//------------------------------//
// Epilogue 
// Story: Beyond the Veil of Sleep 
// by Starscribe 
//------------------------------//

But the end was not what Princess Luna expected. A night stretched long, delaying the sunrise well past its appointed time. But before it could stretch beyond the first day, it was already over.
The end was not the extinction of Equestria by freezing death, taking even Luna's beloved bats with her. It came, rather, in the arrival of another mare.
Princess Celestia came in light. Compared to the two pale figures in that lonely crater, her body burned like a star, flame that made no smoke. No heat to sweep them away either, just the pleasant feeling of the first day of spring after a long winter.
Suddenly she was before them, blocking Luna's view of the planet far below. "Sister," she whispered, as though not to disturb them. "The Nightmare's gone."
Luna recoiled, resting more of her weight on Mira, putting her between herself and the Alicorn. "Don't send it back here, p-please! Just kill me. I can't spend another thousand years with that... thing."
"I'm not sending it here," the princess whispered. She towered over them both, with magic strong enough to rip Mira apart without a thought. She didn't. She didn't even force Luna out from behind her. "It's gone, back to the nothingness between worlds. You won't ever have to face it again."
"O-oh." Luna looked up, peeking around Mira's wings. "I guess you're here to... rebuild the prison."
"No, sister. I'm here to take you home."
The princess cried again. Louder this time, embracing her sister with desperation greater than her anger. Mira turned away, giving these ponies what privacy she could. This reunion wasn't meant for her. Her own feelings for the sun princess couldn't interfere. The last thing Equestria needed was more hatred.
But then the moon princess was gone, and only the sun remained. She stood beside Mira on the soil of a desolate prison, where Nightmare's storm had swept it clean. She sat down on that moon, and looked up at the sky as Luna had done.
"I know you," she said, voice utterly flat. "General Mira Nightshade. Waking death. Assassin’s blade behind high walls."
This is it. Part of her knew this was coming the instant she'd seen the sunlight in this place. Mira didn't stand or flee, didn't invoke her dreamwalking magic.
Her purpose was fulfilled. Princess Luna was trapped no longer. Mira would face Celestia's judgment without fear.
"I am."
No blast of magic, not yet. The princess just watched her. "I thought it would be you. When we built this spell to contain the nightmare... my archmage did not know how we would get her here. But he was certain time would make for the best treatment. The Nightmare would unravel itself from my sister's soul, one strand at a time."
Mira listened. "And I released it. You think I wanted to kill Equestria... get revenge for all the bats who died because of you. You think I hate other ponies the way you hate us."
The princess shook her head once. "There was a singular flaw in our plan. If the Nightmare suspected what we'd done, it might claim my sister a second time. Simple banishment wouldn't be enough—it had to think it escaped. Believe that it no longer needed her."
She dropped something to the ground at Mira's hooves—a twisted metal pry bar, one they'd used to wedge the spell open at last. "I do not know how he did it. Starswirl vanished before the end. Yet somehow—you did exactly as he required. Another's magic, one the demon would believe had set it free."
"I won't apologize for freeing Princess Luna. Fighting Equestria was the right thing. My tribe deserves to live." Mira shrugged. "I'm done fighting. Princess Luna is free, there's nothing more you can do to me."
The mare chuckled, her first sign of emotion since her sister left. "I watched your campaign too. I've waited all this time for more Outsiders like Nightmare to flood into Equestria. I prepared for them, trained my unicorns to fight them. We waited for you to unleash them. They never came."
Outsiders. Mira knew them now, and she hadn't in life. At the edges of the Dreaming, where its unreal substance fuzzed and melted into dark places that no sane mind could reach, strange shapes moved beyond the farthest horizon. Impossible things, whispering whatever you wanted to hear.
"No demon would save us," Mira said. "We want to live in Equestria, not burn it."
"You could've left her, like I did. Instead, you stayed." The princess stood up.  "My sister will need ponies she can trust. She'll need advisors she understands. If you are done with your wars, I think it should be you."
She looked away. "My parents served in her court, long ago. But they were alive. I can't go out there anymore. I'm Morphean, Princess—I'm a creature of the Dreaming."
"And I am an Alicorn," Celestia said. "Last time I used the Old Magic, it was to trap my sister with a demon. Every now and then I get to use it to create, instead." She held out a hoof, her horn so radiant with magic now that Mira couldn't look directly at it. "If you're willing."
Mira looked down at the offered hoof. If she took it, she might not return to Legacy for a long time, assuming the magic would ever let her see the Dreaming again. "You really think she needs me?"
Celestia nodded. "For now. It isn't a permanent position. When it is finished, you will be free to return—or make some new life in Equestria. I will not compel you."
Legacy doesn't need me. She had friends here, but no family. After sacrificing everything to make Equestria safe for bats, maybe she should try to live in it. She took the outstretched hoof. 
"I'm ready to go."