//------------------------------// // Chapter 4 // Story: Beyond the Veil of Sleep // by Starscribe //------------------------------// Mira barely understood how she’d gotten there, or how it was possible. What was worse, the pony she’d thought would be there to help had melted in front of her into a whimpering, sniveling mess. Unlike the strange circumstances around her, this made perfect sense to her. The bats of Mira’s world had a difficult life—a life spent on the edge of a knife. Every winter brought starvation for some, and every encounter with the other tribes of Equestria might bring enslavement, captivity, or torture. Those bats who could not flee rarely lasted long in those conditions. It was why Understory’s secrecy was so critical. Mira had seen so many crumble just like Kallisto was doing now. She’d felt that pain herself, threatening to reach up and strangle her too. To move was to survive—if she stopped, death would soon follow. Even here in this dreaming world, Mira felt her anxiety rising. They had flown into somewhere dangerous, then been as loud and obvious as possible in the hope of attracting friendly attention. They had failed. “We can’t stay here,” she said, urging Kallisto to stand with one hoof. “Come on. We’ll fly somewhere else. Somewhere safe.” Kallisto resisted her, but only for a moment. She rose, shuddering. “R-right. Your involvement has gone far enough, Mira. Thank you for seeing me off. Not the way I expected, but… thank you.” She stumbled towards a nearby temple, as empty and deserted as so many others. Then she traced one hoof along the doorframe, muttering quietly as she did so. The wood began to glow where she touched, a faint line that eventually completed into a rectangle. The looted temple vanished, replaced with a very different temple. The stone room was quiet and dark. The candle had burned low on the stand, barely more than an ember. Mira’s body lay sleeping before the bed. Kallisto was still there, as ancient, and gray as she remembered. There were no signs of life from her, not even the faint rising and falling of her chest. She was still dead. “Go, Mira. Forget the terrors you saw here. And… forget every lesson I taught you. Forget everything. There is no safety in the dreaming city. Find happiness however you can.” Mira’s mouth fell open. “Are you serious?” She didn’t even get close to the boundary, for fear that her teacher might shove her through. The youthful bat beside her could probably do it, unlike the resting ancient on that side. “Leave everything? Give up just because of this?” She gestured with one wing at the empty city. “This place is beautiful, Kallisto. And I dunno about you, but I don’t see any bodies. The bats aren’t dead, they left. Maybe they found somewhere better. We just have to track them down.” Kallisto sighed. She didn’t move from beside the opening, one hoof constantly on the frame. Maybe she had to be there, for the portal to work. “If they had perished, there would be no bodies. We are created of the swirling essence of the dreaming, Mira. Visitor or native, plant or mountain or insect. Without the will to bind that essence, they would dissolve back to the fog. They could have all perished, and we would not know. Now come on. You still have a body to return to. Go out, and live. Maybe your children will give our tribe a better future. We will find it in no other realm now.” Mira took another step backward. “My whole life that’s all I’ve done, Kallisto. Hide from the Solar Army, hide from the unicorn who followed me home. Hide from the other bats who realize I don’t have a family. I’m done hiding. If this place is broken, then I’m staying to fix it.” She lifted up into the air, scanning the city around them. There was so much to explore here she didn’t know where to begin. This was like the old bat cities, if the Solar Guard hadn’t razed it. It was like that and more. Erebus was bigger than Canterlot, bigger than the Two Sisters. If only the bats had still been here. “You can’t help,” Kallisto said. “Hurry, Mira. My strength fades. When the sun rises, the road will collapse. I have nothing more binding me to that place—I cannot open the way again.” Mira landed, but kept well out of reach. Kallisto still hadn’t retreated from the portal—that had to mean she couldn’t be dragged in unless she held it open, right? “Somepony has to! They’re all waiting for someone else to solve their problems! Maybe the other ponies will forget and leave us alone! Maybe Celestia will forgive her sister? Maybe next year will be better? I’m bucking sick of maybes, Kallisto. Somepony has to fix this—and I guess I’m the only one there is.” Kallisto sighed again. “Mira, your heart is as noble as ever I’ve known you. But nobility alone can’t change our circumstance. The only pony who could make a difference in this world or that one was banished to the moon. Without her, all we can do is survive. There’s no shame in knowing your limits.” No, the shame is accepting the limits other ponies give me. Kallisto meant the best for her. She could go back through that doorway and return to her old life. She could bury Kallisto’s body in the crypt beside all the other ancient monks and scholars, and maybe take over the monastery in her stead. Would bats bring her offerings? Or would she be the first monk who also had to dig through the trash? “Then somepony should find her.” She took off again, and this time wasn’t just hovering. “We’re in Nightmare Moon’s world, right? She is here somewhere. We just have to reach her.” A single trickle of orange light emerged from the old wooden door down in that ancient temple. But where it passed underneath, it struck against the portal like a charging minotaur. Brilliant orange light bathed them, so bright that Mira shielded her face with one leg. Kallisto squeaked in pain, and the portal vanished. The terrible orange light went with it, leaving the two of them in the comfortable, foggy twilight. Kallisto slumped to the floor, melting even quicker than she had the last time. “That’s it, Mira. That was the last gift I could give you. You must find another Dreamwalker, if you ever hope to return. The dead can build no roads to the world they left.” Mira could still imagine herself there on the floor, sleeping beside her dead teacher. Would petitioners find her there tomorrow night? Would they think she was dead too, and bury her? She took a single deep breath, not letting that thought go any further. Worrying about things that could happen was the swift road to madness. “No problem. Nightmare Moon is a dreamwalker, she can send me back. Just tell me where to go.” Kallisto looked up, face streaked with tears. “Mira, you have no idea what you’re saying. If it was that easy, think about how many other ponies would’ve found her already. We’ve gone without our princess for so long. If bats could find her, they already would have.” “Unless they all thought that, and nobody tried.” She moved in a slow circle, taking in the monastery. Even if the danger that had come to this city was gone, scavengers would find it eventually. Whatever we’re going to find here, we need to take it and go. “Where is she? How do I get there?” “The moon. Nopony can get there. She’s banished.” “We’ll see.” Mira marched past her, through the doorway that had once been a portal. The interior didn’t look promising, maybe scavengers had already been here. Many drawers were opened, and there were blank spots on the walls where tapestries had obviously hung. Plenty remained, though they depicted mostly nature scenes—countryside by night, mountains under the moon. Rivers and lakes reflecting the stars. Pretty, but not terribly useful. Map. Where would I find a map to the moon? The ancients had been explorers, hadn’t they? There was Star Drift, who had discovered Equestria while wandering this place. I don’t need a temple to the moon, I need something dedicated to him. “Didn’t you say there were ponies who kept exploring to honor Star Drift’s name…” She emerged from inside seconds later. Kallisto hadn’t moved. “Are there Star Cartographers in Erebus?” Kallisto nodded weakly. “There were. Look for his compass cutie mark… Mira, you can’t do this. You don’t even know the Dreamlands. You don’t know its dangers, you don’t know its magic. You’ll die.” Kallisto’s expression changed them, realization passing over her. She rose, looking resolved. “If you die while your body still sleeps… you wake up.” She extended one hoof into the air beside her. The foggy air seemed to coalesce, hardening into solid form. A crossbow appeared there, made from shiny polished wood, and covered in silver moon glyphs. The same weapons used by the Lunar Army, before they’d all been destroyed. So far as Mira knew, there weren’t even any of these stored in museums. “I’m sorry about the pain, student. But it will pass, and you’ll wake normally. It’s the only way I can save you.” She took the crossbow, resting the padding against her shoulder. Mira didn’t stay there to see what happened next—she took off, flying straight up into the sky. It wasn’t the first time somepony had tried to shoot her with one of those. Unicorns had their own versions of that weapon, that could be levitated around and pointed however they wanted. But for other ponies, they rested on the pony’s neck, so that only one leg was needed to fire. They could aim decently high, to fire on a pegasus or bat attacking from above. But they didn’t fire straight. A bolt shot up into the air beside her, arcing dozens of meters away. Mira could make out Kallisto mutter a frustrated curse. “I’m trying to save you!” Maybe she was—but the appearance of that weapon did something in Mira that couldn’t just be switched off. Suddenly she was fighting to survive. She took in the sky around her as she’d done when pegasus ponies were following her away from any city. Only doom waited if they caught her. They probably knew the terrain better, and they flew faster. She had to do something unexpected, something so clever they couldn’t react in time. The city had hundreds of structures, maybe thousands, built as vertical as Understory hidden underground. Mira found the nearest building, flying as close to it as she could. Another bolt smacked into the wood behind her, a good distance away. She’s not very good at this. Kallisto wasn’t very fast on her wings, either. She’d been grounded for decades, while Mira flew every night. I won’t let her catch me. She circled around and around the spiraled structure, memorizing the layout of windows and open balconies on each pass. Then, when Kallisto was out of sight, she altered course, flying straight through a window. Then she spread her wings wide to stop as quickly as she could. The inside was a richly-appointed apartment, finer than most she’d seen from even unicorn ponies back home. But she couldn’t stop to appreciate the night-themed decor or comfortable furniture—she dodged between it, emerging into an open hallway connecting many of the little housing units. The whole space was in disarray, with clothing and little objects scattered everywhere. Maybe it wasn’t looted. An evacuation? But Kallisto wasn’t stupid—she had to find somewhere to hide. Many doors were shut, and she tried the nearest one—locked. Instead, she peeked into an open unit, one with no windows open to the outside. She crept through the door, then clicked the door shut and locked behind her. A voice echoed from outside, Kallisto’s screams. Her voice cracked on the wind, filled with some of the pain she’d come to expect from the ancient pony. “Mira, I’m trying to save you! If you stay here too long, your body will die! You need to go back!” Mira didn’t go anywhere near the window. She crawled over an overturned bookcase and through a narrow opening into a closet against the wall. She could just fit, under the rack of fancy blue dresses. It was the perfect place to curl up and cry.