There was only one pony that did what I could do. For a thousand years Equestria had been without my skills—and it showed. There were nightmares and horrors that lurked in the dream realm, but surprisingly they didn't linger around Canterlot.
I knew why, of course, and she was snoozing in the affluent area of the city with her husband and their foal. She had saved me almost as surely as Twilight Sparkle had. "It's time to inspire."
Magic had settled nicely after Discord had been dealt with, and now I had the opportunity to cast some alicorn-level magic on a scale that would normally be beyond even an alicorn—but this was my special talent.
I poured all my magic through my horn and then back into my body. Slowly, I teased my spirit free and let my form slump down into the soft bed of my quarters while I soared free. Like this, I felt like a midnight flame—a burning pyre of magic that blazed in the sky.
It didn't matter if ponies saw the new black star burning in the sky above Canterlot. I knew they knew it was me, but what truly amazed me was their smiles. This world was so different to how it had been.
My target, however, was almost twenty tiny dreamers below the mountain's slope. Drifting off the edge of the city—avoiding a burning-bright dream coming from the Mango residence—I began floating down toward the new school.
Each of the tiny dreamers had their own little shards of a whole that only the bats and myself had ever understood. Looking into their dreams always felt like such a violation. Instead of peeking, I built a new dream based on the world around us. I put a barracks in it, beds, and finally I put myself into it.
Dreams like this were both lonely and peaceful. They reminded me too much of the segregation of being on the moon. I reached out for the three teachers. First their was the pegasus, Surprise. Second an earth pony, Sweetie Drops. Last was a unicorn, and as I touched her sleeping mind, I decided she would now be called burning-fire-pain.
Every sense felt seared at trying to touch her mind. I wondered what I was to do when Sweetie Drops tried to get my attention. "Yes?"
"Lyra said to leave her out of the dream. It's not a good idea to touch her dreams—even her sister and father don't try to touch her dreams." She sounded most anxious. "Are you alright?"
I nodded, not sure how to take the news. More importantly, she didn't mentioned Lyra's mother's dream magics. "Who trained her to defend herself in this way?" With the searing pain distracting me, I'd let the edges of this dream fray a little. Centering myself, I pulled everything back together. "Never mind, we'll discuss that later. It's time to bring the foals in—none of them have Lyra's ability?"
She looked like she'd had to explain things about her wife enough that it had become somewhat of a comedy to her. "I don't believe another pony in all Equestria has Lyra's abilities. Which is probably for the best."
Sweetie Drops looked so serious until she winked at me. Adjusting to modern times had been hard so far, but the hardest part was adapting to modern comedy, but this I understood. "Very well, let's get this welcome underway.
Walking up to the building that was a mirror of the one that held the foals in the waking world, I reached out to them all, felt their tiny selves, and gently tugged them into these new beds.
Of course, they started to wake up in this dream world almost immediately. Tired fillies and colts climbing slowly out of their beds only to look down the dormitory to the entrance and see me. Most seemed to freeze in surprise. I recognized three from Ponyville—one of whom bowed to me.
Another—a colt—bowed as well, and a moment later they all seemed to catch on. It was thrilling to have ponies acknowledge me like this. I'd fought my sister and done some questionable things just to have this. "Please rise and welcome to Princess Luna's School's first night class."
I was happy enough to teach them the basics of dream navigation. After reading how poorly one little encounter with a dream-world monster had gone, she felt obliged to teach rudimentary dream combat to them.
It was nice. It felt nice to do. They were eager, though not all of them were particularly skilled. One filly in particular, though, had the knack for this that I wouldn't have expected. She could fly, manifest anything she wished, and even just ignore otherwise physical attacks with just her thoughts.
Copper Fluff was her name, and after the first night I could already see great potential in her growth. I bid my new students farewell and left them to their own dreams.
Even in the pregnant moments of the pre-dawn morning—when I normally got mopey about the day starting—I felt full of energy. When I settled back into my body and let true sleep catch me—it came.
Inky darkness flooded around me and whispered to me. I felt choked and dying, but I knew it wouldn't kill me. Rallying my strength, and calling on the new joy that teaching had brought me, I shrank the Tantabus down to a tiny thing. It was my fear and my doubts in myself. Only the Tantabus knew how terrible a pony I could be, and now it wouldn't any longer.
"Goodbye. I don't need you anymore." With that I dismissed it—let those negative emotions swirl around my dream until they pulled back into me. It was an easier weight to bear knowing there were new dreamers in the world.