Moondog stared at the cave’s entrance. Discord was too shocked to say much of anything. “I mean, think about it. Catrina drifted away from Rep because of… whatever she’s doing with the witchweed, and she’s not going to stop until she’s…” Moondog lowered one of her ears. “…studied it, I guess.” Huh. She didn’t know what Catrina was doing, but chances were, it wasn’t good. “Or maybe worse. The Map would still want us to fix that problem, right?”
“You do know what country we’re in, yes?” asked Discord, somehow panicky and sarcastic simultaneously. “Someone could irradiate the entire planet and all would be forgiven if they said they wanted to be friends with Princess Highlights!” He hadn’t taken his eyes from the cave.
Right. Because even bad guys could form genuine friendships. Which meant genuine friendship problems. And the Map didn’t discriminate, did it? Good or bad, if you had a friendship problem, it’d solve it. (Or maybe it did discriminate and that was why this sort of thing had never happened before.) And that was assuming Catrina and Rep were even villains to begin with.
But one way or another, it was the closest thing to a friendship problem they’d seen yet. Not like there were many other options available.
“Alright,” Moondog muttered, “think, think, think…” At least, finally, she had something to think about.
They didn’t know a thing about Catrina’s and Rep’s relationship beyond “used to be friends, witchweed got in the way”. The villagers of Windham didn’t know Rep was a dragon and they might not know Catrina existed at all, so it was no good asking them. So, what, did she and Discord need just burst into the cave proclaiming that they were there to fix things? Would they even SAY? Our all-seeing map said you were having personal problems. Don’t worry! We’re with the government and we’re here to help! Yeah, bad on multiple levels.
“I’ve got it,” said Discord, his voice weirdly high-pitched. He was wringing his tail so much that the bones in it were constantly cracking and his knuckles were chalk-white. “I’ll just give their thoughts a little nudge so they forget all their issues and-”
“NO!” yelled Moondog. “No, no, no no no no, do not do that! Bad idea! Terrible idea! No! Bad draconequus!”
“Oh, what’s the problem? That it’s a terrible invasion of privacy and one of the most monstrous things that someone can do?”
“No, that your best mental alteration got undone by somepony who hadn’t even completed college. Changing someone’s mind like that requires too much order for you to be good at it.” Of course, it was morally reprehensible (and it wouldn’t truly solve the problem, to boot), but attacking Discord’s ego would get him to turn away from that line of thought more quickly.
Discord grabbed Moondog by the scruff of her neck with his tail and lifted her up to eye level. “I just want this to be over,” he didn’t quite growl. “This is-”
“-the wrong answer, so it won’t be over! And you don’t think I want this to be over?” said Moondog, flaring her wings. “Unlike you, I have a job, and if I don’t get this done today, I don’t even know if I’ll be able to-”
…Waaaiiit…
With a sigh, Discord released Moondog (she didn’t fall). “This is why I don’t like you, you know. You’re so boring. You have absolutely no ambition, no rebellious streak, no… unpredictability. You were told to make good dreams and you did, poof, character arc over. You were pigeonholed before you were born and you adore being pigeonholed!”
“I mean… I was made as a pigeon,” Moondog said distantly. Her mind was whirring away. “And right now, that might be just what we need.”
“Someone to eat bread and poop on them? Granted, that would be a thing to see, but-”
“Look,” Moondog said. “Rep has anxiety over their friendship. I wouldn’t be surprised if Catrina does, too, and she’s just better at hiding it. Anxiety leads to dreams. So…” She posed in the air. “I go in, see what’s up, ask if they need help with any adversarial acquaintances.”
“So we go to all this trouble to disguise ourselves,” said Discord, “and you still want to walk up and ask them? That idea is one of the most nonsensical I’ve ever heard. …I love it!”
“Well, of course it’s nonsensical. It involves dreams. And you also love it because you don’t need to do anything, right?”
“Obviously.”
“Except there is something you need to do: wait. It’s…” Moondog glanced at her watch- She didn’t have a watch.
self.addToAppearance(watch);
She glanced at her watch. Wow, it wasn’t even noon yet. “…11:04 AM, so you need to wait until they’re actually asleep before I can do anything.”
But Discord grinned. “Wait? Moi, forced to endure waiting? Don’t kid yourself.” He ripped open a tear in space and leapt in, screaming, “Time travel awaaaa…”
The tear stayed open long enough for Moondog to follow, but she just rolled her eyes. Third-shifters still had dreams, after all, and spending half a day away from Discord would be perfect. No time travel for her.
Unfortunately, no travel time meant plenty of thinking time. And that meant Moondog quickly found a problem with her plan.
As night fell, she decided to just wait for Discord to show up, and show up he did (eventually). She was in between dreams when headspace opened up next to her and Discord came flying out. “…aaaay!” He skidded to a halt on nothing and turned to look behind him. When past Moondog didn’t come through for several seconds, he sighed and zipped up the chronal wormhole behind him. “What is your problem?” he huffed at Moondog.
“A work ethic,” said Moondog. “Discord, listen. I can’t believe I forgot this, but I’m not sure going through Catrina’s and Rep’s dreams will work. I mean, it’s night, and…” She gestured helplessly at the rest of the dreamscape and the many, many, many dreams that came with it. “If the two of them just take a few minutes, it’ll be okay, but it’s not like I know that, and if getting through takes too long, Equestria’s entire dreamscape will be totally unguarded.”
Discord half-smirked. “See, this is why I never bother with the ‘great responsibility’ half of great power. It just gets in the way.”
“Yeah, yeah,” muttered Moondog. She began pacing, staring at nothing in particular very intently. “Can’t get Astral to do it, she’s too new… Maybe I should teach her in the future… Shining might be a decent band-aid… Pharynx would be good, but he won’t want to leave the Hive… Mom, why didn’t I push Tempest?”
“Skiiiip iiiit,” Discord whispered in her ear. “Equestria got along fine without your mother for a thousand years, it’ll get along fine without you for one night.”
“And you got along fine in stone for a thousand years, but I bet you don’t wanna go back to that!” Moondog kept pacing. “Mom… Maybe she’ll do it. She’ll understand, right? Map mission, couldn’t see it coming. Just one night. But what if she’s busy? Or just doesn’t wa-”
She was forced to come to a halt when Discord was suddenly right in front of her. “For the record, self-duplication feels like this.” He picked her up and ripped her-
t_id = fork(); print(t_id); return: 1
-clean in half.
It didn’t hurt, of course. Moondog had been ripped in half plenty of times before. Sometimes, she’d been the one doing the ripping. Sometimes, the pieces were smaller than halves. In fact, Moondog couldn’t tell the difference between her own separations and this separation as she regrew her front half. “Hey,” she and Moondog asked, “what gives?”
Then she did a double-take at the copy of herself standing to her left. The copy looked just as surprised as Moondog herself felt.
“That’s what gives,” Discord said, undeniable smugness swimming around in his voice like it was an Equestrian Games pool. “You-” He pointed at Moondog. “-will go and do your usual thing, while she-” He lightly clouted the copy across the neck. “-will come with me to psychoanalyze our dear wannabe vi-”
“Oh, Mom,” snorted the copy. “You really think I’ll fall for that and let dreams be unattended for-”
Ideas clicked together in Moondog’s head. Something wasn’t right with this picture. “Why’re you worried?” she asked. “I’m the original.” Blink. “I, at least I think so.”
The copy looked back at her. “I think I am, too,” she said slowly. She glanced at Discord and swallowed. “Which one of us is the real Moondog?”
In between blinks, Discord became Discords. “You both are!” they said. Another blink and back to one. “Duplication can be rather unmooring the first time you see it. It’s just a shame the first time can only happen once, barring those memory wipes Fluttershy doesn’t like me doing. Fortunately, your reactions are priceless.” He put a paw to his mouth and giggled. “Now, I suggest you two come up with a way to convince yourselves of this, because I don’t want to use time travel to break causality for you any more than I have to. It’s just not as fun when it’s required.”
Moondog and the copy looked at each other. It was hard to tell what the copy was thinking, but Moondog’s mind was racing. But if they were the same person, they were thinking the same thing. And that little idea, so simple yet so far-reaching, made her ear twitch.
The copy’s ear twitched in the same way half a second later.
They both started staring intently at each other. Moondog kept thinking. What was the usual way to do this, trying to identify if somepony was the real somepony and not a duplicate of the somepony? Ask a question to which only the real somepony would know the answer. But if the somepony being asked was the same somepony as the somepony doing the asking, if they both thought of a question, they’d probably think of the same question.
And the copy, if it was really her, would know that. And both of them would know that both of them knew that. So one of them could answer the question without being asked in the first place.
Question? Something early. Something distinctive. …Who was the first not-Mom pony I made a dream for? Good. Moondog almost considered just waiting for the other to respond, but it’d be a good idea to get some words out between them, just in case. “You answer it,” she said. She felt her wings tense up.
“Rainbow Dash,” said the copy.
The two Moondogs looked at each other and boggled. “Whoa,” they said.
“You wanna be Moondog Prime or Moondog Alpha?” Moondog asked. The other would know it was for clarity; thinking of them both as “Moondog” would get confusing.
“Alpha,” said the other. “Moondog Alpha.”
sigh();
self.setName("Moondog Prime");“I wanted to be Alpha,” muttered Moondog Prime.
“Then you shouldn’t have asked!” Discord said brightly, making both Moondogs jump. “Now shoo, Primus. Alpharius and I have a friendship mission to get to.”
Moondogs Prime and Alpha gave each other another look. Moondog Alpha grinned. “Well, at least I know the dream realm is in good hooves! I couldn’t manage it better myself.”
“To be fair, the friendship mission’s in just-as-good-hooves,” Moondog Prime said. “And also his, unfortunately.” And before Discord could respond, she slipped into the collective unconscious. Moondog Alpha was her just as much as she herself was, she knew, and she couldn’t imagine herself botching anything that badly.
How long until she found out? She gave it an hour.
t_id = fork(); print(t_id); return: 2
-clean in half.
It didn’t hurt, of course. Moondog had been ripped in half plenty of times before. Sometimes, she’d been the one doing the ripping. Sometimes, the pieces were smaller than halves. In fact, Moondog couldn’t tell the difference between her own separations and this separation as she regrew her back half. “Hey,” she and Moondog asked, “what gives?”
Then she did a double-take at the copy of herself standing to her right. The copy looked just as surprised as Moondog herself felt.
“That’s what gives,” Discord said, undeniable smugness swimming around in his voice like it was an Equestrian Games pool. “You-” He pointed at the copy. “-will go and do your usual thing, while she-” He lightly clouted Moondog across the neck. “-will come with me to psychoanalyze our dear wannabe vi-”
“Oh, Mom,” snorted Moondog. Seriously, this was Discord’s plan? Far too obvious to work. “You really think I’ll fall for that and let dreams be unattended for-”
“Why’re you worried?” the copy interrupted. “I’m the original.” Blink. “I, at least I think so.”
Ideas clicked together in Moondog’s head. Something wasn’t right with this picture. “I think I am, too,” she said slowly. She glanced at Discord and swallowed. “Which one of us is the real Moondog?”
In between blinks, Discord became Discords. “You both are!” they said. Another blink and back to one. “Duplication can be rather… unmooring the first time you see it. It’s just a shame the first time can only happen once, barring those memory wipes Fluttershy doesn’t like me doing. Fortunately, your reactions are priceless.” He put a paw to his mouth and giggled. “Now, I suggest you two come up with a way to convince yourselves of this, because I don’t want to use time travel to break causality for you any more than I have to. It’s just not as fun when it’s required.”
Moondog and the copy looked at each other. It was hard to tell what the copy was thinking, but Moondog’s mind was racing. But if they were the same person, they were thinking the same thing. And that little idea, so simple yet so far-reaching, made her ear twitch.
The same, in fact, as the copy’s ear had twitched half a second earlier.
They both started staring intently at each other. Moondog kept thinking. What was the usual way to do this, trying to identify if somepony was the real somepony and not a duplicate of the somepony? Ask a question to which only the real somepony would know the answer. But if the somepony being asked was the same somepony as the somepony doing the asking, if they both thought of a question, they’d probably think of the same question.
And the copy, if it was really her, would know that. And both of them would know that both of them knew that. So one of them could answer the question without being asked in the first place.
Question? Something early. Something distinctive. …Who was the first not-Mom pony I made a dream for? Good. Just as Moondog decided it’d be a good idea to get some words out between them, just in case, the copy spoke up. “You answer it,” she said as her wings tensed up.
“Rainbow Dash,” said Moondog.
The two Moondogs looked at each other and boggled. “Whoa,” they said.
“You wanna be Moondog Prime or Moondog Alpha?” the other asked.
self.setName("Moondog Alpha");For clarity, obviously; thinking of them both as “Moondog” would get confusing. She was kind of surprised that she was the one being given the choice, but she’d take it. “Alpha,” she said. “Moondog Alpha.”
“I wanted to be Alpha,” muttered Moondog Prime.
“Then you shouldn’t have asked!” Discord said brightly, making both Moondogs jump. “Now shoo, Primus. Alpharius and I have a friendship mission to get to.”
Moondogs Alpha and Prime gave each other another look. The combined reality and surreality of the situation somehow looped around itself to become dreamlike again, and Moondog Alpha found herself grinning. “Well, at least I know the dream realm is in good hooves! I couldn’t manage it better myself.”
“To be fair, the friendship mission’s in just-as-good-hooves,” Moondog Prime said. “And also his, unfortunately.”
“Oh,” grumbled Discord, “that’s-” But Moondog Prime was already gone. “-far too obvious.”
“Duplicating me?” Moondog Alpha asked. “Really?”
“I’d really rather just go through this once,” said Discord. “As I said, time travel can be a hassle.”
“Even though you casually skipped forward like twelve hours to avoid waiting for nightfall?”
“You’ll need to speak up, my eardrums are broken.” From his ear, Discord pulled out a snare drum with a hole punched right through the head. “See?”
Moondog snorted. “3 out of 10. Too predictable.”
“Didn’t I just say you needed to speak up?”
“Yeah, we’re done here.”
Moondog marched and Discord slithered through a cross between a cave and a grand corridor in a mansion. The walls were rolling, beautifully veined marble, yet as rough and dusty as any cavern in Equestria. Discord trailed his tongue across the wall. “I suppose,” he said, “that this design has some obvious symbolism involved?”
“If it was obvious, couldn’t you see it?” asked Moondog. “But seriously, the roughness is what it is, the marble is what it feels like. Under the right circumstances, even that cave in the real world can feel like a palace.”
In all honesty, Rep’s dream felt… surprisingly homey. Under any other conditions, this almost definitely wouldn’t be a nightmare. And if Rep wasn’t having nightmares about his friendship… Hypothetically, Moondog could still finagle the information out of him, but doing so would just be… crude and icky and nasty and wrong. Just because she could had no bearing on whether she should.
At no clear point, suddenly the floor was coated with dead plants, the remains of a field of witchweed. Even in the dream, they felt dead, crispy and magically inert. That didn’t stop Catrina from rolling around in it, giggling like a schoolfilly as she wiggled through it like a puppy through snow. In fact, it almost looked like- “Witchweed isn’t like catnip, is it?” Moondog asked Discord.
“It might’ve been if I’d had that idea a backstory ago,” Discord said, “but no. No mental effects whatsoever.” A pause. “No intentional mental effects.”
“Any unintentional ones?”
“I don’t know. Catrina’s the first person I’ve seen using it.”
“Catrina?”
And there was the drake of the hour. Rep was standing at a badminton field dressed in a tattered jersey. “Catrina, they’re dead,” he said quietly.
“That doesn’t matter!” Catrina cackled. “They were so rich in magic! Now I just need to wait for the next batch to grow!”
“That could take years…”
“It’ll happen eventually!” Catrina pulled a window box filled with dirt from nowhere, sat down looking eagerly at it, and immediately went statue-still.
“You can do other things while waiting…” Rep said.
Catrina didn’t respond. Rep sighed and whiffed the badminton birdie (not a literal one) over the net.
“Blunt, isn’t it?” Discord whispered.
Moondog just shrugged. “The mind really do be like that sometimes. It varies from night to night and person to person. Do me a favor and don’t draw too much attention to yourself, okay? It’ll just distract him.”
“Very well.” Discord sighed. “Why did I let you talk me into you bossing me around?”
“Because if you were leading this, we’d’ve done nothing more than commit arson in the past twenty-four hours, assuming we got far enough to do that.”
“You say that like it’s a bad thing.”
eyes.roll(); self.addToAppearance(racket); dreamer.setLucidity(TRUE);
Moondog blooped to the other side of the badminton field and gave the birdie a bop. “So…” she said to Rep. “Bad day?”
“Yeah,” mumbled Rep. “Catrina’s never been… this…” He realized who he was talking to and blinked.
“Hey!” Moondog said, waving. “Your dreams seemed bad, so I’m here to-”
Apparently reflexively, Rep emitted a colossal burst of fire, consuming Moondog from head to hoof in writhing flames. Behind him, a grinning Discord held up a giant 10.
The conflagration died down, leaving Moondog standing right where she’d been, unharmed, even though much of the floor beneath her had been incinerated. “-help you sort things out,” she finished. “And it seemed like-”
“Who are you?” roared Rep. His form glowed and he morphed into an enormous green and brown buffalo, one whose footsteps shook the earth. He pawed at the ground and snorted a gout of flame. “You have five seconds,” he growled, “to explain yourself before I-”
“Princess Moondog of the Oneiric Throne,” Moondog answered, flaring her wings. “Heir to Princess Luna and Guardian of Dreams.”
“…Oh, Torch’s tail,” gasped Rep. He collapsed back into his normal form and swallowed. “I, um, I didn’t recognize you,” he said in a small voice. “…Has the abdication happened already?”
“Well, of course you wouldn’t recognize me, on account of not seeing me before.” With a flap of her wings, Moondog perched on the net, not causing it to dip at all. “But what do you mean, ‘already’? It was all over the news a few moons ago.”
“I haven’t read the news in over a year.”
“…Yeah, that would do it. …Why?”
Rep sighed and slouched forward. “Catrina,” he muttered. “She doesn’t-” His head snapped up and he frowned. “I thought you and Princess Luna only guarded ponies’ dreams,” he said.
“Equestrians’ dreams,” Moondog replied. “Except approximately ninety-nine point nine nine percent of Equestrians are ponies, approximately ninety-nine point nine nine percent of ponies are Equestrians, and ‘ponies’ is shorter, so we just say ‘ponies’ and are usually right. Although that’s probably going to change under Twilight.”
“Then where’ve you been the past three years?” Rep yelled. “There’ve been nights where I could barely sleep!”
Moondog grinned sheepishly. “Weeellllll… it’s a big country, sometimes people slip through the cracks, sorry. I’m like three years old, cut me some slack.” Although, come to think of it, how had they escaped notice? She’d skimmed through the dreams of other Equestrians in Windham, so it wasn’t like she’d missed the whole town.
Discord made a face at her (admittedly weak) explanation and Rep snorted. “Cut some slack for the princess,” he muttered. “Riiiiiight.”
“Not that much slack,” said Moondog. “Just, y’know…” She swept one of her wings forward and held two of the feathers a millimeter apart. “…some. Anyway, I’m here now, so what’s up?”
“You really that interested?”
“If you’ve been having nightmares about it, yeah. Helping you resolve those issues means less nightmares for you means less work for me, and redefining ‘laziness’ as ‘efficiency’ is basically the hallmark of arcane and technological progress.”
“Heh.” To Moondog’s surprise, Rep’s smile wasn’t sarcastic. “You got that right. Anyway, Catrina’s been… She’s always obsessed with witchweed-”
“Plaaaaaaaaaaants!” squealed Catrina as she rolled around in flora corpses.
“-but,” Rep said, his voice significantly louder than before, “ever since the magic drain a while back, it’s… like she turned it up to eleven. She’s practically a maniac. She barely ever leaves the cave even with me pushing her, she keeps wanting me back to work on witchweed whenever I leave, I can barely ever go to Windham because she won’t make my potion to preserve our supply of witchweed, we’re running low on-”
“Hold up, go back a bit.” Moondog leaned forward a bit and the net creaked beneath her. “What potion? …Actually, what exactly is Catrina doing with the witchweed?”
Rep opened his mouth, only to freeze mid-thought. “I’m not gonna get in trouble for this, am I?” he asked. “I don’t really know what the whole… law situation is with dreams and…”
Moondog chuckled. “If people got in legal trouble for things they dreamed, Equestria would be a much worse place. On my honor and duty as Princess of Dreams, I won’t tell anyone anything you tell me.”
Discord grinned a devious grin at Moondog. She responded by making a nearby stalagmite silently smack him on the head.
“Then she’s… I think Catrina’s just… preparing. For anything. Equestria’s had a stability problem recently and she just wants to be ready.” Rep plucked one of the dead witchweed plants from his feet. “I don’t know how they work,” he said as he turned the desiccated husk over in his claws, “but these plants have enough magic to protect us from Discord. Catrina’s trying to figure out how to give that magic to us, but it’s just not working as fast as she wants it to. Not except for… well, this.” His body glowed, and Rep was the buffalo again.
“And that’s a potion? Interesting,” Moondog said. It really was. There weren’t a lot of potions that let you control shapeshifting like that. Turn you into something else for the duration of the potion, but not making it a consciously-controlled ability.
“Yeah. Helps me live among ponies, since what pony would be friends with a dragon?”
Moondog immediately began ticking names off on her feathers. “Twilight Sparkle, Pinkie Pie, Applejack, Rainbow Dash, Fluttershy, Rarity, Starlight Glimmer, Big M-”
“What?!” screamed Rep, his buffalo bass making the cave shake. “Princess Twilight is friends with a dragon?”
“Brother and sister, actually.” (Hearing a buffalo squeak with shock was something else.) “Haven’t you heard of Spike?”
“Who?”
“Oooooo.” Moondog winced. “He’s not gonna be happy.”
“And she’s… still friends with him after becoming… Princess of Equestria?” Rep wheezed.
“Totally.”
“…Algflahgah.”
“Anyway, your potion?”
“Wha-? Oh, um.” For a moment, Rep looked as lost as Tree Hugger in an armory before recovering. “Yeah. That. Um. Catrina made that potion soon after we found the witchweed, but it’s weird. It only works on me. No matter what she does, she can’t give herself shapeshifting.”
Behind him, Discord frowned and started twirling his goatee. Almost like he was thinking.
“She’s always wanted magic,” Rep said as he dissolved back into a dragon, “but lately, she’s been… It’s like I don’t even know her anymore. She works until she drops, sleeps for a week, gets back up and gets back to working. She’s gotten a lot of magic out of it, but she always wants more.”
“Supposedly to protect you, right?” asked Moondog. “Which might feel better if she talked to you at all.”
“Yeah! I’ve tried everything, but I’m just not getting through to her! She keeps wasting her life on this and I’m not even sure it’s useful anymore! Even after all that’s happened, Equestria still exists, doesn’t it?”
“You could say that Equestria’s actually really stable and just going through a bad time,” said Moondog.
“I guess.” Rep dropped onto his tail and pulled his knees close. “But don’t tell her that, she won’t listen.”
There was plenty of anger and frustration in Rep’s voice, but you didn’t have to listen hard to hear the grief under there. Rep may have been a nice dragon, but he was still a dragon, and anger was a far more dragony reaction than “I’m sad we’re not friends anymore”. “Have you been friends with her long?” she asked.
“Seven or eight years,” Rep said. “Before Nightmare Moon. I got chased out of the Dragonlands and we…” He frowned and scratched his head. “…Huh. I… honestly don’t remember how we met.”
“You’d be surprised how often that happens,” Moondog said. A slight twist of magic, and Rep was sitting in an overstuffed armchair. “Big change in your life, then you look back like a year later and you can’t remember the change itself. Memory’s funky like that.”
It took Rep a moment to reorient himself and stop poking at the chair. As he wiggled his way into lounging across the armrests, he said, “Is it? Huh. Well…” He pressed his back into the armrest and rocked back and forth to give himself an impromptu backscratch. “Well… I’ve… Uh-huh… It’s been… Ooh, that’s nice… I’ve known her… Right there, yeah…”
Moondog considered giving the chair claws so it could scratch Rep’s back for him, but ponies (and probably dragons, too) tended to react badly to inanimate objects growing limbs for some reason. “Seven or eight years, yeah, you just said that. I can make it a massage chair if you want,” she said, her voice not quite tight.
“Nah, I’m good,” said Rep. He still wasn’t looking at her. “We were… on the road for… I need to get one of these…”
Discord poked his head up and over the back of the chair. “Can you please get to the point?” he asked. “I’ve been-”
Rep was hiding behind Moondog in a few jiffies, having turned himself into a smaller-than-usual pony. He was actually shaking with fear, his knees knocking together, and when Moondog cocked an ear, she heard him… almost whimpering.
Hooboy.
Discord slithered over “Because I’ve been waiting for a while and I would very much appreciate it if we could get-”
Quick as a flash, Moondog reached out, grabbed Discord’s goatee, and whipcracked him into the ground hard enough to render him two-dimensional. Glaring down at him, she said, “Look, I told you to stay out of this. Stay out of this.”
“Then you ought to get a move on,” Discord said, crossing his arms, “because-”
A hoof on his mouth was sufficient to shut Discord up. “Sorry,” Moondog mumbled, “but I have to work with him.” She turned around to face Rep, being sure to keep her hoof on Discord’s mouth. (She didn’t need to in order to keep him quiet, but marehandling him was cathartic.) “It’s complicated.”
“Mmhmm,” Rep squeaked. He inched away from Moondog, staring down at Discord. “C-could you g-get rid of that?”
“I wish,” snorted Moondog. “This is the real Discord, not a dream projection, and-”
--Error; OutsideInterferenceException e
discord.setPowers(FALSE);A tap of magic at her being told Moondog that Discord was attempting to break free, so a quick twist of oneiroturgy removed his influence from her. “-he needs to be with me right now,” she continued, not missing a beat. “And even if I did throw him out, he’d do his best to wiggle his way back.”
Discord’s response was muffled by her hoof. He sat “down”, folded his arms, and started tapping his lizard foot.
Rep didn’t say anything, although he slipped back into his dragon shape. He kept staring at Discord. “He’s… not… doing anything… Not even… trying…”
Moondog and Discord exchanged looks. “It’s not like he wants to hurt you or anything,” said Moondog. “He just wants to get away from me and we need to work through your issues before we can do that. Also, he doesn’t really know how to interact with people he doesn’t know.”
“But he’s… I thought…”
“He’s mellowed out since being freed,” said Moondog. A pause. “Slightly,” she amended. Another pause. “Very slightly.” And another. “But he has mellowed.”
“Huh.” Rep’s voice was distant. He leaned forward and squinted at Discord like he was an entomologist examining a particularly interesting bug. Or maybe like he was a kid with a magnifying glass examining a particularly interesting bug; it was hard to tell with dragons.
When Rep didn’t continue, Moondog cleared her throat. “So, uh, Catrina? Your friendship?”
“Maybe you should talk to Catrina.” But although Rep was talking, it was obvious that his mind was a million miles away. “She might remember it better.” Almost in a daze, he reached out a claw towards Discord.
“Hey.” A tentacle reached from the rock and swatted Rep’s hand away. “Don’t poke him. That’s part of my duty as princess.”
“It’s not like I’m breaking any laws or anything,” Rep replied.
“Keep it up and you will be! Oneiroturgic assault. I know how to legislate now.” Moondog flared her wings and the cave darkened; silhouettes with powdered wigs, inked quills, and glowing eyes loomed out of the gloom as she rumbled, “Fear me.”
Rep snickered, but stepped away. “Seriously, talk to Catrina. I can’t really remember enough.”
“Alright.” Really, Moondog suspected she could’ve wiggled a bit more information from him under normal circumstances, but with him distracted by Discord, that was going to be a lot harder. Hopefully, she’d gotten enough to work with. “Thanks for your help, and I’ll be seeing you.” She tipped her crown to him.
“Will you?” Rep asked, raising a scaly eyeridge. “Like you’ve been doing?”
“Now that I’ve seen the problem, I can correct it,” said Moondog. “Promise.” She drew a glowing X over where her heart would be.
Rep looked at her, then looked at Discord, still sitting down, now gnawing his tail off. “Well, if you can keep Discord in check,” he said, “I guess there’s not much I can do about it, right?”
“Guilt-trip me! Trust me, it works wonders.” Moondog saluted. “Adios, amigo.” And she was gone, Discord with her.
“Did you find her yet?”
“It hasn’t even been a full idea since you last asked that question.”
“As if time matters in here.”
“No, I haven’t found Catrina yet. If I had, I’d tell you.”
“You’re not very good at this, are you?”
Moondog grunted. Somehow, Catrina was staying out of reach of her usual locator spells, which kept returning nothing. It was aggravating, yet not nearly as aggravating as Discord, who seemed unable to remain quiet for five seconds. She seriously considered just sticking him on mute until they left the dream realm again. (This was her domain, she had both the capability and the legal right to do that.)
“Everything’s relying on you, you know,” Discord said. “Me, our mission, Catrina and Rep’s friendship, the safety of-”
“Shaddap.” Time for a different approach. Moondog closed her eyes, spread her wings, and extended her magic.
Being a mental space, distance wasn’t really a thing in the dream realm. People were connected by thoughts and ideas. So if you could manipulate thoughtspace around you in the right way, you could pull yourself within reach of however many dreams you needed at once. And Moondog had been manipulating thoughtspace since before she could think.
Her little bubble of the collective unconscious curled around the idea of the population of Windham Gulch, and a dizzying array of doors appeared around her with no rhyme or reason to their arrangement or orientation, pulled in by conceptual gravity. “Alright,” Moondog said, mostly to herself. “This is Windham…” She flicked her hooves through the dreamspace, sending doors darting every which way, until they collapsed into a three-dimensional grid. “This is Windham alphabetically…” She pulled one of the doors close. “This ought to be Rep…” A quick glance inside. “Yes it is… Which means Catrina…” The grid blurred around her with movement. “…ought to be… right here.” The grid came to a jarring halt, leaving Moondog standing in front of empty space.
Sarcastic applause rang through nothing. “Oh, well done,” said Discord. “Your skill is ever-so-reassuring.”
But Moondog wasn’t listening to him. She looked in every direction along every axis, muttering, “Door there, door there, door there… Empty space here.” Pause. “Invisible door here?” She reached out-
space.probe(); return: DREAM.Abyssinian
-and pulled away empty space to reveal a door. A perfectly ordinary dream door, to be sure, but one that had been shielded from her usual spells until now. Moondog looked at the nothing she was holding, massaged its nature. Simple concealment spells to avoid basic detection (like Moondog’s usual methods, she was distressed to say). It didn’t feel like dream magic, though, more like- “Smell this,” Moondog said, shoving the nothing in Discord’s face. “Chaos magic?”
Discord licked it and smacked his lips. “Chaos magic,” he confirmed. “Witchweed chaos magic.”
“Hmm.” Moondog tore the nothing to shreds and tossed it away. No sense in letting it hang around. “I’ll let you come if you don’t break anything.”
“Oh, please. When have I ever-”
“Noooooo comment.” And Moondog threw open the door.
Catrina’s dream was a swirl of black in a storm of rainbow mist. Eyes and teeth prowled on the outside, just barely within sight, while not-quite-voices hissed and snarled and roared and spat on the edge of hearing. Standing in the middle of it all was Catrina, somehow looking more regal and more unkempt at the same, waving two bundles of witchweed like they were wards. And from the ways everything drew back from the witchweed, it seemed to be working. “Back!” she yelled. “Back!” She kept whipping around, trying to cover her back, never staying still for more than a moment.
“Please stay quiet,” Moondog muttered to Discord. “I can see where this is going. This’ll require careful word choice, a deft touch, and subtlety.” Then, with a yank on a lamp’s pullstring, Moondog turned off the dark. “Hi there!” she chirped to Catrina. “You look like you could use some help.”
Catrina froze in her warding, staring slack-jawed at the “monsters” that were cardboard cutouts held up by breezies. One of the breezies said something very angry and very squeaky, then the entire group vanished into the vague distance. Still holding her witchweed, Catrina spun around, then flinched back when she saw Moondog. “M-Moondog?” she stammered.
“Definitely not Suncat, and in the aether!” Moondog said cheerfully. “You know, that concealment spell you used in the dream realm was actually pretty clever for a nov-”
“L-leave,” said Catrina. Her voice was the shaky sort of powerful. “I don’t care what you do, get out of my head.”
That for a first reaction. Huh. “Can we talk for a little first?” asked Moondog. “You’re kinda having an… issue with Rep and witchweed and-”
“That’s private!” screamed Catrina, lightning suddenly shooting from her eyes. “I don’t want you meddling in my affairs!” Space around Moondog contorted into a tree, whose roots shot up from the ground beneath Moondog’s hooves and wrapped around her.
“You know this isn’t actually doing anything, right?” Moondog asked as she briefly shrank her limbs enough to slip out of the roots. “Physicality doesn’t matter in here. Like, at all. I mean, look.” With a twitch, her head rolled off her neck and she caught in on a hoof. “No prob-”
Catrina screeched in rage and the branches came down hard, cutting Moondog clean in two.
self.reassemble();
“And you’re still not listening,” Moondog sighed. Her different parts evaporated and condensed as one. Another branch swung at her, but this one shattered like it was made of glass and she was made of steel. “C’mon, can’t we at least talk?”
“We don’t need to talk!” yelled Catrina. “All I need is for you to leave me!”
“But why?” Behind Moondog, the tree froze except for a few roots that curled into a stool for her to sit on. “I do want to help you with your problems, but-”
“And what happens when you’re gone? When you’re unavailable?” Catrina backed up, staying out of range of the roots (she still didn’t get it). “When the person I rely on-”
“If you rely on me for real-world stuff, I’m doing my job wrong. I just work on dreams, and if that means-”
“I. Don’t. Care!” snapped Catrina. “Celestia and Luna were supposed to protect us, and when Discord-”
“Yes?” asked Discord, suddenly between them.
Catrina yowled, stumbling back, arms flailing. And the nature of the dream changed in a heartbeat.
Nothing shifted in the actual appearance of the dream; this was solely about the underlying feel. Where once the texture had once been vague anxieties and paranoia, it suddenly shifted to memories. Moondog seized the moment and dove in headlong.
An Abyssinian and a dragon, running for their lives through a forest as a wave of plaid swept through the trees behind them…
Two figures, battered and beaten and terrified, huddled together in a normal-looking field of witchweed while gigantic sawtoothed beavers prowled the outside…
A blur of images of Catrina and Rep examining witchweed in a thousand different ways…
Equestria’s protectors repeatedly failing as Tirek roamed free, as the changelings kidnapped the princesses, as magic died…
Catrina throwing herself into her work more and more, since someone needed to take precautionary measures…
Moondog pulled herself back into Catrina’s dream. Large chunks of her history seemed to consist mainly of brief spats of extreme helplessness, followed by attempts to make sure that didn’t happen again, rinse and repeat. Yeah, that would do it. It was funny; she was furiously power-hungry, but not for herself. Protection for herself and Rep really was at the front of her thoughts.
And seeing Discord in the “flesh” wasn’t doing anything great for her state of mind.
The memory flash hadn’t even taken a perceptional second in the dream; Catrina was still drawing back from Discord’s sudden appearance, while Discord himself looked unfazed. “I’d like to get through this quickly,” he said, bored, “because Accident here and I are-”
Taking a deep breath, Moondog tapped him on the shoulder. “Discord?” she said levelly. “Wait outside.”
discord.eject();
Space wrapped around Discord, distorted, and flattened he was expelled from the dream. Screw him trying to wiggle back in, he needed to go now. When space resumed its normal shape, Moondog groaned and rubbed her head. “I am so sorry,” she said. “I keep telling him he needs to stay clear, but nooooo, he’s Discord, so he has to butt into everything.” A deep breath. “Sorry about that. Really.”
Catrina stared at where Discord had been, breathing heavily. She was stock-still except for her tail, flicking erratically back and forth. Eventually, she said, “I don’t believe you.”
Well, huh. That was a new one. Moondog blinked. “What?”
“That-” Catrina pointed at Discord’s former location. “-wasn’t the real- You made it. You made it so you could get rid of it and get me to trust you.”
“No, I-”
“You make dreams! It’s your thing! And that- Get out.”
Friggety. Had Discord’s mere appearance torpedoed her chances? “Are you sure?” Moondog asked, spreading her wings slightly. “That was actually the real-”
“Get out!” screamed Catrina. “Get out get out get out!”
“Alright,” said Moondog. She pulled a door open from nothing. “But you’re gonna want to talk to Rep tomorrow about the whole witchweed thing.”
Moondog left before she could hear Catrina’s response. Discord was floating outside, screwing his various limbs back in. “You did a sloppy job,” he said. He wiggled his wrist to make sure it was in tight. “That transition was-”
Looking him in the eye, Moondog said, “We need to talk.”
Moondog picked a relatively sedate portion of the dreamscape to stop in. She didn’t want to run into herself, she didn’t want to be distracted by dreams that needed managing, and she and Discord needed a good, long brainstorm. “What’s your problem?”
“Besides you?” Discord said.
“Obviously.”
“At the moment, number two is…” Discord pulled out a list from the air and donned a set of wire-frame spectacles. “You, you, aaaaand… you. Oh, look, it’s you all the way down to eleven.”
Moondog grunted. “What’s the first non-me entry?”
“These questions. What do you mean, ‘problem’?”
“The way you pull the spotlight onto you. I’m decent with people, alright? All you had to do was sit tight while I chatted them up for a few minutes and got them to open up. And you couldn’t do that. You know this whole friendship mission isn’t about you, right? It’s about Rep and Catrina. And you’re trying to just- blitz through everything as quickly as possible without caring about whether it’s actually the right thing to do.”
“Oh, don’t act like you don’t want to speedrun our interactions. I’m just trying to get us out of each others’ hair-”
“And if you do it fast instead of right, it’ll take longer!” Moondog yelled, flaring her wings. “This isn’t a- school assignment where we can half-bake it, take the failure, and do extra credit to make up for it!”
“Not with that attitude, it isn’t.”
Moondog sighed, refolded her wings, and dropped onto her rump. “Discord, do you wanna know why I don’t really like you?”
“Oh?” Discord slunk in front of her, flowing like a pseudopod, and propped up his head on one of his hands. “I imagine I already know the answer, Accident,” he rumbled, grinning broadly enough that two rows of teeth were clearly visible. “You don’t like the way I unsettle people. The jabs, the harmless jokes, the fun of chaos. You want everything to be nice and trouble-free and dull.”
“Funny thing,” Moondog said, matching his gaze. “That’s what I thought at first, too. But then I thought about it, and have you seen the way I work? In these last few hours, even. I’m either unnoticed or I deliberately give people a shock when they notice me for a quick laugh. If that was why I didn’t like you, I’d be working in a trebuchet factory made of glass. I mean, the jokes are harmless. Usually.”
Discord’s grin didn’t slip, but it lost the back row of teeth.
“No,” Moondog continued, “I don’t like you because you’re an absent-minded tiger. One of these days, you’re going to hurt a lot of people, not out of malice, but because you don’t care enough to stop yourself. You already came microscopically close with Grogar. Do you know how many nightmares I’ve had to undo because of that?”
And then Discord’s smile did vanish. He looked at Moondog expressionlessly, then turned away and mumbled petulantly, “I didn’t mean it.”
“But it still happened, and it happened because of you.” Moondog didn’t move, but let Discord look away. “Would you have that attitude if Fluttershy had gotten hurt? Do you think Spike would’ve forgiven you if Chrysalis had torn his wings off? Don’t say you’d fix them, because he’d still remember it, and I’d have to clean up after you.”
“And you’ve never had something get out of your control?” Discord said. But there wasn’t much strength in his voice and he still didn’t meet her eyes.
“Not that badly, no.”
“Our beloved princess-to-be badly needed a shot of confidence. Or have you forgotten how bad Twilight gets when she panics?”
“Do you know why she panics? Because what she does better than anything else, better than magic, better even than friendship, is thinking. When she’s stressed, she falls back on thinking. That leads to overthinking and she comes up with all these elaborate scenarios where she fails, each with more grandeur than the last, and whaddya know, she starts panicking. Then she hits burnout, and as she’s recovering, she thinks about it all more logically. And then she’s fine. That’s the way she works. I’ve seen it.”
“Do you enjoy this, Accident?” Discord asked, whirling on her. The collective unconscious flexed in a way that would’ve been dangerous if it’d been in reality. “Throwing my mistakes in my face like this?” He opened his mouth wide until his head was a buckball basket, at which point a bemused Grogar fell from nowhere. “Congratulations on the hat trick! I hope you’re happy!” His head became a head again as he swallowed Grogar.
“I’m not trying to drag you through the dirt!” said Moondog. “I want this to be over with, the same as you! It’s just-”
“-it needs to be over with properly, yes.”
“And if you’re going to keep interfering like that, I need to know why, so we can avoid it. Thanks to you duplicating me, I’ve got all night and you can’t zap me to the other side of the globe like anyone else. Let’s just get this sorted out before it gets any worse. Why can’t you think about a stranger for a few moments?”
Discord looked at Moondog. Moondog looked at Discord. Nobody and nothing moved. Moondog wondered if Discord would’ve done something by now, like just teleport her away or remove her mouth, if this was the real world. But it wasn’t, so he didn’t even try anything.
Then, little by little, bit by bit, Discord’s expression changed to something else. It was so alien on his face that it took Moondog a while to recognize it. “You look thoughtful, Discord. This is existentially concerning.”
He grinned fangily. “I’m still myself, then.” Then he was thoughtful again. “I-” It was like the words caught in his throat. “I’m trying.”
Moondog almost responded with something along the lines of, Uh-huh, sure, but then she caught Discord’s tone. It wasn’t the usual dismissive “I’m trying” that excused everything. It was more like an admittance, something he felt guilty about. And Discord didn’t feel guilty about just anything.
“I only thought about me, now for millennia,” Discord said. The words were coming slowly, like each one was being picked individually. But although his wings were restless, he never looked away. “I never had a reason to look at anything else. Now that’s me and no more than a dozen others, tomorrow, but no more. And usually it’s just me and Fluttershy, this evening. It’s… sometimes hard to remember otherwise.” He worked his mouth, but the words that came out were visual, not audible, and unconnected to any topic at hoof.
“So you fall back into old habits without thinking about it,” said Moondog, connecting dots, “this is the first time you’ve really been confronted about it or done much self-introspection so you don’t have the right words for it, and you’ve been so dismissive of me because I’m definitely not in the dozen. And all of this isn’t helped by the way the last time you tried to help someone in a personal way, it kinda went off the rails in a big way and you’re scared it’ll happen again, so you fall back on being old Discord.”
Discord twitched back. One of his ears drooped, a ponylike gesture that had no business being on that head. “…That might indeed be the case. How…?”
“Beating nightmares usually involves attacking the roots of the stressors. What I do might be limited, but…” Moondog pointed at her crown. “I’m real dang good at it.”
“If only you were that good at everything else.”
A defense mechanism, thrown up because sardonicism was how Discord usually interacted with people. But at least he hadn’t clammed up. “Yeah, then we’d be done already. So it’s all my fault. Especially since I made myself the boss.”
“Perchance.”
Moondog snorted. “Anyway, uh, can you try to be less… invasive towards the people we’re trying to help and you’ve already traumatized years ago? Throw it at me, I can take it, just… not them. And I’ll try to be less aggressive with you.”
Discord tilted his head. “Just like that?”
“Just like that.” Moondog nodded. “It’s… That is a reason, so if you’re trying and failing, then I’m just kicking you while you’re down. Sorry.”
It took a moment, but Discord bowed. Very, very slightly, but it counted. “In that case, I’ll do my best, and apo-” He twitched and coughed. “Apolo- -khlk- Apo-” He cleared his throat. “Apolog-” He doubled over, almost to the ground, hacking.
“That’d be more convincing if you were physical right now, you know.”
“And neither are you,” wheezed Discord, “but you still take breaths!” He gave one last harrum, banged a fist against his chest, then blurted out, “Apologyaccepted.”
Moondog rolled her eyes, but said, “Good enough. So. Uh. I… asked for a reason you were doing that and you gave me a reason and…” She ran a hoof through her mane and smiled sheepishly. “Well, to be honest, I didn’t think it’d be that easy.”
“You’re welcome.”
Moondog flexed her wings and pawed at the lack of ground. “So I don’t really know where to go from here. You want to, uh… talk about it? Or should I just say ‘tomorrow’ if you’re getting too pushy?”
“Talk about it.” Discord slithered through space and was immediately right up in Moondog’s face, pushing her back slightly. “With you. That sounds quite mad, and I’m not sure it’s the good sort of mad.”
Moondog made space reach out and pull him away. “Discord, this might surprise you, but you’re not unique in being someone I don’t particularly like. This is Equestria, but I go through the dreams of every pony, some of them are gonna be jerks or worse. I give them good dreams anyway. Why? Because that’s my job. If you need my help, then by gum, I’ll give it to you as best I can.” A pause, and Moondog’s voice turned a little desperate. “But please, try talking to, I don’t know, Fluttershy or Spike or Twilight first. They get you in ways I don’t and their help will be a lot better than mine.”
“And I’ll be far away from you, yes?”
“Very very much yes,” Moondog said, nodding.
“Since we are of the same mind, I think option two is better. …Thank you for the offer though.”
“Anytime. I won’t like it, but anytime.”
Discord pulled away, biting his lip and fiddling with his goatee (he fiddled “The Draconequus Went Down to Klugetown”). “Is talking about your feelings usually this awkward?”
“Eh, not always. It can be, though. And sometimes it’s even worse.”
“And ponies like doing this? Good heavens, I thought I had a handle on how insane they were.”
“Rule one of Equestrians: they’re always crazier than you think they are, even if you take this rule into account.”
“Hmm. Fitting. Perhaps I should do something with that. On another note-” (The note was a B-flat, to be precise.) “-call your other self and I can put you back together.”
“Alright,” said Moondog. Her other self was probably getting a bit worked up by now, just because of Discord’s involvement. But that could be fixed. She just needed to give a call to… Which version of her was which again?
self.getName(); return: "Moondog Alpha"
“Just gimme a sec,” said Moondog Alpha. If Moondog Prime worked in the usual way for dreamers, then maybe…
moondogPrime.notify();
…No bad feedback from the spell? …No bad feedback from the spell. Perfect. “She should be coming,” Moondog Alpha said, “and if I got that spell in this situation, I’d be here in three, two, one-”
Thoughtspace rippled apart and Moondog Prime tumbled from the gap, like she’d been running and tripped. She looked at Moondog Alpha, at Discord, and said, “Aaaaaand my concerns were totally unfounded.” She pulled her wings close. “…Right?”
“Right,” Moondog Alpha said. “Discord’s just putting us back together.” She didn’t need to ask about what concerns.
“Now-” Discord cracked his knuckles, fixed them with spackle. “Look into each others’ eyes and think about becoming one again.”
Moondog Alpha did so. She hadn’t really looked at herself much. Mirrors were just as much in flux as anything else in here, so her reflection wasn’t a guarantee, nor was her reflection being accurate. But if she looked like this, maybe she could bear to mix up her appearance a smidge. There was an awful lot of stars, there, and it could get-
Discord suddenly seized both her and Moondog Prime’s heads. “Now kiss!” he yelled, and slammed their heads-
weave(1, 2);
Moondog Prime wasn’t quite as high-strung as a puppet from a hot air balloon, but with every passing idea, she got a little closer.
Discord. Discord, Discord, Discord. How would he try to interfere? No obvious answer came forward, but the idea that she was depending on him in some way kept chipping its way into her mind. The fact that Moondog Alpha, and by extension she herself, was watching him kept flickering in and out of reassurance; Moondog Prime knew that if she kept working herself up like this, Moondog Alpha might have it worse, being close to Discord. Or better, since she could talk to him right then and there. It was hard to tell, and that just made Moondog Prime fret all the more.
At least it didn’t interfere with her work. Dream wrangling went smoothly that night, with most of her worrying being done between dreams and not during them, although Moondog Prime had to remind herself that Moondog Alpha was responsible for Catrina and Rep’s dreams. Maybe not her best work, but definitely far from the worst.
Still, even if Moondog Prime only worried a second each minute, those minutes slowly piled up, and with no word from either of Moondog Alpha or Discord, Moondog Prime began to worry in a different way. Everything was going smoothly, right? They’d contact her if something went wrong. Right? Unless-
notify(self, moondogAlpha); self.setLocation(moondogAlpha.getLocation());
The ting of the notification spell almost made it worse, although there weren’t any warnings on it. Still, Moondog Prime almost immediately pulled herself through thoughtspace with a ripple, so hastily she almost managed to trip on nothing. But when she arrived, Moondog Alpha and Discord were simply standing side by side, like they’d just finished a conversation. She looked at Moondog Alpha, at Discord, and said, “Aaaaaand my concerns were totally unfounded.” Her thoughts threatened to run away again and she pulled her wings close. “…Right?”
“Right,” Moondog Alpha said. “Discord’s just putting us back together.”
“Now-” Discord cracked his knuckles, fixed them with spackle. “Look into each others’ eyes and think about becoming one again.”
Moondog Prime gave him a look, but conceded. Was her being dramatic that annoying? Maybe it was. She was usually only frank when time was of the essence, right? …Great, now she’d be constantly second-guessing herself when it came to having a fun time with entrances and exits. …But big entrances were less annoying, right? Or-
Discord suddenly seized both her and Moondog Alpha’s heads. “Now kiss!” he yelled, and slammed their heads-
weave(1, 2); run();
-together.
Moondog blinked and wiggled her head as best she could in Discord’s grip. A grip with his hands on both sides of one head, she noticed, looking right at him. Her thoughts were reeling and her memories…
She had two sets of memories, branching off from where Discord had first duplicated her. One for each copy. She remembered doing her dream patrols as usual and she remembered talking to Rep and Catrina. She remembered both sides of each conversation she’d had with herself, neither one taking place before the other. If one of them was supposed to be “realer” than the other, she couldn’t tell. An organic would’ve had a headache, but for Moondog, this wasn’t so different from Mom “teaching” her in the first moons of her life. It was just such an unfamiliar memory that it took her a few moments to orient herself.
“There.” Discord smiled faux-sweetly. “How do you feel?”
“Alright, I… think.” Moondog did an action that would’ve been a headshake if her head had been free to move, but it wasn’t, so the rest of her body shook instead. Yes, she did feel alright. “Does it always feel like this?”
Discord shrugged and released her. “How should I know? I don’t know what it feels like for you.”
Probably just an excuse more than anything, but Moondog didn’t feel the need to push it. “Anyway, we ought to follow up with Rep and Catrina in the real world later, since that has a bit more of an impact. So, uh, I suppose I’ll meet you at the cave entrance at, I dunno, 9ish?”
But Discord had already sidestepped out of reality, leaving behind a piece of scratch paper drifting downwards in the lack of air. Moondog rolled her eyes and snatched the paper. In something that technically qualified as writing, she read: 9ish. See you then!
Moondog crumpled the paper up. At least he wasn’t fighting this. As for herself, she had some hours that needed wasting on dream patrol.
At exactly 9ish the next morning, Moondog reluctantly hauled herself back to Catrina’s cave, arriving at the same moment the spacetime continuum vomited up Discord (the smell was awful). “One of these days,” said Moondog, “time travel won’t be any help in avoiding waiting.”
“Oh, that day was two years ago,” Discord said as he dusted himself off and put his wings back on straight. “I just skipped over it. I’ll get to it eventually.” He looked at the cave. “As ourselves?”
“I mean, it’ll have more impact that way. If we’re not us us, we’d just be two random ponies walking in and speechifying. Which, okay, happens, but Rep and Catrina wouldn’t listen to us.” Moondog looked up at Discord, rubbing her chin. “I wonder if we should make name tags. Or badges or something. Just so they know we’re together.”
“Oh, heavens, no. The idea alone would attract Twilight, she’d want to make the Friendship Mission Agency official, and we’d never get anything done because she’d be too busy setting it up.”
The thought of having to sit through bureaucracy, even one run with Twilight-level efficiency, made Moondog shudder. “A very good point. Let’s just get going.”
Moondog headed into the cave, Discord right behind her. Why were they heading in like this rather than just teleporting? It felt more polite, true, but it was less efficient. Still, probably for the best to keep people calm while they were talking with a hole in space and a nigh-omnipotent chimera. Or least as calm as they could be in that situation.
“You know, we really shouldn’t’ve assumed Catrina was a villain,” Discord said. “Or at least, not a major one. Major villains have impressive lairs. Nightmare Moon with the moon, Chrysalis with her hive, Sombra with the Crystal Empire… Even the Terrible Trio had one, though you didn’t see it. Catrina just has a cave.” He coiled downward to avoid a particularly low section of roof. “And not a particularly impressive one at that.”
Looking over her shoulder, Moondog asked, “So you weren’t a major villain? You never had a lair at all.”
“I turned this plane of reality into my lair, obviously.”
“…Sure, I’ll say that qualifies. A very untraditional lair, but being untraditional is traditional for you.”
They heard the voices earlier than they had the first time down. Catrina and Rep were yelling at each other.
“-ess shows up and you don’t listen to her?” bellowed Rep. “What is wrong with you?” Possibly by self-restraint, his voice sounded like his normal dragon voice and not, say, the booming threat of a buffalo’s or an older dragon’s.
“She doesn’t understand what it’s like!” Catrina responded.
Moondog’s neck went stiff and she clamped her wings tight. “Yes I do,” she hissed, picking up her pace.
“My work is important!” Catrina continued. “I need to keep both of us safe!”
“And what have you gotten us? When has your witchweed ever helped? Ever?”
“We haven’t needed it yet. I mean needed, I’m not talking about those bumps we could ride out!”
“And do you think that’ll convince Moondog?” asked Rep. “She’s already talked to both of us, what happens if she- checks in later to see how we’re doing?”
“Do you really think a Princess of Equestria is going to just come waltzing in through the passage?”
Moondog immediately stepped forward from the passage and into the cavern proper. “Waltzing is awkward on this terrain,” she said casually. “Could I do tango instead? Or maybe ballroom.”
Catrina did a double-take and yowled, jumping back with her hackles raised.
“I would do the electric boogaloo,” said Discord, sliding into place behind her. “I like the name.”
“I told you!” yelled Rep. “I told you!”
“I’ve got wings.” Moondog spread them wide. “I could do the Windy Hop.”
“You.” Catrina pointed a shaking claw at Moondog. “What are you doing here? And with him?” Her voice sounded like she was very, very confused (so confused she even forgot to be afraid of Discord) and trying to hide it with righteous indignation. It wouldn’t have worked even if she had anything for which her indignation could be righteous.
“Checking in to see how you’re doing.” Moondog folded her wings again and dropped onto her haunches. “Because, well, this is kind of a big deal. You’ve been working on this for years and not gotten anywhere.”
“Like I said!” said Rep.
“Like he said,” said Moondog.
“And that’s actually not true,” said Discord, holding up a claw declaratively. “There was that shapeshifting potion you made for Rep. Simple, yet versatile… Quite brilliant, actually.”
Once she got over the shock of seeing Discord, Catrina preened as only felines could. “It was, wasn’t it?” she purred.
“Discord!” Moondog yelled, swatting at him. “We’re not encouraging-”
“I promise I’m going somewhere with this,” Discord said. “Somewhere relevant, even. Now, Catrina, if that potion was so brilliant, surely that brilliance can be duplicated.” His smile was wide and his eyes were bright. “So where is it?”
Rep’s wings clamped to his back immediately, but it took a few moments for the question to register with Catrina. “…What?” she asked.
“All this work, you must have something to show for it other than that one single potion,” Discord said faux-earnestly. “After all, witchweed is so versatile, so easy to use, obviously you must have found other uses for it. …Right?”
“Not…” Catrina suddenly had a hard time looking at Discord. “Not exactly… B-but I did make the potion! That works! That’s-”
“-part of the problem.” Discord clicked his tongue (a left click). “See, if you simply never made the witchweed do anything, you could argue that you were merely going about it the wrong way and just needed to change your technique. But you clearly know enough about it to make that potion… and nothing else. How long have you been working on this, again?” He thumbed through a calendar like it was a journal. “Hmm. Several years. You know, if you’ve been banging your head against a wall for several years and you haven’t even made a dent, perhaps the wall is unheadbangable.”
“But- But the potion works!” yelled Catrina, waving her arms. “Witchweed can-”
“It can make potions for shapeshifting, yes yes, we know. Meanwhile, cockatrices can petrify creatures, but they can’t do much else, can they?” Discord pulled an irate, squawking cockatrice from his armpit, blindfolded to keep it from getting anyone stoned. “Or do you have a use for this one without removing its blindfold?”
“But I- It-” Catrina seemed lost, looking haphazardly around the cave without focusing on anything in particular. “It… It protected us from you…”
“Maybe that’s all it can do,” Rep said. (Out of sight of either Rep or Catrina, Discord smirked at Moondog.) “You haven’t been able to make it work because you can’t.”
“I… I thought… I kept…”
“Face it,” Discord said. He was suddenly coiled around Catrina, just loose enough that she could technically wiggle free if she wanted to. Whenever she tried to look away from him, his head was right in front of her. “You were never getting anywhere with your work. You were simply-”
discord.move(10, 0, 0);
Moondog promptly displaced Discord enough to free Catrina. “Discord,” she said firmly. “What did we learn about people outside the dozen?”
“Ah.” Discord flinched. “Right.” He immediately backed up slightly and nudged Moondog forward. “You handle this.”
“Sorry,” Moondog said to Catrina, “but he’s still learning.”
“He does listen to you…” Catrina said quietly. She tried to take a step forward and backward at the same time.
“Reluctantly and almost never to me, but for the moment, yeah.”
“I thought… You were twisting the dream to…” Catrina stumbled backwards, fell onto her tail, and stared blankly at Discord. “All this time, I thought if… Discord were to return… and…” She tilted her head back and laughed raspily, more an expression of vague emotion than actual laughter. “You just arrive with him at your heel.”
“Excuse me?” protested Discord. He stood up, growing in stature slightly. “I am hardly at her heel. She couldn’t hold me for an instant if I didn’t want her too.”
“Which makes it even worse. I don’t need to worry about what happens if you break free because you’re already free.”
Rep took a seat next to Catrina and threw an arm over her back. “I know you were trying to keep us safe, but you were so focused on it that you didn’t see if we actually needed it.”
“It kept coming back in my mind,” said Catrina. “What if, what if, what if… And I thought of you caught in Discord’s wake, and…”
“We’ve got it under control. Discord and more,” said Moondog. (Discord didn’t say anything, but she could feel him giving her a Look.) “Preparing for trouble isn’t bad, but don’t let it take over your life. Or your friendships.”
“Easy for you to say,” mumbled Catrina.
“And at the very least, I’ll keep watch over your dreams. If nothing else, you’ll sleep well.”
“All I wanted-” Catrina managed to raise her head enough to look at Rep. “I just wanted to protect you. Us,” she said quietly. “You know that, right?”
“I do,” Rep said, fidgeting with his claws, “but you… You were just…”
“When was the last time you had a conversation with him that didn’t revolve around witchweed?” asked Moondog. “Or did you care so much about protecting him that you forgot to see what he thought of it?”
Silence. Catrina just looked down at the ground she was sitting on, slowly rocking back and forth. Rep remained at her side, content to just let her think. If Discord was impatient, he was hiding it well. And Moondog waited. If Catrina wasn’t protesting any more, maybe they were getting through to her.
Then Catrina spoke up. “We need to get rid of the witchweed.” Her voice was only slightly shaky. “As long as- As long as it’s here, I won’t be able to stop thinking about it. We need to get rid of it.”
Behind Moondog, Discord made a tiny strangled sound, but he didn’t say anything. Rep blinked and his wings twitched. “Really?” he asked.
“Make it quick,” said Catrina. “Before I change my mind.”
“You know a lot about it,” Rep said to Discord. “Will fire work?”
“Yes,” said Discord. “Unfortunately.”
“Then I’ll be right back!” Rep dashed away, into the witchweed room. Half a second later, smoke and light and the sounds of roaring flame began licking their way out from the doorway. Catrina cringed and looked away, but didn’t get up.
“I told you we should’ve gone with fire,” Discord said to Moondog.
“I know you did.”
“It was my first thought: fire. Everything gone in an instant.”
“I know, Discord.”
“But noooooooo, you said-”
“Can it, Discord.”
Discord immediately shoved a can at her. Moondog risked looking at the label: Complaints About Fire. She threw it at Discord’s head, where it just sort of got sucked in and vanished instead of bouncing off.
The sounds of fire burning grew even louder. Somehow, there was very little smoke.
“That was my life’s work,” mumbled Catrina. She gestured vaguely at the door. “Now… all of it…”
“Oh, I know.” Discord coiled up next to her, shrinking to about two feet tall as he did so. “I once devoted all my powers to something, only for it to get undone in moments by six country hicks.”
“Five country hicks and one city mouse,” piped in Moondog. “Two city mice. Does Spike count? He received the mail.”
“I’d say Twilight and Spike had fully gone native by then,” said Discord. “But I’d say you’re right about Spike counting. Seven country hicks,” he said to Catrina. “And I’d say it was one of the best things that ever happened to me.”
Catrina looked up. “Spike? Twilight’s…” She threw back her head and groaned. “…dragon. Rep didn’t even need…”
“Five years ago, he probably did,” said Moondog. “Barely anypony knew about Spike yet, so if they saw a dragon like Rep, chances are they’d freak out and try to attack him. Now, though?” She shrugged. “Probably not. But, eh. You live and learn.”
“Easy for you to say,” Catrina snorted.
“I know it’s not easy,” said Moondog, “but think back. Were you ever actually happy? Or did you drill yourself into the ground for so long that the slightest gain felt great?”
Catrina didn’t say anything, but her tail started flicking back and forth energetically.
“You’ll feel a lot better once you don’t need to worry about everything all the time,” said Moondog. “Constant stress like that just squeezes your thoughts until there’s nothing left. Trust me.”
“And I don’t say this often,” said Discord, “but get outside. Even Twilight, Nerd-Princess that she is, remembers to get outside once a moon.”
Rep staggered back out of the witchweed room, coughing up smoke and grinning from horn to tail. “Done!” he said. “All witchweed destroyed! …Now what?”
“I don’t know,” Catrina shuddered. She pushed herself to her feet. “But… we’ll figure it out. I hope. Can you two… please leave? I don’t mean any offense, but-”
“You need some time, yeah,” said Moondog. “We’re going.”
“We are?” Discord asked, puffing back up to his normal size.
“We are.” Moondog bit down on Discord’s tail and started dragging him out of the cave. He didn’t make any attempt to escape, just going into a sort of resigned limpness.
“Thank you!” Rep hollered after them.
“Sure thing!” Moondog called without opening her mouth.
Back outside, Moondog released Discord, who rolled upright and brushed himself off. “Well, that was something,” he said.
“You say that like it’s noteworthy. Everything’s something,” said Moondog.
“Except for the void.”
“Only technically. So, do you know how we know when-”
Something flashed.
Moondog curled around. Sure enough, her technical cutie mark was pulsing. When she took a look at Discord, the Star of Chaos was flashing on his thigh. She grinned. “Aaaaaand we’re done.”
“Indeed.” Discord pulled the Star off his body and folded it up into nothing. “It was her technique, by the way.”
“What?”
“She was trying to categorize chaos magic, of all things,” Discord said. “That’s why she kept failing. It’s hardly chaos magic if you can make it fit into neat little boxes and flinging a spell takes no more effort than pushing a button or drinking from a water bottle. Now, if she’d just tried using it however she saw fit — lunch, perfume, medicine, anything — and had wung it instead of applying the scientific method, well…” He grinned in a way that was rather mad-scientisty, but technically wasn’t villainous. Technically. “Then we might be getting somewhere.”
“…Yeah, I can see that. But…” Moondog cocked her head. “Had wung it?”
“Plusquamperfect (or past perfect if you want to be boring) of ‘wing it’, obviously.”
“I know, but I’m pretty sure that’s ‘had winged it’.”
“Language is like gymnastics: there’s no one right way to do it and Celestia isn’t as good at it as she thinks she is. I’m the speaker and I say it’s ‘had wung it’, so there.”
“Whatever. Honestly, I’m kinda surprised you even know enough about grammar to know what ‘past perfect’ is in the first place.”
“Ponish is a hideously clumsy mishmash of other languages that makes it a nightmare to categorize and frequently defies all semblance of structure or common sense. Of course I love its grammar! Irregular verb tenses are particularly wonderful.”
“Mmhmm. So, ah, now that we’re done…” Moondog pawed at the ground and rustled her wings. “I’d say, ‘it’s been a pleasure working with you’, but… it hasn’t. It really, really hasn’t.”
Discord conjured a hat so he could fail to tip it. “Likewise.”
“I don’t hate you.”
“I don’t hate you, too.”
“Thanks for your help. You sure do have a way with getting bad guys to play nice together.”
Discord smiled, but his teeth were clenched so tightly together you could hear them squeaking. “Yes. I. Do.”
“And I hope we never go through anything like this ever again.”
“That would be the most wonderful thing. And as a parting gift…”
dis.cord();
D'`;_?]=[}:92xwTA3P>rM;nmm[jjEhV|BScbP_u):rqpotsl2ponPle+iba`e^$E[!_^@?UZSRv98TSLKo2NMFEJIBf@EDC<;_987[549870543,PO)M-,+$#"!&}C{cy?}_uzsr8putsl2pohmle+ibJ`_^$\a`_X|V[ZYXQVOsSRQPONGkEDCBf)?>C<`@">76Z{921U54321q/.-&J*j('~D$dc!x>|{t:[qvon4Ukj0hPfkdc)gfeG]#a`_^W{[TSRvVU7Mq4JIHMFjDCHA@?cC<A:?>7[;{z870T4t2+*N.'&+*#G'~%${A!x}|u;yrwpun4rkjong-,dcbg`&dc\[Z~^]V[ZYRvVUTMLpPIHGLEDh+*FE>=<`:"8\6|:3W7654321*p(L&%I)(!g}C#cy?wv{t:rwvunsl2ponPle+iba`e^$bD`_X|VUZSRQPUNMqKPINMLEiI+*FE>=<`@">76;4X2765432+*No-,+$H('&fe#"y?wv{t:rq7utsrkjoh.leMihg`&dFEa`_X|\[Z<;QPUNMLKoOHGFjJIHAe?'C<`#"8\65Y9270T.-,P*)('K+*)i!Efe#"y?}v{zyr8vunmlqj0QPlejchg`&dc\aZ_^W{UZYRQVUTSLKPImMLEDhH*)EDC<;_98=6;4X81w543,P0/(Lml$#"!~Ded"y~}v<t\xq7utml2SRngfe+ihgfeG]#aZ~^@?UZSRvPtNSRKPOHGkEJIBA@E>bBA#"8\65Y9270T.-,P0/.'K+$j(!E%e{z@~}|^]s9qponml2SRhmlkjc)J`_^$\aZ_^]Vz=SXQPUNMqQP2HMLEiIBG@?cb%;@?8\654981UB
E:\Equestria\Windham Gulch> Moondog.tntbs RealWorld.plnA wall of chaos magic hit Moondog with an uppercut and just like that, where the real world had briefly felt so not-terrible, now it was back to acidic leeches in every cubic unit volume. Ugh. She actually staggered. “Did you really need to hit me with that mess?” she muttered.
“That ‘mess’ was actually Malbolge,” Discord replied (Moondog twitched as the last word made spacetime flex in strange ways). “Making your magic() work properly in the physical world was still chaos magic, so it wouldn’t have lasted forever. I presume you’d rather lose it in a controlled environment than not.” He grinned in that uniquely not-innocent way of tricksters. “And it keeps your excuse for not liking this plane genuine. You wouldn’t want to lie, would you?”
Moondog rubbed her head. Was that a migraine coming on? “Oh, bug off.”
--Error; DiscordException e
And Discord was gone without even saying goodbye. Not soon enough.
Moondog glanced at the cave behind her. How much could the Map see the future? Had Rep’s and Catrina’s issue been solved solved or just satisfactorily delayed for whatever entity assigned friendship missions? True, it technically wasn’t her problem, not with her cutie mark flashing its “mission accomplished” signal, but the idea would keep nagging at her for a while. Maybe worth keeping an eye on.
But that was for later. Now, finally, Moondog could get back to dreams.
It wouldn’t make up for countless forgotten dreams in the past, but Moondog skimmed over to Catrina’s and Rep’s dreams that night. Just in case. Perfectly normal, happy, healthy dreams, full of the usual symbolism of friendship. Not necessarily a healthy friendship, but definitely a recovering one. She didn’t even need to talk to them personally; they were doing just fine on their own. Great. (Still worth checking in over the next week, though, and she left them memories of notes to let them know she was happy with their progress.)
Even then, though, the main reason Moondog didn’t talk to them was because, well, the same reason as last night. Equestria was a big country and she had a lot of ground to cover. She couldn’t just skip off to have possibly lengthy conversations with people, especially not with Mom being retired.
For once, Moondog missed Discord. If she could duplicate herself… well. That’d open up all sorts of possibilities. With all that extra time on her hooves, conversations were just the beginning. If only she knew how to do that.
Although… it was worth a shot…
t_id = fork();
--NameError; spell not defined
--"Come, now. I don't dislike you THAT little. Once was a freebie. No more shortcuts. -Discord"Flipping rickety frickety draconequuses…