Luna sat on her back on the lowest branch of a very average tree. Sat, looking at the dark sky above. Too covered to be truly pleasing, but just open enough to give her the vague hope of seeing something.
Sat, and stared, and sighed, and sucked her lip.
Her life had been odd, as of late.
It had all started with her father's gift, of course. Out of the blue and so unexpectedly: she'd been thrust into a new world of legacies and new forms of training and the endless lessons on why she needed to hoof-dry her blades or they'd tarnish.
And other martial things like that. They were all interesting lessons that she enjoyed learning, but her father had been a bit overbearing about it all. She'd been enjoying his presence a bit more as of late, certainly, but he was still... a little insufferable.
Still a bit soppy.
Oh, but even before all that extra time spent with her milky father, and after the initial surprise: she'd jumped into an entirely different can of horrors in her well-meant exploration of the past. Courtesy of the many-sounding voice that could only reach her in this exact tree.
It had all seemed grand and exciting and cloudy at first, but then there'd been the horrible, tragic tale of The Bittering... And, even for as much good Sheer Hurricane had seemingly tried to force in her tenure as the Grand Imperator, it... didn't really make up for it.
It still weighed on her. She'd had a nightmare about it not long after.
Luna let her head roll to the side, to stare blankly at one side of the clearing.
She'd succeeded in forgetting most of it, but the phantom smells of thick, heady iron still clung to her nose. The endless screaming.
She sighed.
That, and all the rest, was more or less why she'd started to go flying.
It wasn't breaking her promise to her parents to never leave the woods- it wasn't! She never left the bounds of the woods, she was just slightly above where she... normally was...
Luna huffed, and crossed her hooves.
Okay, it was a little flimsy, but if she cared then she wouldn't have started!
It hadn't even been that incredible, anyway. It turned out that hovering just above the treetops and doing lazy little filly flips wasn't so much fun in comparison to streaking blindly across vast cloudy acres. It wasn't even a marked improvement in the feel of it.
As she'd always thought, her dreams didn't feel all that different from waking.
She couldn't even see anything cool up there. The horizon pretty much consisted of nothing but dull shadows of mountains, and little else. It was so artificially boring. So sterile. It was almost as though in every direction stood large walls with scenery painted onto them.
For all that she'd built the 'outside world' up in her mind, it didn't seem all that great. Hilly, if nothing else.
That was about the reason she'd begun to overstep.
She could see, now, that it was dangerous to go that fast so close to the trees. Pushing herself to gain as much of a stream behind her as possible while still keeping to the guilty promise lingering behind every barely exhilarating moment. Letting her hooves drape and drag painfully across the leaves and branches below her as she swept across the great green scape.
She saw, in hindsight, how much of a danger there was in crashing.
Luna shut her eyes, and took a deep breath as the memories flashed in a quick reel through her head.
Locked onto the rushing greens below her in one moment, then a tug at her hoof followed by a flash of pain. She'd flagged from the shock, and a stray branch standing unluckily up had hit her wing.
It was a blur after that. Every time she'd tried to open her eyes they'd been whacked by a branch, while every sensation had rushed her all at once in the darkness. The stinging, tearing across her body as things snapped and her fur tore. The pain in her wing as something caught. The constant fear come to a head at the terrifying realization that she couldn't stop.
And then... the open air, and barely opening her eyes in time to see that rock...
Then she'd been waking up: her head in the comforting embrace of her sister.
Her tree above her; sister, at her side.
'You fell out of the tree, Luna. I was so worried about you.'
Luna shook her head, as her sister's soft words echoed in her head.
No, that wasn't right...
Her sister had been smiling. Smiling so wide, and touching her relentlessly. Laid her hooves on her shoulders as Luna had struggled to sit up. Rubbed them over her back as she'd blinked blearily down at her own four hooves.
Taken the moment to slide herself into a hug from behind as Luna had gripped her head, and grimaced.
It was all so unlike her. It was all so... genuine.
It couldn't have been...
Luna had tried to say something: gotten some kind of confused mumble out about flying.
'You were flying?' Her voice had hitched up at that, and Luna had tensed in realization. Celestia sighed, and began to rub her hoof through her mane. 'It must have been a dream, Lulu. You were sleeping up in your tree again, and I think I'd notice if you'd fallen from above it.'
She'd laughed in her ear as her voice turned soft and sweet again, but her voice had hitched. Surprise. Luna had let her secret slip in her delirium, and she'd felt her sister clench her tighter.
No lie was perfect.
She knew she hadn't dreamt it. Celestia... she couldn't have known what dreams were, to her. Luna would have realized if she'd been dreaming, and she would have remembered falling asleep. Maybe not in a normal dream, but she didn't have normal dreams when she slept in the tree.
She'd crashed in the forest... She remembered... the rock. She came at it so fast: all those branches had barely slowed her down...
At the edge of remembrance... She could nearly recall... the pain...
Luna's breath caught as a cold shiver broke out over and down from her shoulders, and she hugged her hooves close to her stomach.
But then... but then she'd woken up... next to her sister. Covered in dirt and bleary-eyed and... kind of sleepy? Everything fresh and new and different from how she'd left it. Her body was tired and cold: not how she should've been after she'd been flying.
Nothing was sore. Nothing hurt. Really, she hadn't ever felt much better, besides the chill and the confusion.
She'd been dazed at the time; too confused to ask many questions. She'd sat and questioned the environment with her gaze instead, as her sister fell all over her and made excuses. Eventually, after a lot of pandering and pondering, she'd been pushed into the idea of taking a bath.
They'd trotted slowly off to the river, where Celestia had insisted on cleaning her; something she hadn't done since they were both much smaller. The brown in her fur had looked a little off after the soak and all the touching, but she was tired, and so she'd let her sister shepherd her home.
Celestia had done nothing but talk the entire way back, but Luna wasn't sure she'd said a word. Just... stared at the ground the whole time, trying not to trip on her oddly heavy hooves.
Sat quietly for dinner, and shied away from her sister's intense stare. Tried not to let her daze show off to her parents too much. Went to bed, and didn't dream. Didn't even begin to notice the many inconsistencies until the full pot after.
And now... pots later... she didn't know if she could ask...
Because ever since then, Celestia had become... different.
She'd been... there really wasn't any better word for it- Celestia had been so much kinder. So much more patient. She seemed to smile with ceaseless enthusiasm every time Luna saw her, and her voice was always sickly sweet and sincere. She was relentlessly upbeat, and constantly had just the most beatific things to say about Luna.
'You look really pretty, Luna.' 'You're so lucky to have so much energy, Luna.' 'Oh, Lulu, I think the greater 'we' might actually be growing on me!'
It was so far from how they'd normally interact. There was no scorn, or sarcasm, or barbs or jabs. Even if Luna tried to antagonize her in any of the well-proven methods, Celestia would just laugh it off. She'd... compliment her.
'You're so funny, Lulu!' 'That's so witty, Luna!' 'Oh, Luna, I know you don't mean that.'
She'd back off from confrontation. She'd apologize for things that were... probably her own fault. She'd... concede things.
Nothing like Celestia. Nothing like know-it-all Princess Perfect.
She'd been paying so much more attention to her, too. If Luna caught her reading, Celestia would almost always put the book down and ask her what she was doing. Ask her how she'd been that pot. Ask her if she wanted company.
Tagged along when she went for walks. Talked to her when she got mad, instead of yelling at her. She'd try to strike up discussions on the things either of them had read, instead of imperiously declaring that 'she might as well just read for herself.'
She wouldn't try to force Luna into getting down from the tree, anymore. If she wouldn't just softly call her name until Luna woke, she would just... wait. And Luna only knew because she'd once merely pretended to sleep; instead watching her sister idling at the side of the clearing out of the corner of her eye.
Celestia had just... sat around. She didn't even know how long she would've sat, because Luna had lost that battle of attrition.
When dinner was finished and they'd go to bed, Celestia would get... really clingy. In the past, they would cuddle... occasionally, but it was mostly just sleepy hugs in the random spur of the moment. Now, Celestia seemed to make it a point to either wait for Luna to settle down or just drag her into bed and... hold her.
And when Luna had that nightmare, and she'd woken up and couldn't stop herself from shaking, Celestia had already been awake. Already holding her tightly to her chest, and whispering sweet little nothings into her pounding ears. Stroking her mane and rubbing her back and reassuring her over and over that it was okay.
She tried to butt in on everything Luna did. Tried to share so much of her life with her. Tried to... know her.
She was trying to be... some kind of sister. Trying to love her so much more.
It all made Luna very uncomfortable- but she couldn't just say that! She did love her sister very much, but she was suffocating her! It was becoming increasingly hard to sneak away to train with her father, or sleep in the tree, or just have any alone time whatsoever! Luna needed time to herself!
And their parents thought it was all so grand, of course. Complaining to her father would yield a simple smile, and the generic response that Celestia loved her. Like she didn't already know that!
It was becoming very difficult to keep her feelings to herself, or to keep her hooves off Celestia's neck.
Luna groaned, and threw a hoof over her eyes; letting her other limb hang limply off the side of the branch. "What happened?" she muttered; letting her hoof slowly drag across her face to fall alongside its twin.
She stared up at the blank, dark sky, and tried to imagine what the moon must look like, then. Big, white, and far away. Like somepony'd taken a knife to the sky and cut a perfect little circle out of it.
How she'd like to escape through that hole. Escape from her weirdly clingy sister, and the woods, and the memories of something she felt like she should remember.
What had happened? What had changed her sister, so?
What happened after she crashed, and why was Celestia pretending like it didn't happen?
She'd become tired of wondering, and she was finally ready to ask.
Just... not her sister.
Luna sighed, and let her hooves come up to curl around her stomach. It wouldn't take much; it never did. There wasn't really any time when she wasn't tired enough to sleep.
She just had to... close her eyes...
Think about the sky... about falling... about floating...
Wait...
And she'd wake.
Luna once more found herself floating, as the world fell away around her. No eyes to see the dark, no nose to smell the nothingness, and no ears to hear the silence. Nothing at all around her except the world in wait.
You beckon to your realm, and it must obey.
Not totally alone, and not nothing to hear, but that was why she was here.
She didn't want to dally or muddle about, even with how much she loved the tireless feeling of emptiness, so she tugged at the scenery waiting just behind her eyes as soon as it felt agreeable.
Light cast dark, and so too did she cast earth. She was a sluice through which the world in her mind filled the mold, and everything slammed together naturally after that. As though the grass and the green knew that it must too have air and color. Force and weight to the leaves scattering from the trees, and she threw a river in there too, just for the sound of rushing water over smoothed bedding.
She stood newly in a plain-looking plain, with a classical river sitting singular treeside at her back. The sky was... okay, she could take a moment here...
Dark... she liked the dark sky. But it needed more... A whorl of color; splash a spatter of blue, temper with purple, and... accent it with a dash of red, because she felt daring!
But they laid like boring pastels in the sky. Sitting stagnant, and sort of unimaginative.
Luna put her recently-new dream of a hoof to her chin, and frowned up at the paint she'd unceremoniously dropped in one, ugly spot in the dark. What could she do to make it look better?
She had an idea. A fun one.
Luna smiled, and let her hoof track up. Focused, as she imagined dragging her hoof through a heavy liquid in the air in front of her, as it passed slowly across her view of the colors in the sky.
And as it left them, they smeared. All in one motion: she swept her hoof across the expanse of the sky as quickly as she could, and from her hoof was followed by a beautiful blend of all the swirls of colors she'd placed there.
The twinkling blue blurred seamlessly into the royal purple, and each and every mesh was lined and spotted in runny, messy red. All across the sky laid a canvas run through with a brush, from which sprung inundated spirals of incidental color that she could swear must have been an immaculate contrivance.
The sky looked so alive now. The more she stared, the more it seemed to undulate and slide against itself. Each color popped against their compliments; the calming blue and the deep purple little but the grand accompaniment to each and every little smatter of flaming red.
Maybe could have used some white or something to accent the red some more, but it was good enough for now.
Your work: a gift. To gaze: a privilege. None are worthy.
Luna grimaced as heat bloomed onto her cheeks. That was all going a bit far. All she'd done was put some colors in the sky and imagined them running into each other. It sort of... did itself.
There is no will behind what happens here except your own. What you believe may seem true enough, but what is true consciousness? Merely waking and dreaming? Or realization?
That... didn't make sense.
Luna turned to walk and eventually sit under the tree she'd dreamed up beside the river. She was feeling a little restless, but that was to be expected under... all this various duress.
The rough bark on her back was a comfort, as was the bubbling of the water beside her, but she still felt... uneasy. Compliments never really... hit with her; they just sort of made her question if she couldn't do any better.
The sky she'd made wasn't really... all that great.
You achieve without knowing. There is meaning yet unseen to your creation, and you need never prove yourself to be the Oracle.
What did that mean? Was there... had she... accidentally... known something?
You dream with purpose, and you have yet to remember. Tell us, and we will provide.
Luna's ears perked up, and her head turned. She shifted more of her weight into leaning on the tree, as she brought her hooves to touch idly against each other.
That was right, she wasn't just here to paint the sky and act demure. She had a question to ask; though, it seemed as though they already knew what she wanted. They always did, thinking about it.
Well, how about it, then? What happened after she'd crashed? Surely they knew?
We witnessed, and we wept. We saw, yet cannot repeat.
Luna frowned. That was ominous... and why not? They'd just said...
You must find the answer for yourself; for in the act of looking, you will gain yet more prescience.
Luna blinked, and her head jittered to the side. She turned, and cast a glance around the side of the tree, then she turned and looked around the other side. She returned to regular sitting position feeling rather silly, as the only thing behind the tree stoutly continued to be the river she'd dreamt.
Well... okay, but where was she supposed to look? If they were going to force her to find the answer for herself, the least they could do was put her on the right track.
Your sister.
Luna's expression, and even her very mood soured in an instant. She glared at the ground, and imagined smacking the vague image she kept of the voice.
If she wanted to ask her sister, then she would have gone and asked her. She'd come to ask them, and so far, they'd been entirely unhelpful.
Maybe she would go ask her sister... She'd probably have to prise it out of Celestia's big, dumb, smiling gob, but she was sure it wouldn't go entirely awfully. She might have to resort to extreme violence in the process, but she'd been asking for it, lately.
There is no need to bring war to your kin. The answer, as it always does, lies in the past; however recent.
'The answer lies in the past...'
Luna's put-off expression melted away, and turned thoughtful as she put a hoof to her chin. She gently brought her head forward, and not so gently bonked it to the tree behind her. Did it again, and then made it a habit because she liked the feeling.
As much as that sounded like nonsense, it actually wasn't, was it? No, that was actually a very good clue.
She was meant to witness it as a memory. Like Cumulanum, and Hurricane. Entirely dreaming, but experiencing the scenes of the past as though she were there. Dreams lay dormant in the mind, and therefore laid parallel to one's memories.
Okay, that was something she understood. All she had to do was...
...
Um... What... How did she... do that, again?
Do not dwell entirely on the experiences of your past. In those times, we would provide the connection, and you would seem to see through our scope. For now, you must learn to dream alone. You must grow.
Wow... that was a bit harsh.
She kind of liked that.
They wanted to make this a test of aptitude, did they? A lesson through adversity. Well, she was no stranger to shaping herself through fire. In reading, writing, swordplay and even flying: she'd always taken to simply throwing herself at goals until they were achieved.
She'd not rest at the sight of an unknown word. Not tire, until the consonants were monotonous on her lips. She'd spent tireless lines making her hoofwriting perfectly straight, curved, and delicate; even as her entire limb seemed to throb and cramp.
She devoted herself to the blade, in both artistry and conception. She venerated the act of flying, and to learn it she had- well, she'd actually learned how to fly in her dreams, but it wasn't as though she hadn't made an effort!
Luna pushed herself up onto her hooves as her energy rose, and her hoof raised to cock against her chest as she stood firm with her eyes on the endless, unformed horizon. Mane sweeping across her cheeks in a breeze that she conjured for emphasis.
She did not back down from any unlearned skill, or any challenge! If they meant to pose to her an ability she had yet to master, then it was very well! She accepted! Bring it on!
She would learn how to dream on her own! If they would not allow her access to the past unseen, then- then she would see it herself! She was the Oracle! What had they told her before... ah- dreams were her domain!
Luna learned by doing, and so, Luna would do!
She stood, strikingly, against the tree and the river behind her; the profile of her mighty declaration dwarfing the empty scenery around her. She was tall. She was confident!
She had no idea what to do!
Her uselessly raised hoof fell to the ground with a heavy thud, and her head followed with a heavy sigh. Luna's butt hit the floor, and she stared miserably at the papery grass under her.
That was all a lot of big talk. She did learn by doing and by relentless effort and especially by beating her head against problems, but she needed to know what she was beating her head against, first.
Luna craned her head up, and sent a pleading look at the still moving sky.
She was a little loathe to ask... but could she get a little guidance? Just to start?
Her lip wobbled.
We had no intention of letting you ply without direction. Our purpose is to serve, and to serve is to guide. Do not fear, Oracle.
Luna perked up, and her wibbly frown curled into a smile. She jumped to her hooves; her entire demeanor changing from melancholy to cheery in a short moment, because she'd really just put on a sad face to ensure she'd get what she wanted.
So, what did she have to do? A location was easy: it was just imagining herself being there, but a memory like what she'd experienced with Hurricane was... different. She still didn't understand what had happened back then, so making it happen on purpose was...
Probably not going to happen.
It is as stated: in times past, we would provide the connection. It was our recollection of the cloud city Cumulanum in which you stood, and it was we who formed the timely connection to the lost dream of Sheer Hurricane. To make your own, as you already have proficiency in molding dreams, should be well within reach.
You must simply connect yourself to the lingering dream of your sister. It should be of little task; you are well positioned for it.
Luna's smile flipped, and now she frowned in confusion.
Connect herself... to... a dream? What did that mean?
We shall explain in plain terms, to ensure understanding.
You stand in a dream, and you have already come to understand its bounds. It is as much a space as is the cabin in which you live, or the tree upon which your body rests. Your mind walks free from its constraints: at home upon these conjured grounds as your hooves lay on earth.
Luna nodded as each word of the informative drone rung out. Yes, these concepts were all familiar, and had never been so strange to her in the first place. The waking world existed in tandem with another world just out of sync: the dream realm.
It was like how the sky existed above the ground. Just because she couldn't touch it didn't mean she couldn't see it, and neither of those things meant it didn't exist.
It was backwards for the dream realm, but it still existed right along with the waking world just fine. Impossible to see from the waking world, but here she was, touching it all over.
Luna put her hoof out, and then put it back down. Yep, she sure could touch it. Dreams existed, alright.
Just for her mind instead of her body.
Well, actually: now that she'd put it all like that, the concept didn't seem so boggling. If... she could take steps, and travel the distance between- say- trees in the waking world... then reason dictated that she could simply... walk between dreams.
The two worlds were just two sides of the same page. If a concept applied in one, then it must be similar in the other.
She needed to get somewhere, so she needed to take steps, and travel the distance between dreams.
Or... maybe something a little more mystical sounding. The basic idea probably applied.
To know lies in breadth of knowledge, yet to perceive is to show true wisdom. Our Champion proves yet greater, and in her understanding lies yet unknown meanings. We are not-
Okay- Okay! She was great and wise! Just tell her how to get into her sister's dream!
Sheesh.
It is as you theorized: dreams are traversed as distance is. Hooves may walk upon roads leading to destinations, and your mind may do the same. In the simplest of terms: your sister's dream merely lies beyond a road, which you must now walk.
Luna nodded, hoof to her chin.
Well, that was very simple. She understood it perfectly.
She cocked her hoof into the air: her thinking expression staying still on her face.
How, though?
How is anything done in this realm? It is a matter of the mind. You must simply conjure some self-rational method of traveling to your sister's dream, and wholly believe that it will work. Exert your will, and your realm will bend.
Oh... kay?
Luna stood, a little reluctantly, and walked away from the tree. Just a short distance that she only once cast a look back at, because she kind of wanted a little space. The tree and the river could just follow her over here if she really wanted them back.
It was sounding like there wasn't any grand method for traveling dreams, just that she needed to... want to. If she just... imagined her sister's dream, and... imagined a way to get there, it would... just work?
It made a fair amount of sense. If she could swish her hoof through the air and paint a masterpiece across the sky, then she could probably imagine... stepping through a door into somepony else's dream.
Luna stopped, and slowly, a smile grew on her face.
She could imagine a door.
In less than a moment, there stood a doorframe with nothing around it on the grass in front of her. It was a simple rectangle made of ugly wooden planks with a dull metal doorlatch affixed to its side; not unlike the unimaginative imaginings from pictures she'd seen in books.
Luna frowned at the thing. It would probably work, but it was... kind of boring. She could do better, certainly?
Her eyes drifted closed, and she took a deep breath as she retreated to the most creative little corner of her mind.
What door would lead to her sister? To Celestia? Imagine it.
Something... white, certainly. Wood..? Polished wood. A slick covering of 'lacquer.' It had airs.
What about the design? Something... ostentatious. Overly pretty and showy for the sake of it, but not... ugly in its attempt. It tried too hard, but it was pretty.
The latch... simple. Something outgoing that wouldn't scare ponies away. Yes... it let ponies in without a fuss.
Her sister... as a door.
Luna opened her eyes, and the door in front of her changed.
The wood had lightened, and now it seemed to sparkle in the shining lightworks above. The veneer covering it was obvious, and she was sure her hoof would slide right off if she'd touch it.
The pattern alit on the sheer surface of the door was a long series of symmetrical, beatific loops. As if somepony had carved lace into the door in extremely intricate lines that circled and rose and fell and came so close to touching each other but always barely refrained up until the very last moment it all stopped and veered towards the exact center of the door where they all met in a-
Circle?
Luna trot forward, and stopped right in front of the door so she could peer closer at a frank oddity.
The concentric lines that ran all over the door met their end right in the middle of the door, but there was something she hadn't imagined. They all lead into a circle. A medium-sized circle surrounded on all even sides by simple little triangles facing respectively out.
It was... a very odd thing; it seemed wholly different from the rest of her sister's pretty door. It was... rough. The lines of it: almost jagged. Like it had been hastily carved there by somepony with a little knife.
And... it was empty. The whole door was white, of course, but all of the space within the circle and the triangles was... blank. Not just white, and certainly not lacquered, but just empty.
Like it was missing something. Color, she'd guess.
Luna shook her head, and leaned away from the strange carving. She hadn't made it, and that ruled out literally all of the suspects, so the mystery seemed destined to lay unsolved.
Unless...?
Her eye flicked to the sky.
...
Well, that was their cue to say something, so she wasn't going to be getting an answer, there.
It was probably just another odd quirk of dreaming that was 'yet unseen.'
That was fine.
Luna turned to the simple latch of the door which hadn't really changed all that much from its previous iteration, and put her hoof to it. She idled there, for a hanging moment, with her hoof on the latch. On the precipice, one could say.
She needed to... think of her sister. Think of her sister's dream. Believe, in her heart, that beyond this door lay another world to step into. When she opened this door, she would create a connection to the world in her sister's mind, and travel there.
Her sister's dream... Her sister's dream.
Her sister's dream, on the pot she'd crashed.
When she'd crashed.
Luna took a deep breath, and opened the door.
And then opened her eyes, because she'd closed them in nervous anticipation.
And then, her jaw dropped.
If she'd ever had a physical definition to put to the oft-unused word 'portal,' then this would be it. Where the exact border of the door's insides began, something else ended. Completely different scenery from what she knew should've been there: encapsulated entirely by the space of the door's frame.
Luna peered in, then peered out, then in again. Looking into the portal: she could see the trees and the plants and the greenery that was so obviously her forest home stretching out on every side, but leaning back out and around showed that there still lay nothing but her dreamscape around the door.
Luna felt daring in her heart, and in a moment of courage, stepped around the door to the other side.
It was the same exact thing. The same exact thing. The forest: entirely within the door, and nothing behind it or to its sides.
Luna ran in circles around the door, next; watching with wide eyes that the forest would stay and stretch out beyond no matter which side of the door she looked in on. Wherever she would look, or stop, or jump back to try to catch the door off-guard, it would always be a perfect illusion.
There was just... space that wasn't there. Mundanely.
It was kind of hurting her head.
She stopped on... some side of the door, feeling a little winded. Feeling a little... overwhelmed. Sitting on her butt, and just staring through the boggling sight of the door. She almost wanted to make the door go away, so she could just sit and think clearly about the concept for a while.
The forest was in the door. That was her sister's dream: connected to her dream by a door. She'd made a door: through which stood vast open space that would only show when viewed through the portal of the door.
Her sister's memory of the pot she'd crashed: just beyond.
The answers she desired: to experience wholly and truly herself.
All she had to do was walk into it.