Cheerilee's hoof hovered inches from the door. She hesitated.
Somepony needed to take action; the incident at school today made that clearer than ever. Snails had luckily landed in a rather convenient lake, but what if he hadn’t? The unicorns in her class - and Spring especially - needed somepony for horn lessons, and this was by far the best, most qualified pony for the job.
So why did she have such a bad feeling about this?
"Deep breaths Cheerilee, you're doing it for the foals," she muttered to herself in some vain hope that it would help silence the alarm bells going off in her head.
Finally, she knocked on the doors of the Golden Oaks Library.
“Spike!" rang out the familiar voice of Twilight Sparkle, magical prodigy, professional bookworm, and the town's new librarian. "Can you get the door?”
“On it!”
And that was Spike, Ponyville's resident dragon, and the other reason for Cheerilee's visit to the library.
For a few more seconds, Cheerilee stood there as a strange cacophony of noise came from the library - as if somepony was driving a snow plough against a pile of strangely dry bricks.
“Why are they always knocking anyway?" Spike asked nopony in particular. "This is a public library.”
At this, Cheerilee felt her cheeks redden, but she bravely fought off the urge to facehoof.
“Spike, just open the doors, please,” Twilight called.
The doors finally opened to reveal the inside of the library.
Now, Cheerilee was more than acquainted with different kinds of messes - it came with the territory of working with foals. But the mess inside the library was impressive even to her.
Books were covering every inch of the floor. A hole in the wall was hastily covered with an ill-fitting piece of wallpaper - not even pretty wallpaper, but old beige wallpaper - and, gathered in one corner, was a pile of wooden scraps that used to be a bookshelf.
Twilight herself didn't look much better.
Her mane looked like she'd been in a freak incident involving an electric eel and a rogue typhoon. The bags under her eyes looked large enough to be used in a bank robbery, and the eyes themselves had a crazed glint in them. The sort of look that screamed “I think the fridge is out to get me.”
Despite all of this, Twilight somehow managed to sound bored as she barely glanced away from her mountain of books, muttering a quick “Good morning Cheerilee,” then promptly returning to her reading.
Cheerilee only managed to give her a small nod.
It was six in the afternoon.
Suddenly, Twilight sprung up, closing her book with a loud thud. The lettering on the cover was worn out from use, but Cheerilee could still read it:
Soul Magics
by Starswirl The Bearded.
“Oh! Cheerilee,” Twilight brightened, turning to Spike. “See? I still got it!”
The teacher shot a confused look at the young drake, who only gave a long, exasperated sigh.
“She has this new obsession with true names and whatnot,” he said tiredly. “She's been like this since the whole ticket fiasco.”
“It's not an obsession!” argued Twilight. “It's scientific research!”
“You keep running up to random ponies trying to guess their names.” Spike paused, one claw tapping against his chin. “I'm pretty sure half the town is convinced that's just how ponies from Canterlot introduce themselves.”
Twilight rushed to the drake and stuck her hoof into his mouth.
“Anyway,” Twilight said pointedly, sending Spike a glare before turning towards Cheerilee. “Are you here to check out a book, or…”
"Right!” Cheerilee said, latching onto the opportunity to change the subject with the desperation of a drowning mare grabbing a piece of driftwood. “I brought the extra textbooks for Spike you asked for.”
Wiggling out of his caretaker's grip, Spike's shoulders sagged when he saw a thick math textbook balanced on Cheerilees' back.
“Really?” Spike sighed. “More homework?”
“You’re still grounded, young drake." Twilight said, asserting the same tone of voice to everypony who had ever reprimanded a child. "And you know what that means. No comics and extra homework.”
Spike threw his arms into the air, gesturing at the older and thus, at least in theory, more responsible mare.
“But I'm homeschooled!" Spike argued. "Isn't all my work homework by definition?”
Cheerilee tilted her head, confused yet again - something that seemed to happen a lot around the newest Ponyville residents.
“Grounded?” Cheerilee asked.
“Spike planted an IAD in my bed,” Twilight said in a tone of voice that suggested that what she said was supposed to be readily and easily understood, which honestly was what confused Cheerilee the most.
The teacher blinked a few times, before turning to Spike.
“Improvised Acupuncture Device," explained the young drake. “But it was in self defense!”
Twilight's eyes narrowed and she stomped her hoof on the book-covered floor. She did, however, take great care to avoid potentially damaging any precious literature.
“I had to explain to a doctor why I had a book about cacti stuck to my flank!” Twilight said, her mind wandering back to the possible reasons why anypony would take the time to fill an encyclopedia of Southern Saddle Arabian flora with real cactus samples.
Spike simply shrugged, picking up the math textbooks and tossing them onto the pile of unsorted books.
“Have you seen this town?” Spike asked. “I bet it wasn't the weirdest thing the doctor had to deal with that afternoon.”
"It took two hours to get out!" Twilight argued.
"It would have been much quicker if you let the doctor touch the book without checking it out first,” Spike noted. “Most of those two hours were you making him set up a new library card.”
Twilight rolled her eyes, lifting the tossed math books with her magic and forcing them back into Spike’s claws.
"For the last time,” Twilight said, ignoring the pouty look from the drake. “I was loopy from the anesthesia!” She paused, muttering under her breath, “I swear, they used the one for bears, not ponies.”
"It was the one for bears,” Spike pointed out. “Remember? Fluttershy shot you with a dart gun when you wouldn't calm down.”
“Okay, but-”
“Ahem.”
Both Twilight and Spike froze, heads spinning around towards the source of the fake cough. Cheerilee gave them a patient - and only slightly strained - smile.
“Sorry to interrupt,” Cheerilee said, speaking in the same gentle voice used either for children or for large, predatory animals. “But there's another thing I wanted to ask you, Twilight.”
Twilight gave the teacher a puzzled look at this, but Cheerilee stayed silent, organizing her thoughts and thinking how to phrase her request in the best way.
“You see,” Cheerilee finally continued. “The freelancer we normally get for horn lessons is out and I was wondering if you couldn't replace them, at least temporarily.”
It was a real shame Cherry Blossom had had to leave. Her mother in Trottingham had fallen sick, and she decided to stay there for a while and help care for her. Understandable, but that put Cheerilee in the difficult position of having to find a replacement on short notice.
And then there was little Springs' situation to make it all the more complicated.
“Wait, you want me to teach magic to foals?” Twilight asked, with her eyebrows raised so high they threatened to escape her face and head straight towards the ceiling.
“Yes. But only temporarily,” assured Cheerilee. “Just the basics. Hopefully enough to avoid any… destructive incidents.”
Twilight gave her a nod, numb and deep in thought.
In truth, she did have some experience teaching. Not magic - well, not pony magic, anyway - but she'd helped homeschool Spike ever since the last attempt at enrolling him into a school back in Canterlot ended rather...badly. And she did know a thing or two about destructive magical incidents - mainly because she caused several of them - but her confidence in her ability to stop them was rather lacking.
“I don't know,” Twilight said nervously. “I don't think I would be a good fit.”
Cheerilee paled. The idea of having a bunch of young unicorns figuring out their magic on their own was a chilling prospect. Literally, in some cases. She’d heard that a unicorn colt once turned his teacher into an ice cube. But it could be even worse! There was even the one horror story of a filly from Canterlot turning her parents into potted plants.
“Please Twilight,” begged Cheerilee. “You have experience schooling Spike, and you’re definitely the most knowledgeable about the subject. I honestly don't know where I would look next.”
That was a lie, she did have some other leads. Mainly Rarity and Lyra - but Rarity was always busy and often out of town, and Lyra was… well, Lyra. The mare had good control over her magic, but Cheerilee doubted that her personality would mesh well with the job.
Twilight stood there, her expression clearly conflicted.
“Okay, I'll do it,” Twilight relented. She didn't have time to properly understand what she had agreed to as Cheerilee pulled her into a hug.
“Oh thank you! Thank you!” The teacher said, “There is just one more thing.”
The teacher paused, glancing at Spike grumpily exiting the room, math textbooks in claw, before continuing.
“It's about Spring.”
The forest was silent.
That did not make her stop.
Anon ran blindly into the mist, no destination in mind other than away from where she was. But she could not escape the giant evergreens towering above her. She felt their eyes upon her skin and in her flesh. She was heaving and gasping for air, but by God, she couldn't stop running. That single thought blazed in her mind, overpowering all others. Don’t stop. Not even as your muscles seize, your lungs burn and your heart beats so loud you feel it in your skull.
And so she ran, each impact of her hooves against the forest floor kicking up moss, dirt, and bones.
The bones, so many bones. Big ones and small ones, hidden from sight. A graveyard and a trap. But she was so stupid and so curious. She'd seen something white and just had to take a peek under the blanket of gentle moss-
-Revealing skulls bleached white, overgrown with tree roots. Hundreds of them. Thousands.
The forest was alive.
The forest was hungry.
She should have known something was wrong from the beginning. This world seemed too peaceful - too empty - not to be a trick. No plants other than the giant trees and the moss covering every inch of the ground. No animal life, not even insects. Just the endless trunks in their unnaturally neat rows, a blanket of moss and rolling mist obscuring her surroundings. That and the silence. The heavy, ever present, suffocating silence.
Anon ran for her life, her steps getting heavier and heavier. She was foaming at her mouth, abject terror pushing her further and further past the point of exhaustion. The trees were watching her, mocking her effort to stay alive and escape.
Do not stop. Never, ever, stop.
The jumper took a quick glance over her shoulder. It was there. She saw the shape in the mist, nothing but a mere glimpse of the misshapen, misbegotten… thing. She tried to run faster, but her hooves got caught in a tree root that wasn't there a second ago. Her balance nearly lost Anon-
Wait, hooves?
“Enough!”
The dream crashed to a stop. The thing vanished, vaporized by a beam of dark blue magic, leaving only a cloud of shining stardust behind.
Princess Luna landed, wings folding on her back as she inspected the remains, before turning towards the stunned jumper.
"Are thou-'' she gave an awkward cough. "My apologies. Are you alright?"
The jumper stopped staring.
She got angry instead.
"Get out of my head,” she snarled.
Luna backed a step away. The forest visibly darkened, the trees swaying from non-existent wind. She could feel the dream realm becoming more and more hostile.
“Please calm down, the dream is-”
“Are you daft?” Anon snapped. “Get out of my head!”
“No!” Luna yelled. The force of her voice sent Anon back. The jumper's posture changed. Her expression turned cold - all emotion seemingly gone in a split second.
“Your mind is vulnerable,” Luna said, voice softer, ridden with guilt. “Even with my sister's protection, it's still defenseless in the dream realm.”
Anon flinched. How easy was it for Luna to get in? How easily could Luna change her dreams? Or her very mind? She looked at her hooves, while trying to imagine arms in the place of the two furry green limbs. One question was still ringing in her mind.
Why am I still a pony in my dreams?
“The knowledge you possess,” Luna continued. “The… things you saw. They are a threat. Not just to you. If those ideas get out and infect the dreams of other ponies…”
Luna shuddered.
“I cannot allow that.”
Anon wilted, head hung low as she sat on the ground - avoiding eye contact and gazing into the forest.
She could see all the little details, sense the damp moss on her fur, spot the individual grains of wood on a broken branch.
Dreams weren't supposed to be so detailed. But this wasn't a dream, not really. This was a memory. One changed, warped - she wasn't a pony at the time, or even a she - but the memory still held power.
And if let to run amok…
“Damn it,” Anon finally sighed.
Luna gave a sympathetic look. “I’m sorry.”
Anon waved her hoof at her, looking the other way.
The night princess started to dig unconsciously at the ground - only to stop when she uncovered more bones. Eyes swiveling side to side, making sure Anon was still facing the other way, she quickly buried them again - all the while cursing whatever being was responsible.
The bones there were very small.
“How many of my dreams have you seen?” Anon asked, the princess giving her a startled look.
“This is the first,” she said slowly. “I only interfere in this way when I sense… a disturbance. Something trying to escape.”
Anom gave a nod.
“Good.”
The jumper paused, letting out a mirthless chuckle. The princess gave her a strange look.
“It's funny, you know?” Anon said, pointing at the mist. "I never really figured out what exactly was chasing me. Maybe there wasn't even anything chasing me at all. Maybe that's how it hunts. It frightens you so much you run until you die of exhaustion.”
Luna gulped. She had faced some truly terrible beasts in her past, but the concept of a monster using fear in such a way hit close to home.
“I fail to see the humor in this situation,” she said.
“Thing is,” Anon explained, "this is one of the first worlds I ended up in. I think…number six?” She waggled her hoof, unsure. “Anyway, it was still at the time where I kept randomly jumping every couple of days. That saved me. If I ended up here now, I would have to wait for a week before even attempting another jump.”
Luna gave a solemn nod, before her eyes widened in realization.
“Days…” she whispered.
Anon tilted her head, the concerned look on Luna’s face confusing the jumper.
“You ran for days,” Luna reiterated.
Anon shrugged.
“Here? Only about one and a half, I think,” she answered casually. “Hard to say exactly. I was a bit preoccupied.”
They both fell quiet for a moment, the surrounding forest unflinchingly still. Luna closed her eyes, listening.
Memories in the dream realm acted differently from normal dreams. They seemed far more real and detailed, but one could always spot the patches where imagination filled in for a pony’s spotty memory. The mind abhors nothingness.
And yet there was no sound in the forest. None. Anon’s mind should have filled it with a background noise, however faint, just to protect itself from the mental backlash.
To say that it made Luna uneasy would be an understatement.
“Weird sunrise yesterday.”
Luna turned sharply towards the jumper, who was leaning against a tree.
“The sun just shot up,” Anon continued, her green eyes boring Luna's blue ones. “All speed, no ceremony. Doesn't seem like Celestia’s style.”
Her eyes narrowed and Luna could swear there was so much smugness in Anon's expression it threatened to explode.
“Almost like something was bothering Celestia,” Anon said. “Enough to distract her from her job. But you wouldn't know anything about that, would you?”
Luna faced away from the jumper, gritting her teeth.
“We and Celestia had a… disagreement.”
The stare seemed to intensify for a moment. Luna had to acknowledge one fact: Anon and Celestia definitely had the judging stare down to a science. Pausing to think about it, Luna came to the worrying conclusion that Celestia - a Celestia, at least - was probably where Anon learned it in the first place.
After a few more tense moments, the green filly finally relaxed.
“Welp, as long as you don't get pissy and kill the planet,” Anon said. Luna wilted, her breath catching in her throat and her expression changing to one of hurt.
The jumper turned away, still leaning against the tree. Desperately holding onto the anger she felt towards the night princess. Because anger was at least productive. And it was better than the alternative. Anything was better than sadness.
“Don't give me that look,” Anon said. “You invaded my mind. Twice now. You killed everypony.”
She could still see it. The frozen fields and destroyed homes. Shattered walls revealing families huddled together around dark fireplaces. Left forever unburied. She had to spend a week in that place before her next jump. She would call it hellish, but hell was at least supposed to be warm. The jacket was a life saver, as was the fire spell Daybreaker had taught her.
Part of Anon was curious if Daybreaker knew what waited for her in the next world - why else would she insist so hard on her learning that spell? - but she was grateful regardless. Even with it she nearly froze to death. Finding things to burn was difficult - there are very few things one does not burn when one gets desperate, and the inhabitants of that world were beyond desperate before the end.
But Anon prevailed, even after the Nightmare of that world found her hiding spot, forcing Anon to run and make a blind jump - abandoning the mad alicorn to the hell of her own creation.
Which left only Anon to remember it all. Just like every world before. There was a bitter irony to it: she couldn't remember her own name, but she was the only one still carrying that last piece, that remnant of all those people - the last memory that they had ever existed.
But somepony had to remember. Bring some justice into it. Some. Any at all, really. The dead deserved so much more.
Anon felt her eyes water as a few tears ran down her cheek. She tried to fight it, to get angry again. Regain some control over herself. Sadness was useless. Crying was useless. Crying didn't help you. Crying didn't bring people back from the dead. Useless. Anger was better. Anger got you results. Anger kept you alive.
There was a presence next to her. She didn't even notice that Luna sat next to her. The night princess was still facing away from her.
“You’re going to stay here until I wake up, aren't you?” Anon asked tiredly.
Exhausted even when asleep. I love my life.
“This dream is still unstable," Luna answered, her wings fluttering as she spoke. "You might hate me, but I won't allow you to be abandoned to your fate.”
Anon took a deep breath, letting her emotion wash over her.
“I don't hate you,” she said quietly.
Luna tilted her head, a strange look on her face.
“I dislike you,” Anon specified. “There's a difference.”
The smirk Anon gave Luna was mostly fake, but it was a progress; at least she wasn’t on the verge of losing control of her emotions again.
“I suppose that's true,” Luna said. “But you want to hate me.”
Anon took another look at the forest. Searching for a distraction.
She found none.
“Yeah,” Anon whispered.
After a while, she said, "I just can't. And I don't understand why. You had everything. A home, a sister that loved you. And you… you threw it all away.”
Luna paused, ears falling flat against her skull, eyes nearly closed as the two sat next to each other. If not for the foreboding atmosphere of the alien forest, she could say the scene looked almost peaceful.
“Tell me,” Luna said after a good few minutes of thoughtful silence. “If you woke up and your ability to jump was returned to you. Would you use it? Would you-”
“Yes,” Anon interrupted.
"Why?" Luna asked.
Anon opened her mouth. The answer was easy, wasn't it? She had to return.
But then she remembered Bon Bon holding her tight as she cried. She remembered Lyra singing her to sleep. She imagined the house that wanted to be a home becoming a little emptier than before, and suddenly her easy answer seemed much harder.
She sighed. Of course nothing could just be simple.
“So,” Anon said slowly. “How long are we going to be stuck in this forest?”
The night princess gave her a noncommittal shrug.
“I can change it," she offered. "If you allow me to.”
Anon raised a brow at the princess.
“How?” she asked.
“You don't have the ability to change your dreams, not consciously," Luna explained. "But I do. Imagine where you want to be, and I shall lend you my power.”
Anon stared at the princess, scanning for signs of any treachery. There didn't seem to be any, but her response was still the same.
Nope.
“And let you poke into my head some more?" Anon said. "Nah. I pass.”
More time had gone by. Anon started to tap against the tree she was leaning against. She attempted to pick a rhythm, without much success. The sound seemingly vanished from existence. It seemed the carnivorous alien forest had surprisingly bad acoustics. She even tried to whistle - to fill the silence somehow - but found she was still as bad at whistling in a dream as she was in the real world.
“Alright!” She said suddenly. “What am I supposed to do?”
Luna gave her a small smile, a hint of amusement in her eyes.
“Relax," she said. "Imagine a place where you want to be, try to anchor yourself in it. And take a deep breath.”
The green filly gave her a nod.
Relax, that's easy to say.
The bark was rough against her back, there was no smell of anything - which was somehow more distracting than if it smelled badly - and the only sounds she picked up was her own breathing and Luna's wings shuffling every so often.
Deep breaths. Just relax…
But all of it went away. The distractions fading into nothing until the only thing left was… her.
A place. A happy place.
So many worlds came to mind. Some were consumed by shadow, fire and chaos. Some were hostile and strange and beyond her understanding. Most were exciting, in the dangerous, want-you-dead way, while some offered respite. But happy?
The scenery changed. Anon expected a more gradual change, but it came like a blink instead. One second she was floating in nothingness, the next she stood in a manicured park with a bright sun shining above.
Sadly, as a consequence of the rather sudden appearance of the floor, Anon ended up falling face first onto an imaginary gravel road.
Luna landed beside Anon - much more gracefully than her green counterpart - with a look of surprise and recognition on her face.
“This is Ponyville,” she said haltingly, before her eyes slowly trailed off to where Anon was sprawled on the ground. “Do you require help?”
A single hoof shot up - Anon having forgotten for a brief moment that she didn't have fingers to gesture with - with the rest of the filly swiftly following.
“Nope,” she said, dusting herself off. “I'm used to this.”
She paused, looking around. It was a fairly realistic replication of Ponyville's park. She questioned for a moment how Luna recognized it so fast, but considering it was one of the first places she had seen after a thousand years spent trapped in the moon, it probably stood out in her memory.
“What now?” Anon asked the Princess, who gave her a shrug.
“It's your dream,” Luna said. “What do you want to do?”
Anon froze with her eyes glued to the sky.
"I dunno,” she said. “I wasn't thinking this far ahead."
The filly simply sat on the grass. It felt less real than the previous one, lacking the sensation of real grass, but it would do.
Luna, finding nothing else to do, did the same.
A park. Luna expected many things, but a park wasn't one. She felt a little selfish for wishing for it, but she’d hoped to see more of Anon's origins. She knew she shouldn't pry, yet what she saw during her invasion of the jumper's mind was intriguing, and she couldn't help but want to know more.
Instead, she got this. An ordinary park in a seemingly mundane town. What was more, an Equestrian town.
"Your eyes are different,” Anon said suddenly, almost startling the princess. "When I last saw you, your ears and eyes were…more catlike? Batlike?" Anon paused. “I would say you looked like a pony version of a vampire, but I doubt you even know what that is.”
Luna grimaced, swallowing emptily.
"This is how I used to look before… before Nightmare Moon."
Anon nodded while picking a nearby daffodil, giving it a wary sniff before taking a cautious bite.
"Why change it?” she asked. “It's just a dream."
The alicorn flinched.
"I don't like the reminder." Luna said. "Of what I used to be. What I was capable of, given the chance."
Anon fell silent.
There was something bothering her. A discrepancy she couldn't explain.
After Nightmare Moon attacked her mind, both of them blacked out. Utterly defenseless, it wouldn't take much to finish any of them off. The battle would be decided by whichever one of them woke up before the other.
Nightmare Moon woke up first and yet Anon was still alive. She chose to spare her - even after Anon tried to seal her away in the Sun Orb. Even after exploding a grenade in Nightmare Moon's chest, she still showed mercy.
The six mares that used the elements had succeeded. How? The alicorn would’ve gained her power back quickly. The six were civilians. If Nightmare Moon fought back - really fought back - they would have failed, and they would have died. But, just like Anon, they survived, and so one question remained.
Why?
"I think you're looking at it wrong," Anon said, slightly surprised that she said it out loud. “You had the chance.”
Anon hesitated, Luna was now looking right at her.
“The elements. They are not really a weapon, right? They don't just destroy?” Anon asked and Luna gave a slow nod. “I think they didnt get rid of all of Nightmare Moon because they didn't really need to,” she paused. Luna was shaking slightly and Anon suddenly felt very nervous about what she was doing. “You already made the hard choice. They just gave you the final push.”
The filly paused, feeling more sheepish by the second.
“Or maybe I'm completely wrong,” she tried to deflect the alicorn's attention from her. “Don't look at me, I don't know what I'm talking about.”
“Anon?” Luna said after a long pause.
“Yeah?” was Anon's very verbose answer.
"Thank you."
The filly turned away, waving her hoof.
“Well, we still have time,” Anon said after a while. “You wanna play cards or something?”
Luna smiled. There was something of a predatory glee in that smile.
“Gladly.”