"Now, this project is going to be about something I know you've been itching to look into," my professor said. Professor of what?
"Really? Should I take a guess?" I asked.
"Skip the games. Are you aware of the cannibalism incident that happened a few years back?" he asked. I tried to focus on him, but I couldn't make out any details. All I could tell about my professor was that he was older than me.
"Cannibalism? Really?" I said.
"Anthropology wing, in the museum. There are two books I want you to get, and have them read by this weekend. Get going," he said.
I stepped out of whatever room I had been in and into the main hall of the physics building. I recognized the broad layout of the University of Canterlot but all the rooms were in the wrong places, and the connection between the physics building and the chemistry building seemed to extend at an impossible angle into the ground. How could anypony walk on it? The floors looked to be at sixty degrees to the ground!
I started walking over to the doorway that led out into the yards, I figured the fastest way to reach the anthropology building was to cut through the computer science building, so I headed that way first. It was a bright and sunny day out, the grass green and the sky blue and happy, yet it was bitterly cold for some reason. It felt like the dead of winter, but there was no snow around. Nopony was out in the yards either, and I wasn't wearing a coat or anything. I had to hurry or I'd freeze.
I jogged over to the CS building's entrance and pushed past the door. They were all locked, but the door itself fell inward when I pushed it, and a janitor ran up and neatly replaced the door behind me as I entered. He gave me a nod, so I thought nothing of it.
I felt as if I had plenty of time, and decided to take a quick detour. In fact, since the connection to the sociology building was on the second floor, I could dart through the mainframe room on the way and check out that enormous machine. It took up a gymnasium and was loud like a snoring pig, with enormous vacuum tubes running here and there, and busy ponies making punch cards surrounded the thing twenty-four hours a day, but it was state-of-the-art ultra-technology. The papers always said that computers were the way of the future. Those things are always biased.
As I reached the second floor, though I couldn't recall climbing any stairs, my legs felt a little tired. Since nopony was around, I figured I'd just sort of inch my way over. I laid on my back, legs up in the air, and started expanding and contracting my midsection, like a caterpillar, sliding across the floor and making good time while doing it. It was so relaxing, and the floors here were so clean you could eat off of them. I still wouldn't, but if I dropped something it wouldn't be an unrecoverable loss.
There was a door coming up ahead of me, so I expertly shifted my weight and rolled over in one smooth motion. It would have looked like something a gymnast would do, I'll go ahead and give myself ten outta ten for that one.
The door led back outside, on the same level as when I had entered, but hadn't I gone up a floor? No matter, it wasn't cold anymore so I walked the rest of the way to the sociology building.
The museum was in the main floor, and the whole place was dark as I entered, with mist and smoke swirling around. The exhibits were illuminated by green lights placed around them, and the whole place was ominously silent as I made my way over to the cannibalism display my professor had spoken of. There were no books here, but I found what I was looking for: A golden medallion with a picture of a slab of cut up carrots on it.
"My my, what a strange dream you're having here," my sister said, and I turned around to see her familiar navy blue face smiling at me.
"Luna? Oh, this means I'm dreaming doesn't it?" I asked.
"You were having so much fun, 'tis a shame to break it up," she said. I blushed a bit.
"Did you like that worm thing I did? I figured the dismount was the best part," I said.
She chuckled, and a great smile came over her face. Luna so rarely smiled, but then again -
"H-hey! Where do you get off coming into my dreams!" I demanded of her.
"It is my duty, is it not? I watch over the night, and I must watch over those who inhabit this dream world. You know I am to comfort ponies whose sleep is disturbed," she said.
"But my sleep isn't disturbed. Surely somepony somewhere is having a nightmare," I said.
"I can think of nopony who needs my help more than you. And don't call me Shirley," Luna said, and she smiled wider.
I had never seen her before, in my dreams, because she had never been needed here. She had told me about it, sometimes, as it was her duty. We all have our duties, our special places in the world, and this was hers, not just the guide of lunar course. I didn't understand what she did or how she did it myself, no doubt she would not fully understand my special gift either, and I made no effort to explain it, nor she to me. Perhaps because it felt so personal, to invade another pony's psyche in order to help them, that it would be a violation of an unspoken trust to discuss it much with another. She had no doubt seen thousands of dreams but never spoken a word of them to me.
And yet, she was different here. She smiled so rarely in the real world, but here, all grins. She had even cracked a joke, and it was a funny one too!
This is my dream though, and that meant I was in control. Now that I was aware of it, it became a lucid dream, by wanting something to happen, I could make it happen.
We were now standing outside, and it was warm and comfortable, because that's how I wanted to be. So relaxed, at least in my own head. Much better than that creepy anthropology exhibit.
"I approve of the scenery," Luna said.
"Now tell me, why have you come?" I asked.
"You may not think so, but you are disturbed. I can feel it as surely as you can see me in front of you. What is bothering you?" she asked.
"I'm not really sure. My memories are so disjointed in here," I said. It was like a heavy fog was over my consciousness as I slept, I couldn't remember things, I knew that something was wrong but was unsure as to what. No doubt had I been awake I would know instantly, but this was a different place, inside my own thoughts. Ideas could not be summoned up by my disjointed consciousness, thus perhaps I could manifest them some other way?
"Ladies, such a nice day for a stroll," Celestia said as she trotted past us.
The sky went dark, all at once. The world became cold, and clouds blotted the sun out. Celestia looked the same as ever, though. Why had she triggered this?
"I see. This does not surprise me, though you give an admirable performance of hiding your emotions on the outside," Luna said.
"What? Tia? What about her?" I asked.
"Amoria, please remember what happened. Remember what happened to Celestia, or you will not be able to face it," she said.
"Nothing happened to me, don't be silly Cadence. I have to go pick up Twilight for this evening's lesson. Care to accompany me?" Celestia asked, in her usual, chipper tone.
I turned to look at her. She was smiling at me, but the sky behind her was dark. It was like there were no more stars in the sky, no clouds, not even a sky. The world was empty, except for the three of us.
"She's right here," I said to Luna.
"Amoria, this is a dream, you know this. You can manipulate events here, but that does not make them true. Remember what happened," she said.
Something had happened to her, I remember that now.
"I'm fine, I'm right here," Tia said. It was less reassuring, though, and more like she was ordering me to believe her.
I closed my eyes and thought.
"Cadence? Please? Let me be fine! Please?"
When I opened them, I saw a black mist rising up out of the ground, and it flowed around my taller sister from the legs up. I stepped back, my mouth agape.
"Amoria. Concentrate. You must do this," Luna said. I wanted to look away, but Luna was right, so I kept looking. The mist flowed up through Celestia, flowing inside her, around her. It solidified, covered her in a black tar, and all I could see was the outline of her, before it consumed her completely. Her eyes opened, blood red, and she scowled at me.
I rushed forward, and brought my sword down on her, at the neck, severing her head. The image melted away, and we were standing back at the University campus again.
"Was I really repressing that?" I asked Luna.
"No, that was only an image. You were refusing to face it, but it was still an image. What it represented is still with you," she said.
I sighed.
"Hmm?" Luna said, leading me.
"It felt so right to do that, to cut her like that. Does that make me a bad pony? Should I feel remorse for it?" I asked.
"I think that you were doing the right thing, so that's why it felt that way. The true question, then, is whether or not you will be able to do that when the time comes," she said.
I didn't answer, not immediately.
"Would you?" I asked.
She didn't answer immediately either.
"One of us has to," she said.
"It may as well be me, then," I said.
"I will accept your nobility, if only to spare myself. Tell me, why would we not leave her to the bearers?" she asked.
"Twilight? We need to get there first. If Tia were to say even one disapproving thing to her, it'd ruin her life. She won't know Tia doesn't mean it, that it's not really her, and by crushing the spirits of the Hero of Harmony, she'd seal the doom of us all," I said.
I wanted to weep, right then. To imagine that monster using Tia's body like a puppet, and to do it in such an insidious way. Wrench her out and use her mouth as a weapon, it was disgusting.
"If I faced this fear, now, then it's over right? I just want this to be over," I said.
Luna laughed.
"Over? You have destroyed a minor figment of your subconscious. You will need to face this every night, possibly for years, possibly forever. It was easy here because you are in control of your own mind, and you are aware of it, but I cannot be here to guide you every night. Some nights, you will fail. Some, you will succeed," she said.
"What happens if I fail?" I asked.
"Then the dream becomes a nightmare, and there is nothing I can do to help," she said.
"How very reassuring," I said.
"Dreams are complex things, Amoria. I have seen much symbolism in your mind here, though I cannot work out all of it. What does the University represent?" she asked.
"How should I know!?" I said.
"What of the cannibalism? That was most interesting," Luna said.
"Oh nuts to you, let me have my fun here," I said.
I got a wicked idea.
A lightning cloud appeared somewhere above our heads, and before she could react, it send a bolt straight into Luna's rump. To her credit, she didn't react too much, merely kicking back her legs before recovering her balance.
"That counts for less, this isn't real," Luna said. I made sure to make her tail smoke slightly, just like mine had.
"Who's keeping score?" I asked. We both laughed.
Behind us, a dark form swirled up out of the mist, the same mist that had taken Celestia earlier. It felt angry, hostile. I shooed it away, but it didn't want to listen to me.
"Are you now trying to scare me? I've seen far worse," Luna said.
I concentrated, but the cloud of gas didn't listen to me.
"Go on, get out of here," I said. The gas swirled some more, becoming thicker.
"Amoria?" Luna asked.
"I'm trying, it won't go away," I said. No matter how hard I thought, it wasn't listening.
"You are a figment of my imagination. Do as I say!" I shouted. Nothing.
"Amoria, wake up! Wake up now!" Luna shouted.
I bolted awake, the dim glow of the candle was all that illuminated the room ahead of us. Luna stood in the middle, looking at the door. An all-pervading sense of anger, hostility, hatred, surrounded me. They were here.
I checked over myself quickly, my head coming out of the fog. I needed to wake up fully in the space of a few seconds. I was still wearing my armor, my sword still in the scabbard on my back. Luna poked me and I stood, and we moved for the door, quietly. I wanted to keep my friends from getting involved if I could, and there was no need to risk anypony's necks but our own.
We stepped out into the gloom, leaving the candle and our sleeping friends safely in the office. Luna lit up her horn and sent the light into the air above us, illuminating the decrepit surroundings as clearly as possible. Like the moon on a bright night, it would have to do.
I tensed up, and waited. They were somewhere ahead of us, and I could sense three distinct signals.. and that odd feeling again, also somewhere close by. I saw a bubbling ahead of me, and heard Luna shift herself to face it.
The liquid coalesced and congealed, hardening to form a body, not fifty yards ahead. Another appeared off to the left of the first one, but I couldn't focus on it, not as I was seeing the strangest thing. The first creature, it formed four legs, then a body atop them. Then a tail, and it formed a neck, and placed a head atop that neck, with a mane. The mane and tail were of the same black rock, they hardened and became firm, real, but it was a pony. A pony. The creature had taken the form of a pony and stood opposite me, yet another in a long string of unprecedented happenstances.
I've fought hundreds, thousands, of these things. Never has it taken the form of a pony. I've killed more than I could count, and never did it look like a pony. They looked like anything and everything else, and some looked like nothing at all, but never ponies. There was a reason we called them the Faceless ones, but this one had a head, if not a face.
"Amoria," Luna hissed.
"Yes?" I asked, but did not take my eyes off of the faceless pony.
"I will take the one on the left," she said, her gaze similarly transfixed by the other creature.
I glanced over at the creature she was referring to, and while I knew Luna could handle such an enormous, armored creature with enough pincers to make a crab symphony jealous, I was more concerned about where the third one was. I could only see two, but I could sense a third one.
I checked behind us, in case something was wonky, but my senses told me there was a third one somewhere ahead of us. I just couldn't see it, but then I looked up.