//------------------------------//
// Chapter 12 
// Story: Beyond the Veil of Sleep 
// by Starscribe 
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Mira did not have long to wait for Meridian to work. The hard part was keeping herself from running off before he was finished. He had such a great view of Hope from the balcony, and the more of it she could see the more she appreciated his decision to live here.

The town was cozy, the sun perpetually just high enough in the sky overhead to keep from shining too brightly into her sensitive eyes. It must set eventually, right? Otherwise, what was the point of having a gigantic telescope in the center of your house?

Mira occupied herself raiding Meridian's kitchen. She was feeling hungry again, hungry enough to steal a little something. Meridian was a bat, and had many of the strange machines that Mira had seen in the Erebus home. There was a box that radiated cold, where she could find all kinds of interesting things. She filled a plate with fruits, and ate them messily while she waited. "I'm surprised you want to come with me," she said to Sandy, conversationally. "I'm grateful, don't mistake. I don't have a clue what I'm doing."

"That is hope," Sandy said. They sat opposite her, close enough to snatch something from her plate. Mira couldn't identify the strange fruit, so she wouldn't complain about its absence. "The bravery to proceed with a just cause even when you do not know how. I may be able to help you. It will probably kill me."

They said it so matter-of-factly, without a hint of resentment or hesitation. Like it was just one of the steps to cooking a stew. "I don't plan on dying," Mira said. "So you can live too."

"You have the power to make it happen," they said, swallowing the strange round fruit whole, stem and all. "Perhaps you will have the talent as well. I hope so."

The door banged open, and Meridian appeared, balancing a scroll on his back. He cut straight towards them, dropping it on the table in front of Mira. "What you wanted, Mira. You should know, you aren't invincible here. Even if your body still lives in the waking world, the creatures of this one can reach back to damage you. I have seen dreamers with their sanity in ribbons. There are some things powerful enough to follow you back along the Silver Cord, and slay your body as well as your dreaming self. You could still wake up, and return to your life. It would be the sensible choice."

He lowered his voice to a sympathetic whisper. "Couldn't you put this mission aside for a few decades, Mira? You're young, I can feel it. Find a monastery, and study! Come back when you know what you're doing."

That would be good advice, if it was possible. "There aren't any monasteries, Meridian. I was learning from the last of Princess Luna's monks when she died. Everything about how bats used to be is dead. If somepony doesn't bring the princess back, it'll stay dead."

Meridian sighed, nudging the map toward her. "I wish I could offer you more, Mira. The cause you're hunting for is a... noble one. Thestrals have been on the brink of extinction many times, survived many worlds and many nightmares. Last time it was Star Drift. This time it might be you."

"You could come with me," she suggested. She reached onto the table, sliding the map into her saddlebags. "If you want to help make sure I can make it, there's no better way."

He settled into the chair across from them, shaking his head once. "It's a cute offer, Mira. But I don't think I'd join if you had a whole expedition of trained dreamers and skilled warriors. Young people like you can be brave—if you die, you wake up. Unless you really got yourself into trouble, you're probably fine. If I die, it doesn't matter if it's a good cause. I'm gone forever."

She stood, tightening the straps on her satchel. Maybe it was better to wait for the cat to come back—but something told her the feline wouldn't need her help to find her. She'd arrive when she was ready, regardless of where Mira had ended up. "Sandy is coming. They live here too."

He looked away. "Forgive me for sounding unkind. I value my time living among the moths here in Hope. But they're figments, their lives are so brief they would pass without you or I even realizing it. Sandy's only hope for endurance is to attach themselves to something like this. They feed on hope, need it to exist. You're radiating it. And if you succeed, Sandy will be part of stories that ensure their survival for thousands of years, maybe more. They have less to lose, and everything to gain."

Sandy rose too, glaring back at him. "Our lives might be brief, Meridian. But that doesn't mean death is less terrible."

He shrugged, waving them both off. "You're both brave to go so far. Consider this, before you depart; Princess Celestia has gone to war with her sister. She does not have power over this realm, she cannot travel its shores. But she has allies who can. There are beings of the unconscious world who serve her will unflinchingly. If you intend to free her from captivity, they will be waiting to keep her in chains. Prepare to fight before the end."

They left, out onto the early evening streets of Hope. Mira took one last look back at the strange home of Meridian, hoping that the door would open and he would come rushing to her aid. He didn't.

She glided down to street level, then wandered for a short distance, until she reached the pier. There moths played in the sand, enjoying meals of strange nectar and sickly-sweet smelling fruit on the water.

Sandy followed behind her, silent for the first few minutes. But they didn't stay that way for long. "If you think I'm only doing this for myself, you could refuse me," they said. "I would rather you send me away now, when I am still safe at home. I will not survive crossing the Dreamlands very far by myself."

Mira looked back, and there was no need to fake a smile. "Sandy, I don't think Meridian can judge what people think. He's so caught up in what's good for him that he can't understand people doing things for better reasons. I'm grateful for your help... in fact, I'm wondering if you might know anyone else who might be brave enough to do something so crazy. Meridian's right about one thing, I'm not some powerful dreamer. I need every bit of help I can get. There have to be other creatures in this world who are still loyal to Thestrals. Someone has to care what happened to us."

Sandy walked past her, over to the railing. They leaned out over the water. As before, their bug eyes were completely unreadable. "There are not so many in Hope. Our lives here are easy, Mira. We appear to sleepers who need us. We share the feelings they crave, and get our necessary nourishment in kind. Meridian... is right. Our lives are brief, but better than most. With the castles of Happiness crumbled, this is the place that many would die to find."

More of those emotion names. Mira walked over to a nearby bench, produced the map Meridian had given them, and unrolled it. Sandy watched from just beside her, curious.

"This route is... complex. But it looks like we're traveling to somewhere called Courage." The path would take them straight through Courage, then curving out of their way to avoid a treacherous-looking country of sharp rocks and rapids called Desolation, before finally crossing into the Sea of Lunacy, and sailing straight to its center.

It looked like a journey that could take weeks, or maybe even months. Mira didn't have anything to compare against when she thought about the scale of the Dreamlands. Was it bigger than Equestria, smaller? She didn't know.

"If Bravery is like Hope, then... lots of people there are brave, right?" she began. "Someone has to be brave enough to come with us!"

The moth shrugged their wings, nearly the same gesture a bat would’ve used. "There are groups that might hear you. There is an association of explorers, called the Wayfinder Disciples... they wouldn't care about your mission, or what happened to the bats. But if you can convince them your mission would let them make new discoveries, that would be enough."

Wayfinder Disciples. It wasn't exactly the champions of bats she hoped for. But given she'd already been refused by one of her own kind, it was probably the closest she could hope for.

"Do you know the way?"

Sandy nodded. "To Bravery, anyway. Hope and Bravery have been allies for a long time. Many creatures say we're more than that—essentially connected, two faces of the same thing. It is not a long trip, but you will need to be brave. The journey demands courage, or you will never reach your destination."

"I had no idea," she said flatly, just a hint of annoyance creeping into her voice. "Don't these names get confusing? Like, if you call all your places after feelings, then how can you have a normal conversation? If I say I'm hopeful, you won't know if I'm optimistic about our success or if I'm physically standing in your city."

"You'll be both, obviously," the moth replied, sounding more confused than defensive. "Eventually. A place has gravity, pulling all who visit until they are shaped in kind. Only a dreamer can fly against it, or those they shelter in their wake. If I traveled to another place and did not die, I would be one of its inhabitants in time. Without... you, that is. Together, we can go anywhere."

"All the power in the world, and none of the restraint," Mira said. "I sound just like Celestia. I hope other dreamers don't act like her."

But as she said it, she couldn't help but think back to her arrival in Hope. Sandy had reacted with terror, and the other citizens did everything they could to keep her from noticing them. They thought I was going to eat them.

"Dreamers are placeless monsters," Sandy said cheerfully. "A survivor of Happiness will greet you with friendship. A monster of Hatred will try to kill you. A dreamer might do both on the same day for no reason whatsoever. Few who treat with you survive to tell stories about it."

Mira tightened the straps of her saddlebags, rising from the bench. She wouldn't need the map to start, not with the moth to guide her. Though it didn't sound like Sandy wanted the job very much.

Without another word, they set off down the boardwalk, with Sandy leading the way.

"And you're still coming with me?" Mira asked, amazed. "You think that about me, you should’ve run for your life."

The moth touched her shoulder with one hoof. They didn't have fur exactly, but their whole body felt silky, like a spiderweb that wouldn't tangle around her. "You wouldn't be the first dreamer to come to Hope, and I wouldn't be the first moth to die because of it. We believe you can be better, if you want to. That might mean more of us die fighting beside dreamers on impossible missions—but there are more stories about the creatures of Hope than any other kingdom in the Dreaming. How else could we live in such a beautiful city, with such peaceful moths to dwell here?"

She pointed off towards the horizon. The city continued for a great distance along the coast, curving around the beaches and out of sight. The buildings did become sparse, the beaches worse attended, and the trail transforming from even wood to graded stone and gravel. "Your visit only confirms what I have always believed—your world is the nightmare. You need the people of Hope to save you. Maybe I'll even survive it."