POV: Luna
'Well, that was incredibly easy... I feel bad starting right off the bat with intimidation when all I had to do was...' Thought Luna as she looked down rereading her report of the interrogation.
Offical Interrogation S-B312
Date: 8/17/1003
Subject: Grffin, Aquila Antheia
Age: 20
Gender: FUpon first examination the subject, now known as Aquila-
Noting even done rereading the first sentence, Luna heard a sound from behind.
Turning around, she saw Eclipse, who judging by appearance looked like she'd been busy. Frazzled mane, dark eyes, and all the other features of somepony in desperate need of either coffee, a break, or some sleep.
"Eclipse? Art thou suppose to be-"
"-thinking about my new orders? Yes, I already have." came back her swift response with just a tiny hint of venom, "and you know what I have to say? I say-"
She was not lucky enough to get her sentence out before Luna cut her off, "say that you were going to your room for rest till morning," Luna stopped for a moment when she realized something before continuing, "wait, no it's practically about to be morning in a few hours, in that case, you're going to sleep until you can't fall asleep again. By the time you wake, we shall be at Baltimare Harbor. Well, we should be, but unfortunately, we're a day behind schedule."
Whether Eclipse caught her slip into the more archaic speech Luna did not care. Right now, she had an exasperated soldier.
Luna did not have to wait to hear Eclipse's response as her expression said it all, "And you will do so now lest I make that an order."
This seemed to annoy and slightly anger Eclipse who was stuck in thought without knowing what to say to that. Luna didn't wait for a response.
"Yes, I know you had dreams and plans in the guard, I watch the dreams of all my guards," at Luna's words eclipse froze, "but let me tell you from personal experience, Eclipse Rose, something I've painfully had to learn over my banishment."
By now, Luna looked dead ahead into the befuddled eyes of Eclipse, "Live life to the fullest with what you have because if you plan to have a simple life, you will never experience the best life has to offer and one day, you might regret that you didn't live with all you have. Not all treasure is silver and gold."
With that said, Eclipse was thoroughly stunned into silence. An awkward moment later, she lowered her head with a whine and slowly left the room, closing the door behind herself.
When she was gone, Luna sighed looking down for a moment before looking back at her report. She sat alone at her desk, lost in her own thought. Now not interested in finishing the report, she just stared at blankly nothing. The room was eerily silent, and dusty. After a moment, she closed the report and went to sleep.
{:<->:}
It had been a while since Luna had used her dream walking abilities since being at sea made it difficult. From the beginning, Luna had always been curious about the happenings of the two little foals dreams but their sleeping time never matched as they were somehow always awake, or unconscious for some reason or another.
She was impatient and was tempted to secretly cast a spell that over a few hours would make them more tired than usual, giving her the chance to look into their dreams, but deep down she knew that was just wrong.
She told herself it was bad luck she couldn't check before. But even deeper down the true reason was because she was afraid. Afraid she would see something there that would change what she thinks that they think about her, as they have shown undeserving kindness to her just by treating her as a friend and not a monster, even if they didn't know about Nightmare Moon.
With that in mind, Luna opened her eyes to the view of a moonlit field with the stars shining brightly. Taking a moment to admire it, she smiled before returning to her work.
It wasn't long until Luna tore a hole within her dream for her consciousness to slip into what she calls, the Dream Realm where all dreams can be found. As she did her magic, everything changed as her subconsciousness shaped the realm into a visual representation that made it easier for her to traverse.
She liked to keep things simple, so her subconsciousness had it as a simple hallway lined with doors to different dreams. she could do a more advanced form of dream magic and she could change things around, but luckily she was only doing a simple visit into the dreams of others.
A look around and she saw the dreams of everypony on the ship. Now, she just had to find their dreams. As Luna began to walk down the halls, she made sure to do a mental count of who was asleep, if they should be asleep, who they were, the emotions of the dream, etc.
Being extra careful to avoid the more... erotic ones. She had once made the mistake of looking into one of those dreams. That dream had involved her sister...
After expelling the thought from her head, Luna continued to walk until she saw something in the distance. Seemed like a door, but she couldn't tell from the distance. Deciding to investigate, she increased her pace until she found it. It, was a door half translucent with another door merged into it.
Now Luna was surprised to see this considering how rare an occurrence it was. A merged dream was exactly what it sounds like. Two dreamers whose dreams have partly merged. The thing is that the only time something like this would ever happen is if the dreamers have a strong bond and have their dreams compatible with each other.
For dreams to be compatible, both dreamers not only have to have a strong bond but the thoughts and emotions of both ponies must be the same, mixed in with some cosmic luck.
‘Not even Tia and I have ever had a shared dream. Granted I am a dream walker, but that was hundreds of years after I was born. And I’ve only ever seen a couple hundred over the centuries Tia and I ruled together.’
A moment after Luna’s Initial surprise, she stopped and froze. At the edge of the half translucent merged doors, a small black mist of negative emotions was leaking out.
Luna could feel the sorrow and sadness from it. It crawled to her hoof as she could smell the cold, damp, ominous air. It sent a shiver down her spine, every little bone in her body creaked as she remembered the blood-curdling screams of the ponies she captured as Nightmare Moon. It didn't just make her stomach turn, no it made her want to run. Runaway out of terror.
But before she could take action, she threw together a hastily cobbled together shields against the negative emotions before lightly reinforcing it.
As soon as she finished, it left her time to think left in slight confusion. ‘Wha-... somethings not right. Can’t be a nightmare or they would have never had a merged dream.’
Luna spent a moment eliminating all the options until there was none left. ‘If it’s not a nightmare, dream monster, magically forced night terror, or anything else of the sort. Then, it’s an emotional build-up’
An emotional buildup, for as far as Luna knows is a buildup of emotions over days, weeks, months, and years that can seep deep into a recipient's dream. And from what Luna could see, this build-up has been building for months. If she had to hazard a guess, at the very least over 3 and a half months.
‘How have I missed this!? A build-up is usually easy to see by the state of the pony. And I’ve been living on the same ship with them for weeks. Granted part of the time they were unconscious, but I still should have seen-!’
Luna stopped yelling at herself internally and faced forwards at the door. It was no use thinking how this could have been stopped when they’ve no doubt had many dreams like this already.
Luna walked forwards with a slight frown. Sadly, there was only one way to stop such dreams and that was by helping the dreamer get past whatever troubles them. And that’s near impossible to do whilst in the dream realm as they are practically drowning in their emotions. In the end, there was little she could do besides comfort them though they would probably never know.
At Luna's first steps in, the world around her turned black. And the faded realities of Star and Mark's dream slowly came and faded.
It was long before she found herself in a living room about her size. An oddity considering the only place that size was the rooms of herself and Celestia's at the Royal Palace. She waited but a few moments later, the room faded out of Existence again. ‘Perhaps the merged dreams were more unstable than I thought if the dream is having a hard time trying to solidify’
With some magic, Luna stabilizes the dreams by casting a minor impulsive spell to get both dreamers to think a bit more like the other, which helped Immensely in stabilizing the dream. ’ A little impulse spell never hurt, especially when the merged dreams have this much negative energy. A breakdown like this can cause damage if the dreams became enough unstable that both dreamer's mind’s crashed into each other.’
Luna knew impulsive spells were forbidden, but even in that situation, Tia would do the same.
As soon as Luna was done justifying the spell to herself, she looked around to see the dream solidify smoothly as she found herself in a dark room with an open doorway.
If she were to guess, this was a house of some sort but scales up to her size. Looking out the door, it leads to a darkened hallway going left and right. The left lead to the darkness where the dream faded to nothing. To the right down the hall was a stairway. Or at least that’s what she thought. She could barely see in the darkroom and hall.
Deciding to go the only way there was left, Luna went right. She saw dark square shapes on the wall that looked suspiciously like a family photo. This reminded Luna that in the letters with the Zebra shaman, in all the time the foals loved with them, they never once said where they came from and outright refused to say anything when asked.
With a bit of hope, Luna lit her horn providing some light, only to be disappointed when all she saw was darkness. The dream had not solidified it. For a moment, she was tempted to use magic and bring this dream to be completely solidified, meaning whether they wanted or not, every little detail they knew would show. But she decided against it as not only would the two become lucid, but it was dangerous as if their minds become out of sync, the dream could become unstable and destroy its self. 'Besides, the less of the dream they remember, the better'
With a sigh, Luna decided to continue down the halls. Unfortunately, seconds later Luna nearly fell when she missed a step, one hoof falling harshly on a wooden stair. On reflex, Luna backed up paying more attention to her surroundings.
She looked down and saw wooden stairs dimly lit by a fire, not insight. Heading down looking off the rails to the right she saw a few couches, a fireplace, and a tree with beautiful lights you’d see in an aurora. But the important part was that she saw two ponies sitting down, heads turned away.
“Hello?” Luna tentatively called, knowing that no response would come, with the state of the dream, but she called just in case.
Reaching to the bottom of the stairs Luna looked to her side and saw another dark room, some chairs, a table, and part of a kitchen counter to the left before the back of the room started to fade away.
Dismissing what was to the left, she turned right and headed to the couch.
Now up close behind the couch, she saw Mark sitting while Star was more relaxed lying down. But instead of the cheery banter she knew, know they were visible sad and sulking.
The scene would have been cozy with the fire, couches, and hearth's warming tree but... the room was filled with an eerieness. Their faces were turned away looking at something leaving Luna in the darkness of their name
"Hello...?" Luna spoke with a gentleness you don't see every day.
As she expected, no reply. Luna made gentle movements around the couch and saw what the two were looking at. It was open present, the contents unknown as the room began to fade again. She broke her concentration and jerked her head around as the world around began to fade again like the first time. 'What? Did I not stabilize the dream already?'
Looking around, Luna saw most of the room fade off. 'No, it's not fading... It's changing.'
Luna looked around the room to see the decorations fades until she found herself facing out of the doorway of the room she first found herself in. Turning around the room was now lit. It seems to be a bedroom. Nothing fancy, a bed, large bookshelf, and a desk.
At the desk was none other than Mark and Star at the Desk looking down. Luna turned around and walked up. She saw on the desk were some papers and somethings she didn't understand. It had numbers and letters but she couldn't decipher it. Done examining the papers Luna looked at the rest of the desk spotting a picture frame.
Inside was a picture of Mark and Star in what seems to be a family photo. Except, it was just them two. Smiling and happy as if others were there, but it was not but nothing but air. Now looking at Mark and Star, Luna saw their heads facing down. The dream was hazy and their a bit faces distorted but she could see tears.
'I... have I really not taken into consideration of how not seeing their family was like? They're alone, with strange ponies, and yet... they keep smiling on...' Luna's thoughts slowed and she kept thinking before she reinforced her shield. Unfortunately, it wasn't the negative energies of the dream affecting her. However, focusing on the shield got her to think of other things.
Now lost in thought, Luna froze, closed her eyes, and did a mental reset looking at Star and Mark.
Now having thought enough, Luna stopped and made a decision. She wrapped a gentle wing around both Star and Mark as she readied her magic. To her surprise, the quiet eerieness was ended upon contact, replaced with a quiet sob from them as they leaned into her and they cried, unaware of anything else.
Luna only held them tighter before her horn lit brightly as she dismantled the connection and dream. Slowly, the crumbling of the dream started showing its effects as the walls cracked and white light shined through. Soon the cracks broke apart filling the room as it all faded to nothing once more.
POV: Eclipse
'Uggghhhhh........-'
Eclipse groaned at the bright light in her eyes before turning to the side to escape its gaze only to fall right off the bed.
"Oof!"
With another groan, Eclipse got up and looked at the clock.
5:47pm
"UGNHHGH"
With an unnecessary groan, Eclipse got up before thinking about yesterday. She had time to think about her reassignment last night, and now she just doesn't know what to think. She's honestly kinda happy about it, but then again, she had hoped for a simple life. 'Rise the ranks, retire early, and then settle down somewhere. Buck, I'm in Princess Lune's Lunar Guard AND Equestria's most secretive Intelligent's Service!'
After Eclipse was finished ranting to herself, she found that she had been going in circles around her room. Luckily, nopony else was there so she didn't wake anypony. And now that she saw nopony around, she continued with an inward sigh thinking back at Luna's advice. 'but... then again, is it really so bad? I mean, all that's new is that I'm their personal guard and sure, the foals are cute, and fun to be around. More so than my frie-...'
At Eclipse's embarrassment that showed her face after realizing she had a better time with the foals than her friends, she decided to stop ranting and get on with her day. Still walking around, she stopped and yawned. 'I need coffee... Oh wait, the pirates blew our ship up and they don't have coffee on their own ships. Ugh, then fresh air wil-... h-haaaav..'
At the sound of Eclipse's thoughts melting, her gaze slowly fell upon the window. 'Wait why does a battleship have windows? This isn't some luxury cruise.'
With a shake of the head and a mental restart, Eclipse replayed the memory of a pony walking right past the window. Finding nothing that she could have mistaken for a pony, she walked to the window. Getting close she saw the signs of a ship dock. Now up close to the window, she opened it and stuck her head out.
Outside were ponies. These ponies, now labeled as dockworkers thanks to their bright vest and uniforms were unloading boxes and other items off the ship. 'Oh and hey, a compliment of city guards too. Wait...? Weren't we suppose to dock sometime tomorrow morning?'
Looking at the calendar conveniently placed near the door it showed that in fact, they were a day late as she expected them to be. 'Maybe I've been asleep for far longer than I should have,' thought Eclipse with another groan as instead of a face hoof, her head fell face-first into the wall.
With the realization and the crack of wood, Eclipse's frustration was made known to the ship's crew and the dockworkers outside.