She ought to be scared, Astral knew. In fact, she was. It was hard not to be, with some artificial dream monster machine of unknown origin nearly capable of overpowering the Princess of Dreams running about the dream realm with reckless abandon. But whenever she felt scared, that feeling got pushed away but… Not by any specific emotion, just a feeling of “gotta take care of this”. Like her own subconscious felt she didn’t have time to feel scared.
She’d seen the Tantabus bring Moondog to her knees. And her reaction had been to bash it over the head with a table as a distraction. Because whatever it could do to her was unimportant to helping Moondog right then, When it had first spoken to her, everything it had said was true in some form or another, but she found it hard to care at the moment. There was a monster running around and she needed to stop the monster.
Maybe that said something about her.
When they’d entered the collective unconscious, the Tantabus had already gone to… somewhere else. Moondog had promptly muttered something to Astral about waiting, dropped onto her rump, gazed out at nothing, and willed the very fabric of magic to flex around her. Astral risked poking at the magic; from what she could gather, it was some kind of searching spell. Probably. She could examine it more deeply, but it was best not to disrupt the princess working super-complicated magics.
Astral sat down and watched Moondog, her stomach quietly squirming; she’d never seen her this still before. She was like a statue, not moving at all, not even in the little ways living things did. And her expressionless face got Astral thinking. About their situation. About the Tantabus’s attacks. About a lot of things. She cleared her throat. “Your Highness?”
Moondog didn’t look at her. “Yeah?”
“Are you feeling okay?”
“Sure. Fine.” Moondog’s voice was curt, like she didn’t want to think about it. Because the thoughts were unpleasant or because she was trying to stay focused on something else? “Why do you ask?”
“Back in that dream, the Tantabus, it- It looked like it really got to you, and-”
“Nah. I’m fine. Don’t worry about it.”
“You’re sure?”
Moondog seemed to pull back into herself and looked straight at Astral. “Astral. I promise you, I’m fine. What’s the worry?”
“I- Your Nibs, I’m going straight from a duck floatie in the pool to swimming across the Strait of Griffaltar, I’d kinda like to be sure the person I’m depending isn’t lying to me and about to have a panic attack.”
Moondog snorted. “Astral, trust me. I’m not big on the whole ‘lying to protect your feelings’ thing. Nor on the ‘lying to protect my feelings’ one, for that matter. If I’m heading towards a panic attack, you’ll know it. And I’ll probably rope Mom into this before it gets that far.”
“You really think you’ll need to do that?”
“If I need help, I need help. The safety of Equestria is more important than my-” Moondog froze, then reached out and ripped nothing away from space, revealing a door. “Got it. In here,” she said.
They went in.
When you worked with dreams, you could usually avoid detection just by preventing the dreamer from becoming lucid. Yet Mom had still taught Moondog spells for secrecy. Just because the dreamer didn’t know who you were didn’t mean that you’d escaped the notice of other, potentially nastier things. Besides, nocnice were easier to disrupt if you surprised them. Maybe the same was true of the Tantabus.
self.cloak(); astral.cloak();
As Moondog and Astral entered the dream, Moondog wove an aura of dullness about the two of them and whispered to Astral, “Follow my lead.”
The Tantabus apparently hadn’t been in this dream for long; everything was still hunky-dory and the dreamer still contented, whistling as he pulled a wagon across an endless grassy plain. The Tantabus was following just behind him, slightly out of phase and unnoticeable. Moondog couldn’t detect any workings of dream magic.
Astral nudged Moondog’s shoulder and whispered in her ear, “It was like that the first times, too. Just watching. You and me are the only people it’s said anything to.”
Moondog nodded. Considering how far this Tantabus was straying from her own predecessor, it was hard to say whether any of that meant anything, but she’d keep it in mind all the same. “If it does anything, you see if you can change the dream back, I’ll go for the Tantabus itself.”
“Got it.”
Not a moment too soon. An idea flitted by and suddenly the Tantabus dissolved in a cluster of dream magic; Moondog found herself tensing up. The Tantabus flattened itself like a puddle along the plains and the grass was twisted into a dense field of tacks. The dreamer’s hoof started to lower-
The first thing Moondog did was try to dive into the Tantabus’s mind, see what was going on. What it wanted. What it was trying to do. Why it was here at all. There was a possibility — a very slim one, but one nonetheless — that they could communicate with it.
tantabus.viewSource();
return:
--Error; IncompatibleTypeException eYet there wasn’t anything. Where there should’ve been thoughts, hopes, memories, something, there was… nothing. Just rigid data and thaums of magic flowing in strange ways between clusters. Maybe Moondog could’ve parsed it if she had the time, but nightmare monsters weren’t exactly the type to lie down peacefully as you rifled through their thoughts.
Plan B, then.
tantabus.de
--Error; OutsideInterferenceException e
abort();
store(tntbsEng);Moondog dove for the Tantabus’s energy. Unfortunately, due to her failed mind intrusion, it knew she was there and reacted quickly. Moondog was barely able to get any real amount of energy before it put up a mental shield between itself and the fabric of the dream. A few exploratory probes proved that the shield was a strong one; Moondog couldn’t find a way into it — at least, not at first glance. Fortunately, that also meant that the Tantabus’s own magic couldn’t get out; in severing itself from the dream, the Tantabus had rendered itself unable to manipulate the dream enough to leave.
Moondog eyed the Tantabus through the shield. The Tantabus… Well, it couldn’t eye Moondog, since it didn’t have eyes. But it was looking in her direction. Moondog briefly broke away to take a quick look around; most of the tacks had already been transformed back into the grass and the dreamer hadn’t noticed a thing.
Astral seemed to be finished with her dream weaving, walking right up to the shield. “Okay,” she said firmly. “Why are you doing this?”
“Astral-” began Moondog. But to her surprise, Astral put up a hoof to stop her. Moondog quickly clamped her mouth shut. Whatever she was up to, it was probably best to let it run.
A rift split open on the Tantabus’s face so it could leer at Astral. “Why do you think? Ponies these days have it too easy. They can’t even face danger in dreams without it being stamped out. I’m simply giving them some adversity in life. Some character. Without it, they’ll grow soft and fold in the wind. I’m doing what’s right.”
Astral nodded, although it seemed stiff to Moondog. Her ears were twitching. “I see. And why are you doing this?”
The Tantabus was talking before Moondog could object. “Why not? Nothing in here matters.” It gestured at the still-ignorant dreamer. “You already saved him. From what? A second’s discomfort? Why bother? I can’t do anything permanent. Let me have my small measures of fun. You have enough on your hooves already.”
Moondog was promptly split between rattling off one of the many possible responses to that and pointing out that the two reasons didn’t match. Yet Astral’s only response was a slight frown and some pawing at the ground. “Mmhmm. And why are you doing this?”
Again, the Tantabus’s answer was immediate. “You. And her.” Its lack of a gaze flicked between Astral and Moondog. “You can’t see just how far you’ve fallen into your own hubris, haven’t you? Thinking you can patrol the dreams of an entire country alone. I’m here to remind you of just how small you are in the world. After all, you can’t even protect the ones close to you.” In the space of an instant, it dropped the shield for just long enough to slip away, leaving the dream behind.
“Moon scald it,” muttered Moondog. “Come on.”
self.setDream(NULL); astral.setDream(NULL); searchFor(tntbs);
She pulled Astral back into the collective unconscious and immediately started scanning for the Tantabus again. The dream realm was a big, morphous place, and tracking something, even something as distinctive as the Tantabus, was immen-
“Hold on, Your Nibs.”
Moondog stopped the spell. Astral was shifting her weight around, her tail swishing back and forth as she thought. “Did you notice something?” Moondog prodded.
“Sort of. It’s about the Tantabus. I don’t think it’s as smart as we think it is. I don’t think it’s even alive.”
“Neither am I.”
Astral rolled her eyes. “Well, obviously, I mean in the sense that you’re alive and aware and junk. I mean it’s just an overcomplicated machine. See, when I talked to it, it…” She groaned and ruffled her mane. “You’re gonna think it’s stupid,” she muttered.
“Have you met me? I work with dreams,” said Moondog. “Stupidity is my stock-in-trade, along with nonsense and inanity.”
“…It didn’t get annoyed,” Astral said. “Annoyance is… It’s a… Not a pony thing, but a… person thing. A sophont thing. Machines don’t get annoyed. They just keep doing whatever they’re supposed to be doing. And the Tantabus, it- I asked it the same question three times in a row and it didn’t react to that. Why? Because it’s not aware enough to know what I did.”
Moondog opened her mouth, closed it again, and stroked her chin, gazing off into the distance. “But it was talking,” she muttered, more thinking out loud than anything. The idea wasn’t a bad one.
“It doesn’t really know what it’s saying. It’s just- stringing together words and phrases in certain orders because you and me’ll react to them. It’s trying to make nightmares, and what it’s saying is scary, right? But if you asked it what a noun was, it couldn’t answer. Unless you’re afraid of the definition of a noun for some reason. It doesn’t say anything to other dreamers because it doesn’t need to. To them, it’s just part of the dream. It doesn’t even keep track of the past because that doesn’t matter. If you ask it a question, it’ll give you an answer that scares you — any answer that scares you — and forget about it the second it’s done.”
The more Moondog thought about it, the more sense it made. The Tantabus had attacked Moondog’s and Astral’s skills, but rather vaguely, and only after it had looked into their minds. If spreading nightmares was still its goal, then that was… adequate. There was no extra zest to actually make the nightmares interesting, like nocnice would do. It was just the minimum to qualify as a nightmare. And maybe that was more than fine for dreamers, who had no knowledge of what was happening, but definitely not for actual oneiromancers.
Moreover, that would explain why her dive into the Tantabus’s mind had failed: it had no mind to dive into. It had no curiosity, no distractions, no reasoning, no sense of self. It would just do whatever its spells told it to. Very complicated spells that could produce an incredibly wide range of behaviors, true, but it wouldn’t deviate from them.
“I think you’re right,” said Moondog. (Astral blinked and stood a little higher.) “The first Tantabus had never been self-aware, so maybe this one isn’t, either. But then we have a problem.”
Astral’s ears twitched back. “Yeah?”
“If it’s just a machine, we can’t really convince it of anything. We can’t scare it. We can’t talk it down. I bet none of that’s in its parameters. It’ll just keep trying to make nightmares and ignore everything else. It won’t stop until we dismantle it.”
“Weren’t we… kinda doing that already?”
“Kinda. Sorta. I don’t know. But now we know that this is probably our only option.”
“Run around the dreamscape. Pull it apart. Bit by bit.”
Moondog shrugged helplessly.
“This is gonna be a looooong night,” Astral said with a sigh.
“Maybe. Now hold on a sec.”
searchFor(tntbs);
As Moondog’s spell searched, Astral paced a circle, muttering under her breath. After Moondog determined it was mostly angry nothings, she ignored it. Ponies had ways to get things out of their-
Her spell hummed. Moondog pulled at space, coiled the location information into existence, and put a hoof on the dream.
When she realized she recognized the door, she heaved Astral through so quickly her color was briefly left behind.
It took Astral a moment to regain her balance after Moondog’s sudden yank, but when she did, the Tantabus was still in the “survey the dreamer” phase. The dreamer, a teenaged earth pony, was drifting down a river of leaves without a care in the world as the Tantabus watched her. Astral shook her head to clear it and glanced at Moondog, ready to follow her lead.
To her surprise, Moondog actually seemed a bit nervous, with her wings tight at her sides. But when she saw that the dreamer hadn’t been attacked yet, she relaxed a little. Coils of light sprang from her horn as she made a hasty grab for the Tantabus’s energy-
Too hasty. Her roughness quickly drew the Tantabus’s attention and she was only able to get a little bit of energy before the shield went up. As more coils tried to probe it, the Tantabus turned its attention to Moondog and Astral got the feeling its expression would be cold if it had an expression. “One pony,” it purred. “You call yourself a guardian of dreams, yet you can be ripped from your duties to protect one pony. And you claim-”
Astral had heard this sort of speech plenty of times before from the Eschaton, and it hadn’t been any fresher then. She was pushed over the edge less from any sort of civic or oneiric duty and more from spite. She sent a few probing spells of her own at the shield; they wouldn’t add much, but it was something.
“Do the world a favor and shut up,” she drawled. “We already know what your deal is. Your tries at scaring us are so… basic. …You know what, yeah. That’s you. Basic.” She glanced at Moondog. “Yeah, I know it won’t understand anything. Just let me have this.”
“Basic?” The Tantabus chuckled. “You think being fundamental is an insult?”
Astral and Moondog exchanged glances.
“Of course I’m fundamental. I am the bottom of every dark pit in your mind. I am the shadow in every closet. I am-”
“What’s that?”
Astral jumped in surprise, disrupting her probing. The dreamer was standing right next to Moondog, looking at the Tantabus with no fear, vague interest, and far more lucidity than Astral was used to. “W-well, um-” How much should they tell? Was the kid ready for it? “-it’s a-”
“Astral, this is Moonlit Meadow,” said Moondog. “She’s a lucid dreamer and one of my first real friends, which is probably why the Tantabus is here. She knows-”
Apparently, Moondog’s attention slipped; the Tantabus was able to let the shield collapse and slip out before either Astral or Moondog knew what was up. Astral made a grab at the Tantabus, to utterly no avail. She nearly said something uncouth before remembering that somepony’s kid was around. (Why was she still concerned about that now?)
“-enough about the dreamscape that…” Moondog blinked at where the Tantabus had been. “Dangit,” she muttered. She noticed the look on Meadow’s face and quickly said, “Not your fault. Mine.”
“…Okay,” said Meadow. Definitely lucid. It was a weird thought to Astral, for some reason. “So… what was that? And why was it coming after me?”
“Nightmare monster,” Moondog replied. “Long story.”
Astral cleared her throat. “Speaking of the monster, do you have any better plans for it than just running after it? Or…”
“Not really,” Moondog admitted. “I’ll ask Mom, see if she can help. New set of eyes.” Her horn started glowing, only to wink out quickly. “Huh. That was fast.”
Before Astral could ask what was fast, a tree grew from the ground. A knot grew to the size of a doorway and from that passage stepped Luna.
Astral found herself going still. Luna. The same Luna she’d turned herself in to so long ago. Formerly-Known-as-Princess Luna. The Dreamwalker. Even without her regalia, she still looked like she deserved to be royalty and immortalized, both in art and in actual immortality. Astral unconsciously took a step back.
“You called?” Luna asked, turning to Moondog.
“I’m really sorry that I’m dropping this on you, but we’ve got a problem,” said Moondog. “See…”
She began talking, using terms and discussing events that Astral had no knowledge of. The conversation quickly turned into a blur of oneirobabble. She glanced over to the side at Meadow, who was looking forgotten and slightly peeved at being forgotten. “Hey, kid,” said Astral. “Meadow, was it? We should go over there and let the immortal archmage princesses talk.”
“Yeah,” said Meadow. She was watching Moondog and Luna talk, but from the way she was frowning and her ears were twitching, she didn’t understand a thing.
Astral conjured up a dense circle of grass some distance away, perfect for lying down loaflike in. Meadow remained standing, watching the two alicorns talk for a few moments more before she finally threw away any attempt at understanding them. She looked down at Astral with all the trepidation you’d expect from the pony whose dream you’d barged into. “Um. Hi.” Tentative wave. “I’m… Moonlit Meadow.”
“Astral Mind,” said Astral, tipping an invisible hat. “I’m with the government and I’m here to help.”
Meadow’s eyes grew wide and she took a step back.
“…That came out wrong. I’m a friend of a friend and I’m here to help.”
“Oh.” Meadow relaxed a little. Only a little. “Help with what?”
The kid already knew Moondog. She was probably bright enough to spot lies; might as well be honest. “There’s another dream automaton running around, only it’s creating nightmares. Moondog and I are trying to stop it. Luna, too, now, I guess.”
Meadow actually seemed to accept that, which was more proof than anything that she did know Moondog. “So why did it come after me?”
“It tried to get to Moondog through you. You’re her friend, she doesn’t like friends of hers getting nightmares, you can follow the lines from there.” Astral waved a hoof back and forth. “It wasn’t personal.”
“Hmm.” Meadow settled down in the grass. “So… Do you work for Moondog?”
“Yep. Head dream researcher and all-around lackey for Her Nibs.”
Meadow gave Astral a Look.
“Well, I am,” Astral said shamelessly. “I’m the only pony working for her at all at the moment. ‘Lackey’ kind of has to be part of my job description. Besides, you know she’d agree with me.”
Meadow didn’t look convinced, but she stopped looking like she’d had a briquette shoved up her nose. “I guess. …What do you research?”
“Right now? Easier ways for her to communicate, mostly. She doesn’t like going into the real world. Just a few moons ago…”
For all Moondog’s knowledge of the dream realm, there were undoubtedly still plenty of things that she didn’t know but Mom did. After all, even in her brief stint since returning from the moon, she’d still been around longer than Moondog, let alone her actions a thousand years ago. Her knowledge was expansive, comprehensive, and practical. Whatever problems Moondog might run into, Mom had already experienced them many times before.
Which made it all the more troubling that she seemed clueless about the Tantabus.
Moondog laid out what little she and Astral knew about the Tantabus. All the while, she searched Mom’s face for some flash of insight or inspiration. None came. Mom looked thoughtful, but rarely confident. In some ways, it was to be expected; the original Tantabus hadn’t been magically beaten down, but reabsorbed by Mom after she’d forgiven herself. In spite of Ponyville’s best efforts, it had simply shrugged off everything thrown at it. If that was the case here…
“…and then I decided that we couldn’t just go chasing it around everywhere, so I called on you, and… any ideas?” Moondog asked hopefully. Her wings twitched open, very slightly.
“Perhaps,” Mom said. “I would have to see the Tantabus firsthoof to know for certain. But, something such as this…” She sighed and shook her head. “If Astral’s theory is correct, then many of our usual strategies cannot be applied. As a thoughtless machine, the Tantabus would be unable to be cowed, intimidated, dissuaded, persuaded, tricked, or even distracted for more than a few moments. It will simply keep functioning and spreading until it cannot do so anymore.”
“Yay.”
“Our only consolation is that it yet seems unable to enter the real world. Or perhaps unfettered access to Equestria’s dreamscape is enough to keep its machine mind satisfied. And should it prove able to do that as well, I have been studying spells to keep such magic suppressed in the real world since the first Tantabus. Spells at which I have become quite capable.”
“Hooray for paranoia, I guess.”
truth.accept();
Sometimes, there weren’t any secret ways to make it easier. There weren’t any shortcuts or time savers or efficiency tricks. Sometimes, you just had to grit your teeth and do it. And if stopping the Tantabus took following it around nonstop and whittling away one percent of its energy every hour, well, that was what it took. Didn’t mean Moondog had to like it. There were a multitude of reasons for Moondog to not like it, as a matter of fact, with length being the one that concerned her the least.
“But if that’s the way it is, then… Mom, I hate to dump this on you, but…” Deep breath. “I might need you to take over from me for a while.”
But Mom didn’t bat an eye. “Of course. I am already helping you, slipping back into my former role will be quite simple.”
Moondog’s voice slipped into mumbles as she started babbling. “I mean, it’s kinda, it could be anywhere, and if it keeps this up, it’ll keep getting stronger-”
“Moondog.”
“-and we might be looking at a positive feedback loop-”
“Moondog.”
“-where the stronger it gets, the faster it gets stronger-”
“Princess.”
ramble.stop();
“Sorry. I’m… not built for this sort of grind. As you know.”
“Indeed. However, I am not averse to us perhaps swapping positions. You maintain your usual duties, while I-”
“Um. H-hey! Moondog!”
Moondog and Mom looked over. Meadow was half walking up to them, half willing the ground to swallow her whole out of embarrassment (Moondog could feel it; Astral was countering it). She swallowed and coughed out, “Aren’t you- less powerful in the real world?”
“Oh, absolutely,” said Moondog. “Can’t stand it. Why?”
“Well, uh,” said Meadow. She looked down and shuffled her weight from hoof to hoof. “It’s just that… Astral and I were talking, and… Maybe…”
“Just tell them already!” Astral yelled.
Meadow twitched and fired a glare at Astral, who remained supremely unconcerned. “What if,” Meadow said to Moondog, “you were… able to… get the Tantabus into the real world?”
Mom’s ear twitched. “And how would you propose we do that?” she didn’t quite snap. “Have Moondog carry it out? Ask it nicely if it would leave its place of power? See if-”
“Mom,” Moondog said as Meadow folded her ears back. “She’s just trying to help.”
“And her idea is-!” Mom let a breath out slowly. “You’re right,” she muttered, massaging her head. “But such an action was my very first thought. And to have it introduced so cavalierly, I…” She turned to Meadow and bowed her head. “I apologize. I… There is no excuse for my harshness.”
Meadow looked up. After a moment, she said, “It’s alright.” Her ears slowly came back up.
“On first glance, the idea is hardly a bad one,” said Luna, as if to reassure Meadow. “Most creatures of nightmare have their power vastly decreased in the real world, if they can exist at all. The problem lies in getting them into the real world to begin with. They are hard to pin down and can escape into the infinite expanses of the dreamscape with the slightest slip, never to be seen again.”
self.get(idea);
“Are they really that hard to hold?” Meadow asked. “Can’t you just make a cage, or-”
Astral stood up. “Meadow, here’s the thing with dreams: everything you can do? Nocnice can do, too, and they can probably do it better.”
idea.process(); idea.test();
“And the Tantabus is even better than that. Remember: all of this?” Astral gestured around, sparks trailing from her hoof. “It doesn’t exist. It’s not permanent. Cages don’t really do anything.”
“Indeed,” said Mom. “Granted, as your brain fills in the gaps you do not notice and you experience what you expect to experience…” She scooped up a hoofful of dirt and let it fall. “That can be hard to remember. However, given the permanence of reality, the Tantabus would have to expend far vaster amounts of power to simply move, let alone manipulate-”
return: Status.VALID
“I got it,” said Moondog, grinning. Everypony turned to her. “A plan. A way to stop the Tantabus. Tonight. I got it.” Giddiness was running up and down her body like electricity.
“And?” Astral asked. “Let’s hear it.”
“Again, sorry about the whole ‘nightmare monster trying to use you to get to me’ thing,” Moondog said to Meadow. “It won’t happen again.”
“By the time I even noticed, you were already fixing it,” said Meadow. “And it wasn’t your fault, anyway. What’re you sorry about?”
“She was built to have a savior complex,” said Astral. “Anything bad happening on her watch is a travesty.”
Moondog raised a hoof, opened her mouth, then looked away and rubbed her neck. “Sorta, yeah.”
“Sorta?” said Astral. “You wanted me to help with dream patrol because you couldn’t get to literally every bad dream out there!”
“…Yeah. Still, I feel bad, so: sorry, Meadow.”
“I’m fine, don’t worry about it!”
Mom clicked her tongue and pulled open the portal back to the collective unconscious, pulling everyone out.
“Stop by again sometime!” Meadow yelled after them.
“I’m busy, but I’ll do my best!” said Moondog. Once the portal was fully closed, she turned to Astral. “You know where you’re going?”
“Enough to get started,” said Astral. “And I’ll ask the guards if I can’t find it.”
“It should be on the south wing of the castle,” said Mom. “That is where-”
“Mom. We went over this. Go, Astral.”
Astral nodded, stabbed herself in the chest with a sword, and vanished from the dream realm as she woke up.
Moondog sat down and looked across the void. “Now, where are you…”
searchFor(tntbs);
“Ding! Got it.”
Moondog led Mom to the Tantabus’s current dream, a cruise ship on a sea of marmalade. She didn’t even bother looking for the dreamer (although clearly the dreamer was the only person who wasn’t an indistinct haze); she simply zeroed in on the Tantabus, perched on the bow. She readied her magic-
“I beg pardon,” said Mom, “but may I try to contain it? I am able to… break through where you could not, we may be able to end this right now.”
“Be my guest,” said Moondog. “Maybe you’ll see something I don’t.”
Mom nodded. Space around the Tantabus twitched and blazed into a magic circle, glowing violet. But no sooner had the first dots lit up than the Tantabus put up its shield. Spears from the circle stabbed into the shield, to no avail. “Odd,” Mom said with a frown. “This shield is shockingly well-crafted.”
“For a machine, or…?”
“On its own merits. It is both quite strong and quite efficient. Twilight Sparkle herself could not do be-”
“Oh, look,” said the Tantabus. “Your attempts to capture me are so pathetic that you had to enlist the help of your predecessor. Such a reputation you’re not living up to. Are you really so weak?”
It didn’t even notice that Astral was gone. Definitely a machine. “Nah,” said Moondog. She started circling the Tantabus’s shield. “You just bore me.”
“Indeed,” Mom added. She began rounding the shield as well. Princesses of Dreams had a flair for the dramatic. “You wish to spread nightmares, but your targets are so inconsequential. Who cares if some hermit in the wilds experiences bad dreams? They shall be forgotten in days.”
“Now, if you’d gone after somepony important,” Moondog said, “like, oh, Princess Twilight Sparkle…” She gave a long, low whistle. “That’d be something.”
“Oh, heavens, it could cascade!” Mom said, melodramatically throwing a hoof to her heart. “The princess cannot sleep for nightmares. She makes poor decisions. Nopony questions her, for ponies put far too much value in their heroes. One thing leads to another. Two weeks later, ponies in the ruins of Canterlot have nightmares about the avalanche that destroyed the castle. And that in just one city!” She very nearly swooned.
“I’m getting nightmares just thinking about it!” said Moondog.
wings.cross();
“All your country’s well-being, focused into one person,” said the Tantabus. “I’d expect nothing more from people as foolish as you.”
Moondog and Mom looked at each other. They nodded. And Mom let up her attack.
The shield was gone and the Tantabus slipped away immediately. As expected. As planned.
“You missed several prime chances at insulting me, you know!” Moondog hollered, to the confusion of the dreamer. She grinned at Mom. “It’s working.”
“Only if the Tantabus actually goes to her,” said Mom. “Come. We must follow it.”
They needed to force the Tantabus into the real world. For that, they needed to keep it restrained in some way. Being prevented from leaving a dream was restraint enough. But for that, you needed to sever the dream from the dreamscape. Doing that would require weeks of preparation and work, along with extensive testing to be sure everything was actually working properly. Even Equestria’s two top-tier oneiromancers working together couldn’t create a working like that in the time they had. It was simply impossible.
So the second she woke up, Astral swiped one of the dreamlocks from the lab. This was the sort of thing it was made for, after all. Just in the opposite direction.
The plan required finesse. Astral needed to put the dreamlock onto a sleeper without waking them up in the process, which might boot the Tantabus back into the dreamscape rather than trapping it. It required timing. If Astral put it on the sleeper too early, the Tantabus couldn’t enter their dream. Too late, and it’d already be gone. Most of all, it required planning, so that the sleeper Astral was putting the dreamlock on was actually the one Moondog and Luna were herding the Tantabus into. After some discussion, balancing all the variables, and borderline existential panic, they had reluctantly decided on the bait.
Princess Twilight Sparkle.
The second-worst part about the plan was that, whoever’s dream they were herding the Tantabus into, it had to be somewhat plausible. The Tantabus had looked through both Astral’s and Moondog’s memories; if Moondog had tried claiming some random servant was key to Equestria’s mental health, the Tantabus might cross-reference its data (or something), find a lack of references to that servant, conclude that that servant wasn’t important, and then simply not act. It’d be like running hot water through a coffee filter with no coffee: you wouldn’t magically get what you wanted. Twilight, though? Diarch of Equestria, Princess of Friendship? Yeah. There was a juicy target. At least the Tantabus couldn’t know it was being tricked. Such was the way machines didn’t think.
The worst part was the way Astral needed physical access. Twilight wasn’t the only pony available for this, but she was the only one Astral could quickly find out where she slept. So she needed to actually enter the princess’s bedroom. Joy.
Astral would’ve said that doing this to the princess without her permission was the actual worst part. Moondog said they didn’t have much time, but she did have both a pardon for Astral and an apology for Twilight ready to go. Princess of Dreams and all that.
This late at night, the castle halls were nearly empty, but most of the few ponies still up were guards who were able to direct her to Twilight’s bedroom once she waved an ID badge in their faces to show she was working for Moondog. She was pointed towards a wing of the castle she’d never once been in and up a tower. The spiral staircase wound up and up and up as she galloped. Why in the blazes did royalty need everything so grandiose?
Her heart was pounding when she finally reached the top landing, where two ponies were standing guard. They snapped into alertness as Astral slid across the floor and slammed into a tapestry. She staggered up to their crossed spears as one of them held down his surprise long enough to begin, “You are not allowed in-”
“I’m Astral Mind and I work for Princess Moondog and I need to get in there,” Astral yelled as quietly as she could. She forcefully shoved her badge at one of the guards for verification. “She’s chasing down a past version of herself into Princess Twilight’s head so we can force it into the real world where it’ll be less powerful and we can contain it.”
The free guard let one of his ears droop and he titled his head, as if in thought. Eventually, he said, “That’s one of the most ridiculous things I’ve ever heard.”
The second guard briefly stopped examining Astral’s badge to look over at him. “Which, given Princess Twilight’s track record, means it’s almost definitely true?”
“Precisely.”
The two stepped aside, gave Astral her badge back, and waved her in. With a deep breath, feeling like she was trespassing, Astral entered.
The princess’s bedroom was considerably smaller and less plush than she’d expected. She’d been ready for a room with more floor space than most houses; what she saw was practically understated, basically a room that really was largely for sleeping (and reading, judging by the number of bookcases), even if it had a balcony with one of the best views in Equestria. Princess Twilight herself was sound asleep in a bed that was at least five sizes too large for her (inherited from Celestia, maybe?). She was snoring. Were princesses allowed to snore?
So. Physical access to Twilight. Astral pulled out the dreamlock and bounced it on her hoof. All she had to do now was wait for Moondog to pop out of Twilight’s dream and say they were ready. It could happen at any moment, and she needed to be ready. Waiting even a second too long could let the Tantabus escape. But Moondog was coming, and she’d leap into action. Any minute now. Totally.
Yep.
Any minute now.
Absolutely.
Definitely.
…
Moondog’s hatred of waiting started making a lot more sense.
…
Were princess snores louder than regular pony snores? Because wow was Twilight a loud snorer.
Machines were predictable. Put something in repeatedly, you’d probably get a different something out repeatedly. Turn the right dials on a locomotive, and you could be pretty sure that it’d eventually go forward. Point a fear-making golem at a particularly potent source of fear, and it’d head in that direction.
Ideally.
But the Tantabus couldn’t get ideas, so “ideally” was out of the question. That information was probably sent to some priority queue somewhere in its design, where it would be gotten to eventually. Moondog and Mom kept feeding it, “hey, Twilight having nightmares would be real real bad”, and while it was working its way up in rank, any self-respecting nightmare monster would’ve jumped to Twilight already. (The Tantabus wasn’t self-aware, how could it hope to be self-respecting?)
It was the same pattern. Moondog and Mom would chase the Tantabus into a dream, it would put up a shield, they’d try to give it information, and then they’d let it escape, ripping a tiny sliver of energy from it as it left (just in case). Lather, rinse, repeat. The Tantabus didn’t even make comments about how long the chase was going on, so Moondog couldn’t make any dramatic declarations about never giving up. And repetition did not suit her well.
The Tantabus was in its protective bubble once more as Moondog and Mom circled around it and battered the shield, in a pose that probably would’ve been aloof if it’d had an expression. Moondog looked the Tantabus in the lack of eyes and enunciated, “Princess Twilight having nightmares would scare me. I would hate it if Princess Twilight had nightmares.”
“Moondog-” began Mom.
“Look, I’m sorry, but do you have any better ideas?”
Mom pursed her lips and flicked her tail.
“You are, both of you, hopeless,” tsked the Tantabus. “The Princess of Dreams and her heir, mother and daughter, utterly unable to-”
“Wait,” said Mom. “How does it know that I am your mother?”
“I told you,” said Moondog, “it drilled into my thoughts, picked out what it needed, and-”
“And that is when it attempted to attack Meadow, true?”
“…Pretty sure, yeah. But I don’t-”
“Let the shield fall. It has yet to see what gives me nightmares. I can lie to it.”
“Lie to a spell like that?”
“Have you forgotten to whom you speak, young one?”
self.setFacehoofLevel(6);
“…Sorry.”
Logically, Mom wasn’t in any real danger from the Tantabus; this one was far more predictable and less powerful than the first. But Moondog was rarely on speaking terms with logic, so it was with trepidation that she stopped trying to attack the shield. For a moment, the Tantabus didn’t respond and the shield stayed up.
Almost faster than Moondog could follow, a thin cord of light lashed out from the Tantabus and at Mom, only for her to intercept the cord with her own with ease. When the Tantabus vanished, Mom was smirking. “ ’Twas an old spell,” she said as she and Moondog left the dream, “and one easy to fool if it was expected.”
“Good,” said Moondog. “I guess I should be ashamed, since I didn’t block it.”
Mom’s eyes widened. “I did not-”
“Kidding!” Moondog replied with a grin. “Kidding. Seriously. Now lemme work.”
searchFor(tntbs); tntbs.getLocation().getDreamer().getName(); return: -- "Twilight Sparkle" self.setStatus(SATISFIED.Very);
“It worked, it’s in Twilight’s dream,” Moondog said quickly. “Go tell Astral and I’ll keep it distracted.” Mom nodded and both of them were gone.
As if they needed more evidence that the Tantabus wasn’t sapient, it still hadn’t broken from its “observation” routine. It was watching Twilight give a lecture on magic to a class full of yaks. Moondog didn’t try any sort of action against it, just poking it to trigger its shield reflex. It was easy, like pushing a button.
The two arcane intelligences looked at each other through the shield’s shimmering luminescence. “Nothing you’ve tried so far has worked, O self-proclaimed Princess of Dreams,” said the Tantabus. It settled down, as if resting. “Perhaps your time is over. Perhaps you are obsolete.”
“Oh, wow. This is the tack you’re taking?” snorted Moondog. “Obsolete? Compared to what, you? Puh-leaze. I could be here for hours rattling off why that’s not true, but there’s one thing in particular that wrecks you.” Astral was right; it was satisfying to rip into the Tantabus, even if it didn’t react.
“Oh, really?” The Tantabus’s smile was shiny and hollow. “Do tell.”
“You don’t get anyone. At all.”
“Eh-heh,” the Tantabus said skeptically. “Is that it?”
“I mean, if I held up the Bewitching Bell and said, ‘Tell me what that pony’s deal is or I’ll suck you into this and scramble every last thaum of yours until you’re pudding’, you couldn’t do it, could you?”
“As if you could find such a long-forgotten artifact.”
“Right down in the vaults. But that’s not important. When you give ponies nightmares, you’re basically picking from a checklist of what they dislike. Your dreams have no zest, no artistry, no flourish, no personality. It’s all well-crafted, technically, but there’s no heart.”
“Heart? You think heart matters?” the Tantabus asked. “Heart is what has you chasing after one problem as nightmares pile up. Heart is what makes you inefficient. Heart is worthless. You’re yesterday’s news. You’re old hat. You’re outmoded. And I?” It placed a hoof on its chest and held its head high. “I am the future.”
Moondog snorted. “Honestly? If you’re the future, then the future sucks.”
Before the Tantabus could respond, the dream suddenly felt smaller.
Moondog knew what that meant.
Astral didn’t think that anything had gone wrong — either Moondog or Luna would’ve told her if it had (probably) — but she’d been waiting long enough to wonder. She had nothing to do for… She didn’t know how long, the room didn’t have a clock. And it felt awkward, standing by the princess’s side as she snored. Even the guards seemed a bit socially anxious; whenever Astral glanced at the doorway, they were watching her. They never asked her to do anything, at least, but…
When she paced, she did her best to do it quietly and not wake Twilight up. If she’d just brought one of the sleeping potions, she could at least take it, work with Moondog on herding the Tantabus, and wake up already ready to go. But she couldn’t going out and getting it in case she missed the signal, the guards probably wouldn’t know where to look, and-
Her ears pricked up. It sounded like somepony was coming up the stairs. But the time she’d turned to look, Luna was already at the top, quietly trotting through the doorway. “We are ready,” she whispered, not even fazed from teleporting halfway across the country. “Do you have it?”
Astral pulled the dreamlock from her pocket and waved it before Luna’s face. Without further ado, she delicately strapped it around one of Twilight’s fetlocks, thankfully without waking her up. Nothing changed, but a quick poke at the dreamlock’s magic told Astral it was working.
Almost immediately, the air above Twilight shimmered and rippled until it distorted into Moondog. She hovered right next to Twilight’s ear and yelled, “Hey!”
Twilight awoke with a yelp.
And around her head, reality split open.
Space warped in strange ways, nothing peeling back from nothing. Through this nothing bled the Tantabus, a deep swirl of violet space and twinkling stars. It expanded to cover the ceiling and Astral felt like she could fall into that void, fall forever and-
Luna’s horn pulsed with magic and the entire room seemed to flex towards her. The Tantabus immediately started collapsing back in on itself like water falling down through a drain. Shimmering lines hummed strange melodies as they traced themselves from the air around the shrinking blob like chains. More and more, smaller and smaller, until the Tantabus was only a few inches across. Another pulse of magic and the light coalesced into a small box of a strange silver metal that fell to the floor with a weirdly hollow clang. Purple light shone at the seams; something groaned, shrieked.
Then Moondog was there, her horn to the box. Her entire form was undulating and the stars in her body twisted around each other as she muttered. “Where is it, where is it, where is… Off!” The light stopped shining from the box and all sound dropped to silence. She settled back onto her rump, smiling a very self-satisfied smile. “The Tantabus is inactive. Even if we open that box up, it won’t be going anywhere.”
“You’re certain?” asked Luna. “It will not-”
“There’s no energy flowing in it. It had an ‘Off’ switch, for crying out loud! Yes, I took it out so we can’t turn it back on again. There is no chance of the Tantabus breaking out.”
Silence fell. Everyone looked at the box. The Tantabus did not break out.
“See? We’re done.”
Luna slouched with relief, even her wings drooping to the floor. “Thank the fates.”
“Excuse me,” said Twilight. “Can someone-”
“Astral,” Luna continued, “for your first attempt at dispelling creatures of nightmare, you performed admirably. I look forward to seeing where you shall go from here.”
“I mean, Moondog hired me for a reason,” said Astral. With a moment of silence finally available, her thoughts got away from her and she held up her hooves in a frame. “You know, you really do have a face card face.”
“I…” It was clear that Luna didn’t know what expression to make. “I… beg your pardon?”
“You, you look like one of the queens in a deck of cards,” Astral said quickly. “And not the usual cards, but the marot. The Queen of… Spurs, I think.” She tilted her head to one side. Yeah. Definitely Spurs.
“Excuse me! I’d like-”
“You… already saw me. It was but a few minutes ago. When-”
“That was still in the dream realm, I thought you were making yourself look better! I mean, have you seen you?”
“She’s got a point, Mom.”
Luna stared at Moondog. “Are you implying that-”
Twilight stomped her hoof, shaking the room. “Excuse me!” she half-yelled. “Can somepony please explain to me what in Celestia’s name is going on?! Why is Luna here? What’s Astral doing here? What’s Moondog doing out of the dream realm? Did I really see another Tantabus? Why am I-” She shook her leg. “-wearing a dreamlock? And whatever happened, why am I only hearing about it NOW?”
“I’ll do it,” Moondog said immediately. “You two can get to bed.” She waved them away towards the door and scooped up the box with a wing.
“Really?” Astral asked. “You don’t…?”
“Really really I don’t. Shoo. Scram. Sleep.”
“Then good night, see you soon,” said Astral. She walked out the door, past the bemused guards, and began descending the staircase.
She was at least halfway down when the rush of the situation began wearing off. Although she’d slept, she hadn’t gotten much rest before first running into the Tantabus, and now she didn’t have monster-fighting to distract her from how heavy her hooves were (the thrill of victory helped, but only a little). What time was it now? Past midnight, probably, and her mind had been up and doing things since sunrise. The disconnect between mental exhaustion and a lack of physical exhaustion was strange, but she sucked in a breath, raised her head, and kept walking. She could at least make it to her bed, where collapsing from burnout would be comfy.
Heavy hooffalls came down the steps behind her. “Pardon me,” said Luna, “but are you in need of aid in returning home?”
“Not really,” said Astral, “but somepony to talk to on the way there would be nice.”
It wasn’t fair that Luna only needed to take two steps for every three or four of Astral’s, especially since she still seemed alert, but that was the way it turned out. Astral couldn’t muster up the willpower to care all that much, anyway. After a moment, she said to Luna, “Thanks. For keeping watch over dreams when you were a princess.”
“Even though that keeping watch led to your arrest?”
“It worked out alright. It’s…” Astral blinked a few times to keep her eyelids from drooping. “How did you not burn out? You’re practically awake all the time.”
“I was not. Not remotely. Why do you think I rarely made public appearances? I slept during the day.”
“But you did that, then-”
“I never slumbered at night. As part of my magic, I am able to access the realm of dreams without needing to sleep.”
“…That seems… stupid. Counterintuitive and stupid. I mean, why wouldn’t you?”
Luna actually chuckled. “Entering the dream realm through sleep is, ultimately, a crutch, for while the body rests, the mind may not. Hence your current frazzled state. Dreaming is something every sophont can do, but to stride across the realm of slumber while still awake requires one to know how to transcend the barrier between body and mind, between the material and the immaterial. You may explore the psychosphere at your leisure and still return to your body ready for physical and mental rejuvenation simultaneously.”
“Mmhmm.” Astral nodded. A lot of complicated magic that she could never manage, in other words. In fact- “If that sort of magic has you, eh, transcending barriers, can you planeswalk?”
“Beyond even dreams? No.” Then Luna grinned, and Astral saw something that laughed in the face of danger. “At least, not yet. But a mare needs hobbies and I now have a surfeit of free time.”
Coming from most ponies, Astral would’ve been shocked beyond belief. Coming from one of the former diarchs, Astral’s only response was, “Huh. Neat.”
“Indeed it shall be.”
They walked through the empty corridors for a little while longer before Luna asked, “So… the Queen of Spurs?”
“Oh, wow, yes,” said Astral. “Stick you in profile, drop you on a throne, and you’d make an excellent Queen of Spurs.”
“Given the symbolism behind the art on her, I should hope so.”
“Symbolism?”
Luna looked down at Astral, her eyebrows slightly raised. “You know about the art of the Queen of Spurs, but not the symbolism behind it? How much experience do you have with the marot?”
“I know you can apparently predict the future with it and I’ve played some marocchini, but that’s about it.”
“Then you ought to know that Prench mages are utter liars and made up history where there wasn’t any. Allow me to introduce you to the complex and interesting yet ultimately balderdash world of cartomancy…”
“…so then Astral put the dreamlock on and woke you up, which forced the Tantabus into the real world,” said Moondog. “I went and got Mom and she captured it, and…” She held the box up. “Ta-da.”
One of the best things about Twilight: she drank up knowledge, even after being woken up in the middle of the night. She was sitting on her bed, ears forward and wings rustling, and Moondog knew from her expression that she not only understood everything, but was already thinking of the implications, probably faster than Moondog herself. Twilight nodded slowly. “And this was only a few hours, right?”
“Believe me, Twilight, if I’d had the time to let you know, I would have.”
“Of course. It’s just…” Twilight sighed and hopped off her bed to start pacing. “So you don’t know where the Tantabus came from?”
“Astral said it just appeared in the dream realm.” Moondog tucked the box beneath a wing. “Once the sun rises and I’m not so busy, I’ll give it a few pokes and see what drops out.”
“Thank you. If there’s somepony else who can make a Tantabus, or a group of someponies…”
“We’ll find them, don’t worry. This is my domain, after all.”
“I know. Twilighting.”
“While I’m here, do you feel alright? No… headaches or anything from forcing a golem out of a collapsing pocket dimension through your mind?”
“Well… I have a headache, but it’s not from that.”
“Sorry.” Moondog nudged Twilight back towards her bed. “Get some sleep. I’ll be sure we didn’t damage your mind.”
“Thanks.” Twilight yawned and loped into bed. She was snoring in a few moments.
One of the guards coughed. “Um. Princess?” he whispered. “Is Equestria going to get turned upside-down again? Because it’d be really nice to have some warning for once.”
“It shouldn’t be,” said Moondog. She left the room, pulling the door shut with her tail. “I’ll head it off before it gets that big. This isn’t that different from the original Tantabus incident.”
“The what?”
Moondog grinned. “Exactly! Anyway, gotta get going.” She saluted. “Adios, amigos.”
And she was gone.
Chasing the Tantabus had given her a backlog, so Moondog was kept busy that night. Luckily, there didn’t seem to be any permanent damage or lasting trauma from it, not even in Twilight’s head. The inert energy from the Tantabus she was carrying along didn’t move, twitch, grow, or remotely change in any way whatsoever, but she kept a close eye on it, just in case. Imagine stopping the greatest threat to Equestria’s dreamscape in decades, only to let it go free because you got lazy and stopped watching it.
A few hours after sunrise, Moondog exited dreams for the lab. She pluffed into existence to find Astral fiddling with the coffee machine. “How’s it working?” she asked.
Astral yelped and fell off her stool; Moondog quickly spread out her mane to cushion the fall. “You need to work on that,” she said. “Can’t have you being surprised all the time in dreams.”
“And in dreams, I’m not surprised,” Astral said as she wrestled her way out of the starry haze. “It doesn’t count out here with you.”
“Eh.” Moondog flowed onto the stool next to Astral’s. “Anyway, I’ve got a new job for you. Top priority.” She pulled out the box with the Tantabus and plonked it on the table between them. “Find out everything about this you can.”
“…Learn stuff about the thing that Twilight Sparkle could barely understand.”
“We don’t know anything about where it came from. We need to find out. Maybe another one will come, stronger and smarter. Maybe it won’t. Either way, we need to know.”
Astral opened her mouth.
“Yes, I know it’ll take a super long time. I’m not asking for it today, this week, this moon, or even this year. Just… work on it. Give it a poke and see what falls out. Anything that can help us figure out who made it. I can help if you need it.”
“…Does that include right now?” Astral asked. “Because, whoof, I don’t know where to start.”
“Well, I won’t be much help, since I don’t know where to start, but I can be around.”
“Alright.”
The two of them looked at the box.
“Didn’t you say it had an off switch?” Astral asked.
“I was really just looking for a way to sever its power conduit to shut it down and found one built in. Close enough, I figured.”
“Why don’t we start with that?”
Days passed. Moondog and Astral didn’t make much progress on the origin of the Tantabus; it was intricately designed and they couldn’t find any personal touches or flourishes that could serve as some sort of signature. Yet, given its complexity, they were only scratching the surface. It could keep them busy for a very, very long time.
Time that they would never get.
Space only existed in dreams as much as you let it. If you weren’t looking for it, you could miss it.
In a corner of dreamspace free of minds, in an oddly uninteresting void where ideas might possibly form, a hole flexed open. Something bled through, a trickle of smoke that distorted and sparkled and curled and gathered into a vaguely quadrupedal shape. Then the smoke pulled in on itself, resolving into an alicorn.
She looked a great deal like Luna, with a glistening mane of aether and a coat of royal azure and even a crescent moon for a cutie mark, but no one would confuse the two. The newcomer was quite different in posture: colder, sterner, grander, taller. Perhaps even taller than Celestia. Her crown and peytral shone silver, as did the circlets around her fetlocks and her pearl earrings.
She closed her eyes and let herself drift. “This dreamscape is a healthy one,” she murmured. “The Tantabus will have learned much in its week.” Thoughts around her twisted and undulated out in an arcane command: Come.
Yet nothing came.
She waited for several brainwaves before sending out another command. Come. Yet nothing came. She sighed. “Very well. Then I must find you. Whatever it takes.”