It was a strange thing that sleeping could count as work for Vesper. But after devoting hours to asking dockworkers and anypony she could find along the wharf about their ship, eventually she had to admit that she just wasn't very good at this. Convincing people to talk to her was simple enough—but there just didn't seem to be that much for witnesses to see.
After asking for hours, all she could know for sure was that a few dockhands working across the wharf thought they saw someone walk onto the deck from the city, go below for a few minutes, then leave again, alone. Nothing suspicious, no sounds of a fight. It had been so innocuous that no one had even remembered much about their appearance.
"They wore a jacket." That hadn't seemed unusual to the workers, and why should it? This wasn't the high city, the docks were filled with shady-looking characters all the time. Many of those who worked here at the bottom of society did so because they had nowhere else to go. Plenty had criminal pasts, or lives they wanted to stay away from. When Vesper tried to press, she met swift resistance.
But while there was very little for her to do as an investigator, there was another kind of search she could conduct—into the Dreamlands. Pale Light had explained quite clearly what powers she might wield, to travel between dreams and pass freely through the unconscious world. What she'd taken before to be nearly useless parts of her tribe's gifts might actually turn out to be the most important.
Kaelynn might've been kidnapped, might be held under all kinds of terrible conditions. But she still needed to sleep. Only Ryan's strange species allowed him to escape that requirement.
It was hardly the most comfortable and relaxing circumstances to lull herself to the unconscious world. Blake wasn't entirely unreceptive to her tonight, and her own anxiety over Kaelynn wouldn't just go away. She too couldn't help but think that things might've been different, if only she stayed.
But the bats had substances for that, and so she took a phial of one. Not Everwake, the potion hawked as a cure to bat insomnia Equestria over, but its reverse—Styx. One sip, and all Vesper's anxiety melted away. She collapsed, and within moments found herself in the familiar domain of dream.
She made it to the gate, and was halfway through her usual effort of wedging it open and slipping out of her dream, when something finally stopped her.
In this dream, she was aboard the Bright Hawk, under attack by a veritable army of pirates. They looked like the characters of the Disneyland ride, crude mannequins with waxy human skin and exaggerated costumes. They didn't attack her, but were frozen in a bizarre tableau, raiding the ship and dragging away a dream version of Kaelynn. Here, she was a mermaid in a net, with a seapony tail and her cutie mark.
But dreams didn't have to make sense, and Vesper had learned not to pay much attention. She might not have noticed anything at all, except for one figure that seemed more alive than the others. She turned from the gate—here manifested as the door into Vesper's own room, grown a full story tall without lifting the ceiling in a comical warping of proportions—to the one watching her.
Not a pony pirate, as she'd initially thought. Not even another bat, somehow wormed into her dream. This was someone else, someone she recognized.
Vesper stopped what she was doing, letting the gate slide closed. She turned slowly, lowering her head to the stranger. She didn't bow, exactly—she still wasn't sure she'd ever do that. But it was close. "Are you really here?"
"The answer depends on your perspective," said Princess Luna. Her dream self wasn't so tall and grand this time—she fit easily in the Bright Hawk's cramped hallways, only a head or so taller than Vesper. Her mane was still elegant and otherworldly, rippling to an unseen wind. Where it drifted, it passed through the walls without resistance, more real than anything the dream had manifested around them. "Strictly, no. Spiritually, yes."
Vesper resisted the urge to run over and embrace her. Authority she might be to the creatures of Equestria, she was a total stranger to Vesper. One previous conversation did not qualify the bat as her friend. "I can't tell you how good this timing is, Princess. Seriously... you have no idea."
"Oh?" She tilted her head to the side, and space warped around them. The dream unraveled around her, until whiteness extended on all sides, save for one aspect. The pirate modeled after an Earth celebrity, kidnapping Kaelynn's dream form. "This is not why I sought you out, Vesper. But I may have some wisdom to share regardless."
Vesper considered that. She wasn't likely to keep Luna for long—this pony was one of the most important in all Equestria, even if she wasn't ruling anymore in the strictest sense. She had a whole world of dreams to supervise, not just this one. Or was she just here as a hobby, now that she had retired? Now was the wrong time to ask.
"You first. Why did you come looking for me?"
"Pale Light spoke of you," the princess said. "You met him here, in the Dreaming. You may not remember, I trained him to avoid the lasting memory of creatures he meets."
She grinned weakly. "Pale? I haven't forgotten him. We talk most nights, though I'll admit I don't think he likes spending time with me. It's hard to tell... but he gave me my name, so I guess that makes us friends." Vesper stopped beside the Jack Sparrow animatronic. "You're not asking about these things. You recognize them?"
The princess nodded. "I have seen their like before, who traveled into this realm before you. And you tricked Pale Light into giving you a name?" Her eyes grew wide. "I can see why he recommended I approach you. You're a rare talent—is it true you learned how to travel the Dreaming on your own?"
Vesper nodded absently. It was true her investment in Kaelynn's disappearance wasn't quite as personal as Ryan's. "Not that I don't care about dream stuff—it's better than flying, and way more versatile too. But one of my friends just vanished, probably kidnapped, right in Canterlot. I'm kinda trying to find her through the sleeping world? I was just going to ask Pale about it, but if you're here... do you know how to do that?"
The princess chuckled. "I see the dreams of all sleepers, but through a fog. Oddities draw me, and attacks from beings intruding in the realm of sleep. Finding a specific individual through all that is harder than you might think, even for me."
"She might be the only member of her species?" Vesper offered. "She's a seapony. The creatures at Mount Aris thought they were extinct. Could you find a unique dream like that?"
The princess laughed, grinning weakly at her. "The seaponies, extinct? I'm afraid that theory is mistaken—they live, in their millions. I do not know where, yet they dream in peace, so it must be comfortable enough."
Well shit. She couldn't even give Kaelynn the good news, that there was a species who could actually instruct her in her powers. Not that they would've known where to find them if there was. "So I'm screwed?"
"Colorful," Luna said. "But apt, I suppose. Tell me what you can of your friend, and I will watch for her. But unless her dreams are particularly unusual, it will take more time than you have. I fear that campaign will be fought in the waking world, not the Dreaming."
We're already talking to the authorities. Probably not a lot more a retired princess can do to help there. "Well... damn. Not what I wanted to hear tonight. I'm supposed to ask her where she is, so we can head straight there and rescue her."
The princess shrugged. "If you are as competent in that world as in this one, I have no doubt you will find success. I do not rule in Equestria any longer—yet Princess Twilight Sparkle is wise beyond her youth. If you discover injustice in Canterlot, she will see it corrected."
The implication of those words settled on her like a stack of lead weights. If she discovered injustice. The princess would not be able to help her. "What if I wanted to look for her dreams?" she asked. "Even if I had long odds—even if it was probably just wasting my time. I'm asleep, it's not like I could be doing anything useful anyway. Might as well be rescuing my friend."
"Well... that is why I came," the princess said. She lifted one wing, waving it through the air before her. In an eyeblink, the last remnants of the pirate ship faded, replaced with a... floating city? A castle not unlike the design of Canterlot, but far more beautiful. It grew on all sides of a gigantic stone mountain, like an asteroid in high orbit. Yet there were no domes, but open balconies, with thousands of ponies passing between parts of the impossible city. Bats?
"This is Legacy, have you heard of it?"
Vesper shook her head once. "I haven't been looking for... I've just been looking for a way home. If it wasn't for this disaster, I'd still be looking."
She was hovering—how long had she been doing that? She let the wind carry her a little closer to the impossible city. There was no ground underneath, just stars in every direction. They really were out in space, or at least the Dreamlands version.
"I understand the sincerity of your purpose, and I will not attempt to draw you from it. But look for a moment, see the towers and minarets of Legacy."
She looked, and her mouth fell open. Such things Vesper saw in that place that she could not possibly record. Things she would never admit, even to a lover. Incredible, impossible things.
Vesper tore her eyes away, an effort that cost her dearly. By the time she managed to speak, her voice was hoarse, cracked with emotion. "What is that place?"
The princess waved her wing again, and the vision faded. She was back on her dream of the Bright Hawk, only all the pirates were gone. Her friends were gone too, and the vessel floated alone in a featureless void. "Long ago, the creatures of this planet were ignorant of the dreaming—they worshiped me as its god, just as they revered my sister. I allowed the belief to continue, because it led creatures towards greater mastery. Now those monasteries are abandoned, weathered away. The faith is nearly forgotten, there are no monastic orders to join. Instead, I leave bats an ultimatum. Find us, if you can."
It was exactly the kind of taunt that Vesper needed, something with an incredible goal waiting in the wings. If she wasn't careful, she'd start obsessing over what she saw. She'd try recreating the Dreaming city, using what she saw to help find the real one. She resisted—she could not let herself be distracted while Kaelynn was still gone.
"One day. I have to find my friend first. And there's getting back to the place we came from. My friends still want to return to Earth. We found a Worldgate, I might use it with them."
Luna shrugged her wings. "It is for you to decide how your talent shall be used. If that means you return to the world that you came from, then Equestria will be the poorer for your absence. That is the essence of choice."
She leaned in close, resting one hoof on Vesper's shoulder. "Good luck finding your friend. Now that I have seen your dreams of her, I will watch. But if you wish to find her quickly, I do not think my help will be enough. It took weeks to find you, a child of moonlight intentionally visiting my own realm. This is the fate I invited when I yielded my sovereignty to Twilight Sparkle. Most of my power is now her power."
Vesper should've guessed as much—why else would the princess not care much about her desire to connect worlds? How could the goddess of dreams not find someone in her domain? If most of her power was gone now, obviously.
"Thanks. I hope we talk again sometime—maybe you could give me an instruction manual."
The princess laughed again. "You have seen where to find it." Then she vanished, and the dream ended.