//------------------------------// // Chapter Three // Story: To Swoon the Stars // by LucidTech //------------------------------//         Night had come, and all the ponies were asleep in the great capital of Canterlot. Celestia had long since gone to bed, but Luna remained awake. Her court had ended long ago, as the nobles found their need for sleep to be top priority at this time. As such, Luna fell into the task she usually spent this time doing, preparing Equestria for her sister so as to ease her burdens during the day. It was common practice now, the careful preparation of the dawn, that had seemed to come from nothing and gone mostly unnoticed by both alicorns. Luna had once held a foolish fear of dawn, a growing regret like something bad were about to happen she couldn’t do anything about, but now helped the sun rise on as peaceful a world as possible.         Both the sisters were equal, in both power and fame. Well, perhaps not exactly equal, but far closer than they had ever been before. And with this new equality, both had found themselves free from a feeling that would constrict their chest. For Celestia, it had been guilt, guilt that she had done nothing to help her sister and seeing her treated like she had been at the time of her banishment. For Luna, on the other hand, it had been bitter envy, a toxic chain of thoughts that would wrap tightly around the younger sister’s throat and threaten to kill her at times. Neither enjoyed these feelings, and Luna found herself completely appalled by her own mind when these kinds of thoughts had come to bare.         This had all happened about a year ago, a few days after the arrival of Hendrick, the crazy pony who had shaken the world upside down. Luna smiled as she thought of the stallion and it brought her mind back to the matter at hand. She had received a note from him. Perhaps received is too big a word. She had found a note from him in the alley where he had made his home. Thinking back to where it was located, Luna remembered all the times she had offered him money to help pay for an actual house, but he always rejected the money regardless of how tricky Luna was in giving it to him.         One day, she magicked a stack of bits in front of him as he was heading to work. The following day, she received a copy of a receipt stating that the orphanage was buying new beds, a welcome gift after the fire that had wrecked their previous building. She wasn’t sure if he had known the source of the money or not, but it was clear he was intent on paying for his house out of his own hard earned money and sending all excess unexpected money either to his savings, to keep a reasonable amount on hand in case of emergency, or to charity.         Therefore, it had surprised Luna to find the note there, and it stated quite plainly that he wished her to visit him in his dreams this night. She had tried to send a return correspondence, to tell him of her busy night schedule, but failed to find the stallion anywhere in the city. She would have searched for him more rigorously, but a princess can only rightly use the resources of the city guard to a certain extent, and her conscience had been the first to dutifully inform her that taking all the manpower away from guarding the city and put it into searching it for one lone stallion.... Well, it wasn’t the best use of her influence. So, she had done her duties as fast as possible, and now, close to one o’clock in the morning, she finally cleared her to do list and was ready for sleep to take her. All she needed now was to force sleep upon herself. This necessity came from long ago when she once performed a forceful sleep spell after an extremely annoying night. Unfortunately, her enchantment allowed her no way to be awoken, giving her no way to save the one thing she cared about, and ruined any chance of falling asleep naturally ever again. With a shake of her head, she removed these dark thoughts from her mind and put it fully on the magic cradling her mind to sleep, being careful that it was only going to put her into a light sleep so she could be awoken by her guards if need be. She felt her consciousness fading, and her mind make desperate attempts to ensure her magic was working correctly even as her body became limp and her muscles completely unbound themselves. It wasn’t long before she found herself in the Aether: a place where the venturing minds of ponies went when they slept. The railroad crossing of the imaginary and the real, the Aether was a wondrous place, and the view alone was probably one of the biggest reasons why Luna found herself returning here. Screens, as she had taken to calling them, floated by: little rectangles with views of the dreams of ponies. She smiled as she saw several dreams float by: happy children in an ice cream shoppe, an awards ceremony, a colt asking a filly friend out for a date. She found her heart lifted merely by the sights of such happy dreams, but recalled occasions where the majority were not so joyous. There were times when a tragedy had occurred the day prior and tainted the sacred realm with nightmares, terrifying experiences impossible in the real world but acted out to their worst possible ends in the dreams of her subjects. She had done what she could, helping where possible, and things had eventually gone back to their happy mediums. But she wasn’t here to look at these wonderful dreams, as uplifting as they might be, so she narrowed her search. Normally this task would take quite a while, as sorting through the dreams of every pony was not an easy feat, but she was looking for a dream that had quite a specific feel to it: a feeling of... incorrectness that bled through the entirety of it. Like cabbage-flavored ice cream. She found it easily enough amongst the dreams—for even though it was the mind of a pony, and thus linked to the Aether, it was the soul of a human—and that was something that none of the other dreams had. She gazed into the dream for a moment, but could only see falling snow; Hendrick was nowhere to be seen. She stood still briefly, preparing herself to enter the dream and admiring the dreams around her for just a little while longer. With a comfortable smile on her face, she stepped through. She came out on the other side, all in one piece, and looked around for Hendrick, locating him easily. He stood next to her in his human body and as Luna looked down she noticed she had taken the human form that had become commonplace in Hendrick’s dreams. He smiled at her as she looked at her hands, still not entirely used to suddenly switching body types without any kind of loss in motor control. Then again, it was a dream. “I’m glad you could make it,” Hendrick said with a light, airy tone in his voice. “I’m very sorry for giving you the runaround tod— Yesterday.” His smile widened a bit and he looped his arm around hers like a chauffeur, walking through the snow with her Luna smiled in return, enjoying the moment for what it was. “Your note made it seem like you had something to tell me,” she stated, her meaning clear in her words. “I meant to tell you I wasn’t going to be able to come here as soon as you might have hoped, but I couldn’t seem to find you anywhere. I searched every street and didn’t even glimpse you.” “Ah, that’s because I spent most of the day furnishing my new house,” he said with a wide smile. Luna smiled in return, keeping up the easy pace with Hendrick has they meandered through the dream. She quickly came to realize that it was a park, some kind of memory that Hendrick held from when he was human, as the detail was astounding, especially in the very modest dress Luna found herself in. In comparison, Hendrick’s outfit seemed dull and worn, as if very little thought had gone into it at all. “I don’t suppose I could get the address for this home of yours?” Luna bobbed along, her high heels proving to be a bit of trouble despite the dream having made everything else easier for her. “I would very much like to see it at some point.” “I’ll tell you as soon as it’s done being furnished. I want to invite everyone over for a housewarming party. My friends have brought so much joy into my life over this past year and I desperately want to share it. To make them smile.” His faced seemed to brighten the area around him as he smiled once more, this grin filled joy like none other had been. Luna, however, found herself slightly slipping in her mind. She had hoped that, after all they had been through, they might be a bit more than friends. Of course, straight up love might be a bit of a stretch; they had a somewhat shaky relationship with each other, especially since Hendrick’s event, after which he had spent a large portion of his time on finding out who he really was. It hadn’t been some massive event, and Luna suspected he might not have even known he did it, but he had changed. It wasn’t a bad change; it just took some getting used to. She just feared that one day he might change too much, that he wouldn’t be the same person who had kissed her that one night, having wished that to be his last act before he died. Hendrick caught on to the frown that hung heavy in Luna’s heart, easily spotting the descending sadness slowly taking her thoughts, and realized immediately what he had said to trigger this in the princess’s heart. “Luna...” he started, grabbing her attention with her name and turning her face to his through words alone. “There is another reason why I asked you here.” Luna turned fully to look at Hendrick, her arm slipping out of his as she turned. Upon losing contact with each other, they instinctively grasped each other’s hands, neither of them noticing the act. “It’s also the reason why I asked you to come to my dreams, so I could be in my human form tonight. I wanted to be comfortable in my own skin when I said this, so that I wouldn’t mess up.” Luna nodded and Hendrick coughed to clear his throat, the last thing he needed was to choke on his own words. “Love...” he started slowly, but then back tracked, realizing he hadn’t fully explained what he was about to say. “What I mean to say is, I’ve been asking ponies about what they think love is.” Luna remembered Shining Armor relaying his discussion with Hendrick to her. It had been the reason she had gone to see him the day she found the note. “And they’ve all told me very different things, different things you do when you are in love, and I’ve done none of those things for you.” Luna instantly feared where this conversation was going, but let Hendrick continue. He had a tendency to surprise. “Vinyl suggested that you take people you love to dubstep concerts.” He smiled. “Octavia was listening in and cut her off, stating that you took them to orchestral concerts. I’m sure Shining Armor already told you what he told me, and I don’t feel like I need you to love me, because we are both happy right now. Front Page said that real love means you don’t edit what you want to say, but I do that all the time. So, I was desperate at this point, and I went to talk to Moon Light, having made sure she was done with her homework ahead of time. And do you know what she said?” Luna felt a blush coming to her cheeks by this point. “What did she say?” “ ‘Love... is like snow.’ ” He smiled as he quoted the filly, looking around at the shining white world around them. Luna smiled wide at the words and glanced at the falling specks of ivory that dotted the air and landscape. Hendrick coughed and tapped his chin for a moment to make sure he had fully memorized what he was about to say. “ ‘Both are created by an extensive series of events that can’t often be predicted. Such events include not only climate and location, in the case of snow, but also how various variables react with one another.’ ” “Wow.” Luna blinked. “She said that?” “Word for word.” The snow fell around them in swirling gusts, a world of chaotic white dancing surrounding the pair as they stood amongst the weather. Luna understood now why her own outfit was so detailed while Hendrick’s was so plain. This entire world had been built from his own memory. He had been to this park; he had seen the dress. Every piece of their current world was composed of some part of the man’s memory. With this in mind, Luna looked to the sky and saw an amazing array of stars that stunned even her. The longer she looked at it, the more she came to realize that she had seen that sky before. “It’s what it looked like, my first night here, that night when I ran away from you and your palace. I remember I was horribly scared. My surroundings were different; I was afraid I had gone mad, and if I hadn’t gone mad, I had just insulted some very high ranking ponies.” He stopped for a moment in his speech, recalling it to himself with his words. “And then I looked up, and it was so beautiful...” “And the dress?” Luna asked, curiosity overtaking her better judgement once again. She saw a pained look on Hendrick’s face and quickly recalled the question, stating it didn’t matter, and unlike the last time this had happened, he gladly accepted the easy way out. They stood there for a long moment, stargazing in silence, until she felt Hendrick move by her side. She turned to look at him and, after a moment, his mood seemed to change suddenly. He made to move towards her, but stopped in a fit of hesitation. He seemed frozen as he stood there and his eyes had a look to them like something was just out of his reach. Then, as the fight within him seemed to come to an end, he sighed. His body relaxed, he glanced down at the ground, and he didn’t say anything. Luna had just decided to ask if everything was alright when he suddenly took a step forward and kissed her on the forehead. A blush painted Luna’s cheeks pink and she swooned slightly, ever so slightly, in her stance.   Hendrick didn’t speak for a moment as he stood there, his only action that of taking a half step back so he could look into Luna’s eyes, his hands still tightly holding hers. He smiled a half smile and then slowly let go, letting their fingers unknit and allowing their arms to fall to their sides. If he noticed the heat on her face, he didn’t mention it. He had always been like that: kind. Luna took a moment to process what had just happened. It had been as unexpected as his first kiss had been and she felt the same now as she had then: shock mixed with a child-like giddiness. “It won’t be easy,” Hendrick said eventually, breaking the silence. Luna smiled at that and grasped Hendrick’s hand in hers once again. “I never said it would be easy. I just said we would do it together.”