Okay. It was time for Moondog to get this “leadership” thing underway.
After a week or so, everything in the new dynasty was progressing relatively smoothly. True to her word, Twilight had required minimal nightmare work and none of the castle guards were suddenly having nightmares about paperwork. No one across Equestria was having nightmares about the transition. Easy.
Which gave Moondog time to think.
Mom could stay up-to-date on Equestria simply by leaving the dream realm. Moondog… okay, could do that, too, but much more painfully. And she had authority now. (Dun dun dunnnnnn!) She wasn’t going to go out into the physical world unless she needed to. Really, truly, genuinely needed. There was nothing wrong with outsourcing a fraction of your existence! She needed some kind of courier who could bring real-world messages to her and send out her own messages to whoever was needed.
Who would that be, though?
Between familiarity and her own skill, Meadow was technically the best bet, but she was just 16; in addition to possibly running afoul of child labor laws, having to gather, read, and regurgitate countless reports night in, night out would be too stressful for her. And would they all get mailed to her or would she have to move to Canterlot to be near the rest of the court? Either way, bad idea. Maybe when she was older. Shining Armor and Pharynx also would’ve been good, but they had their own duties that Moondog couldn’t pull them away from, either in good conscience or legally.
So, train somepony? Possible, but eh. Moondog wasn’t a big fan of extensive training. How would she even pick a pony, anyway? Put out a classified? How many ponies would respond who were actually interested rather than being suck-ups? She could train Raven, but stars knew the poor soul had her hooves full with Twilight and wouldn’t appreciate having another set of responsibilities dumped on her.
royaltyness.getHateLevel(); return: 10.5
No wonder Mom and Aunt Celly had wanted to retire.
She needed to pull Twilight in on this. At least Aunt Celly had some sort of structure in place for hiring ponies. Résumés, interviews, all that jazz. Man, living in the real world was complicated.
“Hey, uh, Twilight?”
“WHAT HAPPENED?!”
The force of Twilight’s sudden yell literally blew the dream apart. Trees flew to the horizon, castles shattered, ice cream cones disintegrated, the sky itself was powdered. When the space cleared, Moondog and Twilight were standing in a massive, ten-foot-deep crater that had been fused into glass. Moondog blinked.
“Sorry,” Twilight said quickly, folding her wings back up. “I’m… still a little high-strung at the moment. And paranoid. Everything’s going great for me, so it’s gotta be really bad for you, right? Sorry.” She grinned sheepishly.
dream.reconstitute();
“That depends on what you think is ‘bad’,” said Moondog as dirt flowed down to fill the crater. “I’m basically looking for a mailmare. Somepony who can give me reports on what’s happening in Equestria and any requests from ponies or what have you.”
“Okay.” Twilight tilted her head. “And the problem is…?”
“Where do I start?” Moondog asked, flaring her wings. “It’s easy for you, but- Do I need to train them in dream magic? Will they need to do anything more than read whatever you send them? What happens when I start getting as much mail as Mom or Aunt Celly? Will I need a team? What happens when they’re too anxious to get to sleep? And all that jazz and more.”
“Ah.”
Moondog kneaded her face and groaned. “Why does something as simple as interdimensionality have to make things so complicated?”
“I know, right?” Twilight flicked an ear. “You know, I could-”
“When some new disaster threatens Equestria in, I dunno, a year and you’re stressing yourself out to keep it all together, the last thing you’ll want to do before going to sleep is read my fan mail.”
“…Fair enough.” Twilight stared at the ground as she paced, sending ripples through the dirt. “Sending a daily report to a single pony would work for now, but that’s just a stopgap solution… But it would work… So if we use that for now…”
As Twilight rambled on, Moondog thought. “For now” might not last long. If they needed a magical solution for this, somepony trained in dream magic would be their best bet. It was a shame the list of ponies who knew dream magic to any significant degree was punishingly short. And they’d also need some experience in regular old thaumatic magic to do work outside. That was a pretty narrow window to look through. So narrow that Moondog was willing to overlook some personality flaws as long as they did their job. (And who was she to talk about personality flaws?) So: a unicorn who not only knew dream magic but experimented with it who may or may not have problems with authority. There weren’t many-
notify(self.getThoughts(), new Idea());
But she only needed one, right?
Twilight was still talking to herself. “…need to look for? I guess once the shock wears off, it’d just be like any other courier job… So if you don’t know what sort of pony you want-”
Moondog interrupted her with a cough. “Actually, I do kinda have an idea now, but… you’re probably not gonna like it.”
“Who is it?”
Astral Mind was clearly bored as she sat in the interrogation room. Not great, but it was better than sullen, angsty, and cynical. Her legs unfettered, she drummed her hoof on the tabletop and whistled out an old folk song. Moondog stood outside the door, watching her. (The nearest guard stood a few yards away, watching her.) Weird how this all could turn out. Somepony who’d once attempted to enslave her, now potentially her employee. (Mom’s anti-oneiromancy charm was still running strong, surprisingly enough. She’d need to do something about that.)
To Moondog’s surprise (and embarrassment at this being a surprise), Twilight had been ecstatic at the suggestion. “Oooh, that’s a great idea! She’s already used to you and wasn’t that deep into villainy from the sounds of things! Getting her to turn over a new leaf would be great! Everyone deserves a second chance.”
“You mean like the Terrible Trio?”
“Discord’s and Celestia’s emotions were running high and that was a mistake. I’m already trying to figure out the best way to safely let them out and get to work. So, yes, like them.”
And so Twilight had put together a meeting to give Moondog and Astral a little real-world face time with one another. Astral was led to this room to wait for Moondog. And while doing it in dreams would’ve definitely been preferable, Moondog couldn’t deny that this had been set up smoothly.
Moondog took a deep breath and opened up the door. Astral jumped a little when she saw who walked inside, then put her fetlock to her mouth and bit it. She winced and stared between her leg and Moondog.
“Hello there,” Moondog said, flowing into her chair and smiling.
Astral got her mouth working again. “Um. Hi. Why’re you doing this in the real world? Whatever…” She waved a hoof around. “…‘this’ is.”
“Because doing it in a place where I have unlimited control over absolutely everything would be a bit intimidating for you.” Unfortunately for Moondog, this was an instance where she really, truly, genuinely needed to go out into the physical world.
At least, that was what she’d thought. Astral shrugged and wiggled a hoof. “Eh. Dunno. That’s not that different from here. I’m in prison and I heard you’re a princess now, so…” Another shrug. She looked Moondog up and down. “You actually don’t look that bad.”
“Yeah.” Moondog flicked at her crown with her mane. “Most of this is just semi-copied from Mom, though. It’s not like I came up with it myself. So you can thank her for her good fashion sense.” She cleared her nonexistent throat. “But enough about me! Let’s talk about you. How’re you doing?”
Astral got a brief Look on her face, then shrugged yet again. To be honest, shrugging was really one of the best reactions to have to this sort of situation. “Eh. Alright. Free room and board, with air conditioning and a decent roof over my head, which is more I can say about my time with the Eschaton. My schedule is micromanaged down to the minute, so not much new there. Books’re nice.” She paused and tapped the tabletop a few times. “Beds’re junk, but I’m actually sleeping well for once. Is that because of you or because I’m away from him?”
Moondog wiggled a wing noncommittally. “A bit of both, leaning towards the second. Sleep is supposed to be restful, so if you’re doing dream-cultisty things all night, you’re technically not sleeping well. I’m around, but you don’t get a lot of nightmares for me to take down.”
“Oh. Uh…”
Astral looked at Moondog. Moondog looked at Astral. Moondog suspected she wanted to say “thank you” but didn’t want to look vulnerable. Especially not in front of the person responsible for being in jail to begin with. If that were true, she’d want to look like she’d have some measure of control over the situation, so she’d choose a new line of conversation in 3… 2… 1…
“So, so, why are you here?” Astral blurted out.
“You want a job?”
Silence fell as Astral boggled. Moondog resisted the urge to break it. If Astral needed time to think, she’d get that time. (Within reason; Moondog wasn’t going to sit there for an hour.) Eventually, Astral managed to find her voice again. “A… A job?” she half-croaked.
E:\Equestria\Canterlot\Canterlot Penitentiary> foreach ($syn in $jobSynonyms) { echo $syn }“Sure. Office, stint, profession, appointment, result of gainful employment, livelihood, perpetual source of ennui, vocation, career, income flow-”
“But… actual, contracted, put-on-my-tiny-résumé job, right? With… With you.” Astral pointed at Moondog.
“Paycheck and benefits and everything,” Moondog answered as she spread her wings wide.
“Heh.” Astral smirked. “Me? Working for you? You must be crazy.”
Moondog grinned guilelessly and held a pair of feathers a centimeter apart. “I’m made of dreams, what’d you expect?”
“I’m serious,” Astral said, her smirk vanishing.
“So am I. About my offer and your question.”
“Great. What kind of job, bait for nightmares?”
“No, that’s Blueblood. It’s simple. Promise.” With a wing, Moondog made a cross where her heart would be. “To start with, since I need occasional catchups on Equestria, just in case, I’m going to arrange for a report to be put together at the end of the day and sent to you. If there’s anything I need to know on it, when you go to sleep, you contact me and let me know. And if that works, maybe we can experiment with dream magic to make it a little bit easier.” A smile. “See? Simple.”
“Too simple,” Astral snorted. “Can’t you leave dreams yourself to read it?”
“A moon ago, I would’ve had to, and I still could, but… princeeeeeeeess!” Moondog singsonged. “Now that there’s no one above me, I’m allowed to be petty. Besides…” Her voice dropped a little. “I really, really don’t like it out here. I can literally feel my life getting eaten away.”
“What a shame,” mumbled Astral. She leaned over the table and raised her voice. “Look, you know who I am, right? I am a cultist. Pretty much go-to enemy number one for cheap adventure pulps. And you want me… to work for the Royal Court.”
“Congratulations!” said Moondog, smiling broadly. “We’re on the same page. Yes, I do want all of that.”
“Why, by all the stars above, would you-” Astral cut herself off. Her eyes narrowed slowly. “You’re pulling the reformation- thing,” she said quietly. “Like with Luna and Discord and the changelings and you’re doing the reformation thing!” She snorted and put a hoof to her face. “You are ripping off Twilight so bad right now.”
And so the cat exited the bag, bound for Vanhoover. Moondog would’ve liked to keep it in there a little longer, but there was nothing to it now. Might as well go all-in, then. “Of course I’m ripping off Twilight,” she said. “What she does works. What, do you think I’d rip off someone like Discord, who manages to be both all-powerful and a complete failure?”
“There’s never any time where you aren’t ripping me off!” protested Discord.
“I’m fine sitting here, you know,” said Astral. “It’s neat. Simple. I know what’s going to happen.”
Moondog made a circular motion with her hoof. “Day in, day out, over and over and over. The monotony’ll crush you like dragons crush gems. Right now, you might be fine, but are you really happy?”
“Look, Princess,” said Astral, somehow managing to make the word sound like a slur, “I don’t need your help. What do you think you’re going to do, nobly swoop in and save me from this? I mean, after all I did, maybe I deserve this!”
“Maybe you do. Maybe you don’t. Maybe I don’t care about that either way.”
But Moondog didn’t need to be a mentally-attuned psychic gestalt to see that she wasn’t getting anywhere fast with this. Astral was clamming up and the words she was saying were excuses, not reasons. Why? Self-loathing, maybe. She hadn’t been all that happy to serve under the Eschaton, so perhaps, looking back now, she saw it as downright cringeworthy. Which would mean she didn’t think much of herself. So…
“And it’s not like taking notes is all you would do,” Moondog said casually. “It’d get to be too much, after a while. Maybe you could work with dream magic and make the letter-to-dreamworld process easier on you. Don’t know how just yet, but that’s what research is all about, right?”
Astral sat up slightly, her eyes widening a tad and her pupils dilating juuuuuust a little. Moondog had hit a nerve — or, more likely, scratched an itch. Maybe now, she’d- But no. Astral settled back down and stayed silent.
Dagnabbit. Moondog didn’t have much else to say at the moment. She could try for a little while longer, but, well, real world. She needed to mull this over a little. Eventually, she said, “Well, alright, then.” Moondog stood up. “I’ll give you time to think. It’s a lot to throw on you at once.”
“No kidding,” mumbled Astral.
“And I know I’m… not exactly a person you really want to talk to, what with the destroying your cult and all-”
“It wasn’t my cult.”
“-so I’ll look for someone who doesn’t have as personal a connection to you but who’s gone through the same deal as you. Maybe that’ll let you think more clearly.”
“What?” Astral smirked. “You think you’ll find somebody who can think like me? Sure.”
“Oh, I don’t know. Equestria’s a pretty big place.”
Astral rolled her eyes. “Good luck finding a pony who blindly planned on taking over Equestria at the behest of another only to back out at the last possible second.”
“Hey, Tempest. I have a proposal for you.”
Tempest casually pulled a spear out of the nearest zombie (being well-armed during the zombie apocalypse was a good dream for her), lifted her visor, and shot a glance at Moondog. “No, I’m not gonna marry you.”
“Hardy har har,” Moondog said as she adjusted her armor. “You know how I’ve been bugging you about beating up nightmares? I’ve got a pony who needs a talking-to and you seem like the best pony to give it. Do that, and I’ll leave you alone.”
“…I’m gonna need more context than that.”
“Alright.”
safeZone.setSize(10);
After setting up a shield to keep the zombies from getting too close, Moondog laid out her situation and what she needed, finishing with, “…so I figure, if you come in, somepony who’s been in nearly the same situation as her, she won’t be able to throw away your arguments so easily. So whaddya say?”
“Hmm.” Tempest tapped the haft of her spear against her leg. “What if I talk to her and she doesn’t listen to me?”
“Then she doesn’t listen to you, our deal is still fulfilled since you talked to her, and you never hear another word from me. Unless you want to.”
Yet Tempest still didn’t say anything. She smacked her lips and hmmed and hahed and occasionally decapitated another zombie. Apparently, using weapons to devastating effect was her version of a thinking tic.
Moondog coughed. “Um, not to rush you or anything, but I kinda am on the clock now, what with the princessing and all… Want me to… leave and come back later?”
“No,” Tempest said suddenly. “You don’t need to never bug me again, just- wait a year before asking. Equestria has paradigm shifts biannually these days, so I’m still getting my hooves under me. Maybe, now that Twilight’s finally a full-blown princess, things can calm down. But other than that, what the hay, I’ll do it.”
“Ha! Thank you. This’ll be a huge help to me. I owe you… something.”
“Cool.” Tempest pulled her spear back for a swing. “Also duck.”
The guard outside the interrogation room — the same guard as last time — swallowed. “It’s not always this weird, is it?” she muttered.
The oneiroturgic golem princess and the reformed conqueror of Canterlot looked at each other. “This? Weird?” Moondog said cheerfully. “Nooooo. What makes you think this is weird?”
“Usually, it’s weirder,” said Tempest, “but it’s in bursts. Everything gets super weird for a day, then it all goes back to normal for a week.”
“Allllllllright then,” the guard said quietly. She jerked her head towards the door and stepped aside.
When she saw them enter, all Astral did was raise an eyebrow at Tempest. “So,” she said to Moondog, “who’s the steely-eyed guardsmare? Somepony important?”
“Oh, quite important,” said Moondog, barely holding back a smug smile. “You might know the name, in fact.”
Tempest took a seat across from Astral and intoned, “Tempest Shadow.”
Astral’s face went blank. “Who?”
Tempest twitched a little and Moondog felt her thoughts skip a few thaums. “Tempest Shadow,” Tempest repeated, with less conviction.
“You say that name like it means something when it very clearly doesn’t.”
“The… Storm King’s general?”
“If I knew who the Storm King was,” Astral enunciated, “then don’t you think I’d know who you were?”
By now, Tempest actually sounded a little desperate. Moondog couldn’t blame her. “Big yeti guy, had the princesses turned to stone, took over Canterlot a year back-”
“Oooh,” said Astral, nodding. (Tempest actually sighed with relief.) “Right, that guy.” Seeing the looks on Moondog’s and Tempest’s faces, she said, “Look, when you’re in an illegal mystery cult hiding out off the map, the news is sometimes hard to come by, forgive me if I don’t know everything.” Pause. “Wait. Did Moondog get to you, too? And now you’re a-” She made air quotes. “-‘good guy’.”
“No, that was Twilight. Moondog’s trying, but I don’t listen to her, so she’s switching her efforts to you.”
Astral made a Face at Moondog, who just smiled back. She looked back at Tempest and shook her head. “I don’t know why you’re doing this. It’s stupid, trying to think you can change me.”
“Why?” asked Tempest.
The question seemed to take Astral off-guard; she twitched back and blinked. “W-what do you mean?” she asked shakily. “Isn’t, isn’t it obvious?”
“To me? Nope. And not to her, either.” Tempest jerked her head at Moondog.
“I… It’s…” Astral looked between them. “I was in a cult, for Luna’s sake!” she half-yelled, her voice tight. “I tried to take over Equestria! I tried to mind-control one of its current princesses! And you think I can take on a job-” She smacked the tabletop. “-just like that?”
“I mean, I’m forgiving you,” said Moondog, shrugging, “sooo… kinda, yeah?”
Tempest waved Moondog down, never taking her eyes from Astral. “And let’s ignore that for a sec. So you think, just because you were in a cult once upon a time, that’s that? That your path’s set and you ought to just stay here? Never changing or growing?”
“I…” Astral wove her head back and forth, looking down to avoid meeting Tempest’s gaze. “That’s… kind of a cynical way of putting it…”
“Am I wrong?”
“I… guess not-”
“That sort of resigned fatalism is the epitome of loser ideologies,” Tempest said bluntly. “You’re a coward, you know that?”
Astral’s head snapped up and her ears flattened like they’d been run over by a train. Her breathing grew loud and labored. Leaning over the table, she snarled, “Say. That. Again.”
“That sort of resigned fatalism is the epitome of loser ideologies,” Tempest said bluntly. “You’re a coward, you know that?”
Moondog’s wings twitched open slightly, but Astral didn’t make any more moves except to tighten her jaw. She slowly sank back into her seat, glaring at an utterly unperturbed Tempest. “Yeah?” she managed to spit out. “And how would you know?”
“Experience. In the past, as the Storm King’s general, I… did bad things in the name of a fruitless goal.” Tempest absently scratched at her forehead. “And I think I always knew it was fruitless, but after a while, I just kept doing what I was doing because it was all I knew how to do. I was scared of doing something I didn’t know and I was scared of admitting that I’d made all those mistakes for nothing. It was easier to just force it all down and pretend I didn’t care.”
Tempest leaned back in her chair. “That’s you. You’re just letting yourself get washed downstream instead of pulling yourself out because lethargically floating along is easier. You don’t know what’s on the shore, and rather than risk yourself by finding out, you pretend you don’t care and let yourself waste away.”
Astral opened her mouth and raised a hoof, but she didn’t say anything, like talking back was an impulsive reflex even if she didn’t have anything to say. And rendering Astral thoughtful was something Moondog hadn’t managed yet. Astral’s ears twitched as she looked away, clicking her teeth and drumming a hoof on the table.
Tempest spoke up again. “Besides, what do you want to be able to say in forty years? That your entire life was defined by wallowing around in this one crappy moment, or that you grew up and turned yourself around? ’Cause I did the second, and I feel great.” She grinned. It was a somewhat unsettling expression on her face.
Astral’s behavior didn’t change. Moondog was ready to settle in for (ugh) a good, long wait when Tempest suddenly stood up, whispered, “Trust me,” to Moondog, and walked out. Moondog almost stopped her, but decided that, since she’d brought Tempest here to let her be Tempest, she might as well let Tempest be Tempest. Moondog flowed into the vacated chair and waited.
“Why do you care?” Astral suddenly asked.
“Hmm?”
“Why are you asking me? Is it just because I already know dream magic?”
“Does it matter?” Moondog made a shrugging motion with her wings.
“Well-” Astral screwed her jaw shut, like her words were painful to say, then spat out, “Yeah, kinda. It’s-” Her breath briefly caught in her throat. “Yeah, I’m, I’m scared. I-” She sighed and slouched forward. “Who am I kidding,” she mumbled, “you’re a mental golem and I’m a criminal, you’ve already gone through my head.”
“Actually, no,” said Moondog. When Astral perked up slightly, Moondog continued, “Just rifling through somepony’s memories isn’t something I do off the job. It’s just rude, you know? I don’t know anything about you that you haven’t said. There’s probably laws against it, anyway.” Pause. “And if there aren’t, I’ll need to talk to Twilight about making sure there are.”
A snort from Astral. “You, O princess, are one strange pony.”
“Not a pony.”
Astral rolled her eyes, pushed herself up, and muttered, “So, then. Did you ever stop to think about me? I mean, I was thirty-seven and trying to take over the world.” She laughed bitterly. “What kind of pony tries to use a dream cult to take over the world at thirty-seven?”
“A more sophisticated one than one who tries to use a dream cult to take over the world at twenty-four.”
“The Eschaton was that young? Huh.” Pause. “That explains a lot.” She shook her head. “Anyway, I- Look, if, if you don’t want to hear this, just-”
“I can tell when you’re stalling,” Moondog said. “Get on with it.”
Astral shot Moondog a glare, but she chuckled weakly. Her expression quickly vanished, though. “I’ve-” Swallow. “I’ve never been the best at anything. Never even in the top ten percent. Top fifteen percent, sure, but who cares about them? Parents overlooked me for my brothers and sisters. Always outclassed in school. Never picked first or even sixth for sports. Passed over for promotions at jobs because there was always one or two ponies more suited than me. And… I… I worked my tail off trying to get better at- at anything, but I was never better than just a patch that was good enough until somepony else came along, and after that, I’d be ripped off and thrown away. I…” Sigh. “I guess I just… wanted to be wanted. Didn’t matter by who or for what.”
Moondog had never personally experienced that particular feeling, but she knew how good it felt when Mom had passed off her responsibilities. Astral had never felt anything like that. Any one of those incidents wasn’t much, but build them up over a lifetime… “And the Eschaton made you feel wanted?”
“…Kinda, yeah. It was part of how he sold the whole deal to me in the first place. And he actually delivered! I mean, back before that book came out, I was in his inner circle when that was still kind of a big deal. I could finally feel good about myself. Honestly, the fact that I’d be taking over the world was kind of secondary.” Astral grinned crookedly. “Even if that failed, I’d still be wanted, right?”
The grin vanished as she continued, “And now… you’re here, handing me a job offer like I didn’t try to enslave you, and- Tambelon’s bells, you bet I’m scared. Of you, of working for the Court, of-” Astral’s voice caught in her throat. “Of being replaced,” she whispered. “And- I- Yeah.” She turned red and looked away. “Tht’s bt it,” she mumbled.
It was funny, how small things could have big impacts and big things could have small impacts. Moondog had grown from a self-improvement spell idly applied to a simple golem. Conversely, here was Astral, a lifetime of inadequacies slowly piling up until trying something new was some terrifying course of action and a second chance wasn’t something she deserved. She probably hadn’t even thought about it much until Tempest had forced her to think about it. She had issues. Good thing Moondog had been built to deal with issues. Granted, these were more issues than she usually handled at once and never this in-depth, but a self-aware golem who didn’t work on growing and improving themselves was a pretty lame self-aware golem.
“Astral,” Moondog said. “Technically, all I need is somepony who knows enough about dream magic to come visit me every night and tell me what’s going on. If I wanted to stop there, I could pick some scribe out, spend a week training her in oneiroturgy, and bam: done. Hay, I wouldn’t need to do any training if I just remembered to go to her dreams every night and listen to her. But if I can do more than that, why shouldn’t I?”
She crossed her forelegs and slouched on the table. “Yeah, part of the reason I’m reaching out to you is because you know dream magic. But mostly, that just means you’re used to this. You won’t bat an eye at interobjects. And that means I have a place to start working with you. Can you imagine me reaching out to reform you apropos of nothing?”
Astral looked up at the ceiling for a moment, then grimaced. “Right, yeah. But why do this at all? Why do you care about- reforming anyone?”
Moondog shrugged. “Why not? It makes the world a better place. I’ll never be Twilight or any of her friends, reforming an entire species or dark gods just by being sweet. But I can try. If I can add just a little goodness into the world besides dreams, I’ll try.”
“With me,” Astral said, neither sarcastically nor hopefully.
“With you.” Moondog nodded. “Anything that can help you grow, even if it starts with you talking with me every night when you check in for community service.”
It took a moment, but Astral’s pupils twitched and her breath hitched once she got the significance of the last two words. “Really?” she asked quietly.
“At one point after you spoke with Mom, I believe your words were…”
E:\Equestria\Canterlot\Canterlot Penitentiary> Set-Voice Moondog.tntbs.Voice "Astral Mind.pny".Voice
“‘…we’ll all get what we deserve,’” Moondog said in Astral’s voice. “You’d given up on the whole villainy thing by then, hadn’t you? Which means you’re practically halfway to reformation already. So if community service can get you going a little faster, sure, we can probably get you out of here early. Orange isn’t your color, anyway.”
Astral looked at her jumpsuit and chuckled. “No,” she said. “No, it’s not.”
Then the smile slowly slipped away again as she went back to tapping the tabletop with her hoof. Moondog was glad of this; it meant Astral couldn’t see how much she was biting her lip. She got the feeling that, if she pushed just a little harder, Astral would reject the offer out of spite. Of course, that was what Moondog got for deliberately trying to work with a (former) villain. It was probably great that she got this far at all. Who knew where she’d be if she hadn’t taken Tempest in? (Of course, Twilight would’ve probably gotten this done yesterday, if not earlier. But one step at a time, and don’t compare yourself to the masters first thing.)
Astral suddenly looked up again and said, her voice slightly shaky, “You were… serious about experimenting with dream magic, yeah?”
Moondog’s ears turned forward. “Sure. Why?”
“Because I want a few conditions.” Astral took a psych-up breath. “First, access to some better magic textbooks. The prison library has good fiction, but it’s crap for studying. Like you said, in maybe a year, you’ll be getting carriageloads of mail every day, and I’ll go to Tartarus before I have to read and memorize a tenth of that. I want to be able to move the contents of those letters into the dream realm without actually reading them. The Eschaton was already working on something along those lines and I can remember his spellwork.”
“How close was he?” Moondog’s mind was already whirring. If they could get that working…
“Not sure. But it can’t be that hard, right? Look, Luna could go in and out of the dream realm without even falling asleep, I’m pretty sure we can get a few letters in.”
Put like that, it almost sounded reasonable. “Sounds good, but how are you gonna test it?”
“That’s part two. When I ask, I want to be able to have this-” Astral flicked her inhibitor ring. “-removed so I can do some actual work with whatever magic I’m studying. Stick as many guards on me as you want, put it back on when I’m done, restrict it to certain days, I just need to be able to work with my own magic. That, or send my notes to somepony who knows what they’re doing and can test it for me.”
All this with only the vaguest, most general prompting. Astral was a sharp mare. Moondog nodded. “Anything else?”
“Yeah. I want to call you Your Nibs.”
“Deliver my letters properly and you can call me whatever you want. Honestly, I’d like having somepony who isn’t tripping over themselves to appease me.”
Astral snorted in amusement. “Nice. Fine, I’ll do it. Yes, really, you don’t need to ask me again. I’m-” She paused, bit her lip, and went with the answer that didn’t show how vulnerable she was. “It’s not likely I’ll be replaced in dream magic anytime soon.”
Moondog didn’t grin, but it was a close thing. “Alright, then,” she said. “I’ll get it finalized and let you know when to expect reports. Oh, and…”
E:\Equestria\Canterlot\Canterlot Penitentiary> Set-Permissions "Astral Mind.pny" | New-Object MagicAccessRule("onieromancy", "FullControl")With a spark of her horn, Moondog pulled away Mom’s old spell. “You can use dream magic again now. I know you’re not starting yet, but… consider it a gift.”
“Well, uh…” Astral blinked. “Um. Thanks, I guess?” She shrugged. “I don’t know. Be seeing you.” She gave a sort of casual, half-facetious salute.
Nodding to her, Moondog stood up. “Be seeing you.” She made for the door.
“…H-hey. Your Nibs?”
Moondog turned around.
“Thanks,” Astral said quietly. “Really.” She was blinking a lot.
“You’re welcome,” Moondog said, giving her a small smile, and left the room.
Outside, the guard looked between Moondog and the door. “And you’re… not good at this?” the guard asked.
“Probably not,” Moondog said with a shrug. “I don’t know, this is the first redemption I’ve tried.”
“Ah. …You know, if… this is you not being good, and Princess Twilight is good at this, then if we stuck her in prison for an hour every day, we’d probably have everypony reformed and out on good behavior in a year.”
“Toss that idea to Twilight, and I bet you ten bits she’ll figure out how to make time for it.”
That night, Moondog got a message in a manner she wasn’t expecting.
notify(self.getSpellMessages(), sm); readSpellMessage(sm);
Your Royal Onieromancerity, Testing testing testing. Your Nibs, the Eschaton said this spell could be used to communicate with him across dreams, so I'm seeing if it can find you. If you don't respond, I'll assume it didn't. Dreaminess Gofer Astral Mind
SpellMessage oRsp = new SpellMessage(); oRsp.compose();
Astral, Your message didn't reach me, sorry. Her Most Totally Noble Somnionautic Princess Moondog
oRsp.send(astralMind); [...] notify(self.getSpellMessages(), sm); readSpellMessage(sm);
Bummer. Guess I'll never have a way to reach you in case things go south and any communication breakdowns will totally be not my fault!
SpellMessage oRsp = new SpellMessage(); oRsp.compose();
Don't make me sic Twilight on you. She'll forget she's supposed to be a princess full-time now and she'll science you out of sensibility with a smile on her snout and a song in her soul.
oRsp.send(astralMind); [...] notify(self.getSpellMessages(), sm); readSpellMessage(sm);
Should I be excited, terrified, or annoyed? Yes. (Please don't respond to this one tonight. It took me a while to get the spell working and I'm beat.)
Yeah. She’d be alright.