as Princess of the Night, I-”
“That’s a pretty good Luna,” said Meadow. Mom stopped talking mid-word and her wings twitched. “Although you’d know her real well, wouldn’t you? I-”
“Meadow…” Moondog flapped up to Meadow and stage-whispered in her ear, “That’s a pretty good Luna because that is Luna. The real deal. Nothing to do with me. Promise.”
Meadow stopped talking. “Real thing?” She gulped and mumbled, “Ah, crud.”
“And if you want to put your hoof in your mouth, I can make it edible.”
“Do not worry. You were not the first to make such a mistake,” Mom said, smiling slightly, “and you shall not be the last.” She drew herself up again. “Moondog has told me about the way you helped her these past nights.”
“The way I- helped- That wasn’t even a speech or anything!” said Meadow. “Just a- thing I said!”
“Nevertheless,” Mom continued, “Moondog says your encouragement meant a great deal.” (The words It did appeared above Moondog’s head and she nodded vigorously.) “And for your service to the Crown, however small…” Mom bowed slightly. “You have the thanks of both of us.”
Meadow looked at Moondog. Blinked. Looked at Mom. Blinked.
The dream collapsed and Moondog slid across the not-floor of the collective unconscious. Mom stood serene, like she hadn’t just been hurled out of a pocket dimension. “Hmm,” she said, frowning. “Unfortunate.”
Moondog twisted back onto her hooves. “What is?” She shook a few stray thoughts out of her coat.
“The shock of this was too much for Meadow and she woke up. I suppose it would be, for a teenager to receive personal gratitude from her country’s leader.”
“So do you want me to stop by tomorrow night and tell her? I can-”
“I do not think so. In dreams, from just you, it would not hold the weight it deserves. We ought to reach out to her in another way. And perhaps her parents should know what she did.” Mom looked pointedly at Moondog.
conclusion.draw();
Moondog made a face. “Will this involve me going outside? Mom, please tell me this won’t involve me going outside.”
“Very well. This won’t involve you going outside.”
“You lied to me.”
“I did. Lies can be powerful motivators.”
“My faith in you is forever shattered.”
“You knew, when I said we needed to talk with Meadow’s parents, that you were going to end up going outside. You knew. Any hopes you had to the contrary were but self-delusion.”
“I know. I’d rather blame you than me.”
“Oh, hush. Growth is good for you.”
“And shouldn’t you be in bed?”
“Most certainly. The… latest trans-Equestrian incident has played havoc with my sleep schedule, as trans-Equestrian incidents are wont to do. I am exhausted, yes, but I would not awaken Meadow and her parents in the middle of the night.” Yawn.
Moondog glowered at the too-stiff carpet in Mom’s real-world room. It was like walking on a bed of crystals made from especially stiff rubber. And the air was like walking through a thick mist congealed around her. And nothing really moved the way it was supposed to when she pushed it. And even levitation was tricky. And the magic that made her up was constantly getting drained. And all the other stuff that just didn’t work right. In the real world, it sometimes felt like everything was out to get her.
Especially that carpet. Look at it. Sitting there all smug…
“Why are you even trying to make yourself look presentable?” asked Moondog. “You’re a princess, you’re automatically presentable!”
Mom pulled the comb through her mane again, straightening another few strands of hair. Many, many strands remained. “It is the principle of the thing. Even if I am a princess and thus automatically presentable, I ought not to look like a presentable hobo when imposing myself upon my subjects. Not everyone can sculpt their appearance as easily as you.”
“Reality bites.” But, Moondog figured, at least Mom wasn’t making her wear any regalia.
“Indeed it does.”
Moondog paced back and forth. Mom kept combing her unruly mane. Moondog took a closer look at her; she looked a touch more beaten than usual and the comb’s movement was a bit shaky. And if those were the beginnings of bags under her eyes… “Tough few days?” Moondog asked.
“Unbelievably so.” Mom straightened out another single hair. “I was blissfully ignorant of precisely how much magic went into Equestria until it was gone. Why, my peytral nearly dragged me to the ground once I lost my earth pony strength!”
“Then why don’t I do this alone? Yes, I promise I’ll do it,” Moondog added when Mom eyed her suspiciously. “You can get some sleep, and you’ll probably just intimidate them anyway, by virtue of being Best Princess.”
“If you think you can handle it, then please do so.” Mom pulled her peytral off, dropped it in the middle of the floor, and loped over to her bed. “More sleep would be heavenly.”
“Good. Get some rest, I’ll be right back.” Moondog saluted. “Adios, madre.”
E:\Equestria\Canterlot\Canterlot Castle\Mom's Bedroom> Set-Location "..\..\..\Halterdale\Moonlit Meadow's House"
Moondog blipped through space and appeared near the front steps of a small, unassuming house in a small, unassuming town. Based on what Meadow had said, Halterdale wasn’t that different from Ponyville, once you ignored the monster attacks and the Elements of Harmony. It was just another small town in the Equestrian countryside. Although it was the middle of the day, the street was empty; the entire country seemed to have unofficially declared that, in light of the magic drain, today was a day off. For whom? Everyone. Moondog took a deep breath, walked onto Meadow’s front porch, and knocked on the door three times.
After a moment, a unicorn stallion ripped open the door, a bowl of applesauce in his mouth. “Fohry!” he managed to say. “I waf…” He stopped and stared at Moondog.
“Hey,” said Moondog, waving. “Is this Moonlit Meadow’s house?”
The unicorn’s jaw slowly went slack and the bowl slipped from his mouth. With a greater oomph of magic than ought to be necessary, Moondog magically grabbed it from the air without spilling a drop of applesauce. “Y-yes, it is,” said the unicorn, nodding jerkily. His eyes slipped between Moondog’s horn and her wings.
Moondog set the bowl on the floor. “Is she home and can I speak with her?”
Blink blink. “I… Um…” Cough. “I- I’m sorry, who are you?”
“Moondog. I help Princess Luna manage-”
The unicorn took a step back as if struck. “Oh, sweet Celestia,” he said quietly, “you’re HER.”
E:\Equestria\Halterdale\Moonlit Meadow's House> Set-ActorProperty Moondog.tntbs -Name "Sex" -Value "Male"
A beard unrolled from Moondog’s chin and his voice deepened. “Except when I’m him,” he said, grinning.
The unicorn’s ear twitched, then he nodded, as if to himself. “Yeah,” he mumbled, “you’re- that person.” He cleared his throat. “Um, uh, yes, Meadow is home, and- why, why don’t you come in?” He waved Moondog in jerkily and called out, “Meadow? Could, could you come down, please?”
After taking a moment to wipe his hooves off purely because it was tradition, Moondog looked into the living room. He was less versed in guest etiquette than a cockroach and far more concerned about breaking it, so he didn’t know which of the chairs he ought to pick. He settled for one of the less stuffed ones. An earth mare glanced into the room, yelped, and backed up. Inaudible words drifted through the doorframe as she held a semi-panicked conversation with the stallion. Moondog almost went after him, but decided to give them their time. This was their house, after all. But what were these ponies’ names, anyway?
E:\Equestria\Halterdale\Moonlit Meadow's House> Get-Actors -Exclude Moondog.tntbs -Name -Age -Sex Name Age Sex ---- --- --- Dandelion.pny 46 Female Moonlit Meadow.pny 15 Female Richter.pny 44 Male Rippling Stream.pny 17 Female E:\Equestria\Halterdale\Moonlit Meadow's House> Set-ActorProperty Moondog.tntbs -Name "Sex" -Value "Female"
So the mare (probably Meadow’s mom) was Dandelion and the stallion (Meadow’s dad) was Richter. A pony matching the description of Rippling Stream (Meadow’s sister?) was nowhere to be seen, probably upstairs. Moondog pulled her beard off and twisted it into her mane.
As she waited, somepony came bumping down the stairs. Meadow sidled into the living room, saw Moondog, and jumped. “Moondog?” she gasped.
“Yo.” Moondog smiled and waved.
Meadow dashed to the chair. “I didn’t know you could leave dreams!” she said, and poked at one of Moondog’s wings.
“I can, but I don’t like it.” Moondog flared the wing to make it more pokable. “Don’t expect to see me out here… at all, really. Don’t expect me to be nearly as interesting, either. Reality’s harder to work with.”
“Oh.” Poke poke. “How come you feel funny? It’s like you’re-”
“Meadow!” Richter and Dandelion had re-entered the living room and the latter was looking mortified. “Stop poking the princess!” said Dandelion. “She’s-”
“Technically I’m not a princess, if that helps,” offered Moondog. “Closest thing I’d be at the moment is a duchess, and that’s assuming I’m in the peerage at all. I don’t mind anyway.”
Richter and Dandelion glanced at each other. Dandelion shrugged helplessly and they took a seat on the couch across from Moondog, both openly staring. (Among other things, Moondog always missed the “yeah, sure, whatever” nature of dreams while in the real world.) Meadow poked one last time and wormed into the gap between Richter and the armrest. Eventually, Dandelion coughed and said, “So, um, I’m Dandelion, this is Richter-” Richter gave a tentative little wave. “-and we’re, we’re Meadow’s parents, and… what, what are you doing here?”
Moondog reluctantly cleared her throat. Speeches were so much more fun when they were bombastic, not formal like this. “Meadow might’ve told you this already, but I’m Moondog — yes, that one — and I help Mom — Princess Luna — make good dreams. Over the past few days, magic getting drained meant Mom couldn’t get into the dream realm, and the effects of the drain on dream magic meant…” She rubbed the back of her neck and laughed nervously. “Well, it’s complicated. Basically, I started panicking and went into a funk at the same time. Meadow helped calm me down, got me out, and encouraged me to, y’know, keep making good dreams.”
Dandelion and Richter both glanced at Meadow, who beamed. “You helped her manage dreams?” said Dandelion.
A cloud drifted in front of Meadow’s beaming. “W-well, uh, not, not directly.” Her ears twitched. “Moondog just- needed a friend and I was there. Just, um, some nice words.”
“To be fair, I really needed a friend and some nice words right then. So I’m just here to say…” Moondog got up, faced Meadow, and bowed. Meadow, her cheeks turning red, scooched back on the couch. “You have the gratitude of the Crown, Moonlit Meadow. I thank you and Princess Luna of the Night thanks you. This will be remembered. Luna would be here as well, but she’s busy at the moment.”
Meadow bobbed her head. “You know I was just trying to help you, right?” she half-squeaked. “I mean- friends help friends.”
Moondog grinned. “Just wait until you offer Aunt Celly the last piece of cake and get baronessed.” To Dandelion and Richter, she said, “You two should be proud of your daughter.”
“We already were,” said Dandelion. “But-” She rubbed her forehead. “Whoof, okay, wow.” She swallowed. “Um. Thank you for… coming and- and letting us now. I’m sorry we didn’t have anything more… befitting of your stature-”
“If I wanted something more befitting my stature,” Moondog said with a laugh, “I’d’ve stopped by the party store on the way over. Gotten some of those noisemakers, maybe a party cracker or two.” She tipped an invisible hat. “Thank you for your time, I apologize for turning your life upside-down for a few minutes. Now, if you don’t mind, I’ll be out of your manes.” She took a step towards the door.
“Wait. Do you, um, eat?” asked Dandelion, standing up. “We can get you some snacks for the… teleport. Chocolate chip bars.”
Deciding to spare Dandelion a postgraduate-level lecture on the nature of her sustenance, Moondog said, “Sure, I’ll take one.”
“Um. Good. Wait, wait here.” Dandelion gave her one last look and vanished into the kitchen. Richter stayed stock-still and staring.
Meadow hopped off the couch and walked up to Moondog. “Can you eat or are you just being nice?” she whispered.
“I can. I even like it if the food’s good,” Moondog whispered back.
“How?”
“Magic.”
Meadow snorted and poked one of Moondog’s wings again.
“Mom? Dad?” somepony called. A unicorn mare, a few years older than Meadow, walked into the room. “What’s go-” She saw Moondog, froze, and squawked, “Princess!” Before Moondog could say anything, she’d darted away.
“That’s Rippling Stream,” Meadow said casually. She didn’t even look up. “She’s my sister and she’s… not the greatest with new people. Don’t take it personally.”
“I never do.”
Meadow reared and whispered into Moondog’s ear, “I think she got it from Dad.” Indeed, Richter hadn’t moved from his spot on the couch. Moondog nodded.
Dandelion came back from the kitchen, carrying a big plastic bag stuff with bars that looked like a cross between brownies and chocolate chip cookies. “Um. Here,” she said, holding out the bag to Moondog.
Moondog flared her wings. “Oh, no, I just meant one, you don’t need-”
“I know I don’t need.” Dandelion’s posture sagged a little. “But Meadow was- I didn’t think I’d ever see her even awake again when she was in the hospital, and now she’s…” Her voice trailed off as she gestured at Meadow.
“Peachy!” chirped Meadow.
Dandelion nodded. “Right. That. Moondog, you- You fixed our family. Just because Meadow was scared when you found her. There-” She wiped her face down. Meadow looked away, pretending not to notice. “There’s no way I can thank you enough. So… I’m giving you these bars for no other reason than I want to.”
That got Moondog’s mind running. Was this how she felt to ponies? Somebody who did great things for them just because? Hmm. She’d always thought it was weird how ponies could turn down her offers just to avoid making her do work, but now, here she was, turning down a pony’s offer just to avoid making the pony do work. Almost. She wasn’t going to be a hypocrite. “Then, sure. I’ll take them.”
Dandelion smiled a little and nodded. “Be sure to try one before you take food you don’t like.”
E:\Equestria\Halterdale\Moonlit Meadow's House> Get-Content BarToEat.bar | Add-Content Moondog.tntbs
Picking a bar at random, Moondog downed it in a few bites (and to call it delicious would be insulting it, holy crap). She wasn’t sure how her magic converted food into… well, more magic, but it worked. It wasn’t as efficient as drawing it from the collective unconsciousness, but it was a lot more fun. “Mmm,” she said, licking her hoof. “This is good.”
Dandelion nodded again and turned away to hide the fact that her face was reddening. “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome, and thank you.” Moondog tucked the bag beneath a wing. “I’ll be seeing you all. Maybe even tonight. Have a good day.” She nodded to each pony in turn and left the house, waving as they made their goodbyes.
Why did teleporting straight out of somepony’s house seem rude? Moondog was leaving, not entering. But it was abrupt in the same way. Maybe it was just to give them something like closure: Moondog was out the door and therefore gone. Maybe it let them wave and say goodbye. Maybe it was just a weird pony thing that Mom would know more about. Moondog put a hoof on the main road and gathered her magic-
“Wait.”
Moondog turned. Richter was standing on the front porch, his eyes shiny as he blinked. He cleared his throat. “Um, ma’am-” he said. “Or, um, Princess- Your Highness-”
“Just call me Moondog.”
He nodded. “Right. Moondog.” Richter sniffed and walked up to her, looking her in the eye. “Dandelion already said this, but thank you for- for bringing Meadow back to us. It- I, I was the one who found her after the fire,” he said, his expression downcast. “She was… so limp. I took her pulse several times because I thought she was dead. And as the weeks went by and she didn’t get better, all I could think was that the last time I s-saw my daughter, s-she might as well b-be dead.” By now, he was staring at the ground. He took a deep breath. “Then one day, she woke up. Right as rain, just like that. She was better, and she told us about what you did, and- and- Oh, Celestia!” He lunged forward and grabbed Moondog in a hug, barely holding back sobs.
Before Moondog could do anything, though, Richter jumped back as if stung and shuffled backwards for the house, his face practically glued to the ground as he bowed. Breathlessly, he said, “I’msorryYourHighnessIdidn’tmean-”
Moondog stepped forward, pulled Richter to an upright stop, and gave him a hug of her own. Not a strong one, he could easily push away, but a hug nonetheless. “Screw propriety,” she said. “I know how it feels to have somepony be there and yet not there.”
A pause. Then Richter returned the hug with gusto, taking loud, gasping breaths. He pressed his face into Moondog’s shoulder. “Th-thank you. S-seeing you, knowing what y-you did for Meadow, I was- I couldn’t- Thank you.”
“Anytime.” Moondog spread her wings around the two of them. “Helping people’s what I do. It’s just usually dreams rather than, y’know, comas.”
After a long moment, Richter gently broke the hug. “One last time, thank you.” He smiled at Moondog and nodded. “Take care.”
“You, too. And thanks for the snacks.” Moondog saluted. “Adios, amigo.”
E:\Equestria\Halterdale\Moonlit Meadow's House> Set-Location "..\..\Canterlot\Canterlot Castle\Mom's Bedroom"
Moondog blipped into existence back in Mom’s bedroom. Even after just a few minutes, Mom was curled up on her bed in a tangle of sheets, her chest smoothly rising up and down in deep sleep. Moondog carefully hid the bag in a secret drawer inside a secret drawer, then pushed at the barrier between realspace and dreamspace.
E:\Equestria\Canterlot\Canterlot Castle\Mom's Bedroom> DreamJump.spll -EntryDreamer Luna.pny Locating dream.... Success! Engaging worldshift....... run();
Moondog ducked under the figures of Tirek as they went flying and smashed holes in the Applewood sign. “I’m back,” she said to Mom. “Obviously.”
“So?” Mom asked, flicking a bit of dust from her warhammer. “How did it go?” She grinned. “Or did you spend several minutes dancing the canter-canter on top of the Crystal Palace?”
“I really went.” Moondog conjured up a plate of Dandelion’s bars. “And I bring proof in the form of homemade cookie bars. Meadow’s mom gave me a bunch of these. Try them, they’re great.”
“Very well.” Mom picked out one of the smaller bars and ate it. After several long moments of chewing slowly, she swallowed and her expression grew serious. “You must protect the real ones from your aunt at all costs,” she growled. “If she finds them, they will be gone in seconds.” She snatched up another bar and set about devouring it while somehow managing the grace of a ballet dancer.
“Already hid them,” said Moondog. “The usual spot. Although before I go, I’ve got a question. I know you couldn’t use magic to enter the dream realm, but while you were asleep and I was in your dreams, couldn’t you have gotten lucid? Once. Just to reassure me you’re doing okay. Plain old lucid dreaming doesn’t require any magic.”
“It must have slipped my mind,” Mom said. But was it just Moondog, or did her voice sound evasive?
“But didn’t you get my message the first night?” asked Moondog, flaring her wings. “I get that you could’ve just forgotten the first night, with everything going on, but the second, too, after I’d reminded you?”
“Well, ah…” Mom’s ears went back. “That requires a… certain skill in times such as those that I had forgotten I lacked.” She was very interested in buffing her hammer.
“But Meadow could-”
--Error; InterruptedThoughtException e“Moooooom…” Moondog’s voice grew low. “Do you not know how to lucid dream without using magic?”
Mom opened her mouth. Closed it again. Twitched her wings. Looked away. Pawed at the ground. Buffed her hammer. Looked back at Moondog. Away again. Buffed again. “I…” she said excessively slowly, “…suppose that… that is one particular skill I…” She flexed her wings. “…have never seen… much benefit in… pursuing…”
Moondog blinked. “Ho. Lee. —---.” A pause. “Anyway, I, uh, gotta get back to dreamwalking, keep my momentum these past few nights. Important work, you know. Sorry to bother you.” She saluted. “Adios, madre.” And she was gone.
“She what?” screamed Meadow.