//------------------------------// // Chapter Nine: Dream Walker // Story: Moon Rising // by kibamudkip2 //------------------------------// That night, Luna found that sleep would not come to her. She paced about her room, the ancient tome her Father had given her floating inches from her face. She had stumbled across a page written in some kind of code. Try as she might she could not decipher all of the text. She had been able to translate enough to know that it was about her, or rather a pony of the night, but she could make nothing more of it. Angered she tossed the tome to the ground causing it to slide into a moon beam. “Oh this is hopeless!” she cried as she pounded a hoof onto the ground. “How Father!? How am I supposed to learn from this blasted book if you refuse to teach me its secrets!?” she raged. She stormed towards the book, ready to send it soaring into a wall when she noticed that the pages had changed. Though she did not understand what the words meant she could read them. Filled with sudden hope she scooped the book up out of the light and tried to read, but as soon as the pages were removed from the light of the moon, they returned to their coded form. “What magic is this?” Luna whispered. Curious, she held part of the tome back in the light of the moon and to her surprise she could read that part once more. “Moon is the key to the cipher!” she exclaimed “No codes no riddles, just revealed by its light!” She rushed back into the moon light and blew a small piece of her mane out of her eyes. She scanned over the pages and her heart sank. “To those whose hooves are destined to walk in the light of the night, may be granted passage into the light of another’s mind.” She groaned loudly “it is a riddle” she sighed a read on. “In ones heart as well as one’s horn they will find the key. When touched by moons light, they may follow the path into the images of the night. None can teach what is already known, but one must open the mind, for it to be shown” she read these words aloud over and over until they were committed to her memory. Then with a slam, Luna closed the book and set it aside. She moved so that she bathed fully in the moons light and closed her eyes. Unsure of what it was she was trying to do, the princess fired up her horn and opened her mind to the night. She felt as if she had been bucked in the horn as she collapsed to the ground in a painful heap. When she again opened her eyes, she found herself floating in darkness above her body. She panicked and screamed for help but no pony came. She flung her head around “Am I dead!?” she breathed out the question as she looked down at her body. Breathing, she was still breathing. She sighed in relief and gazed about “But if I’m not dead, then where am I?” she asked. As if on cue, thousands upon thousands of mirrors with shimmering silver frames appeared before her. “Mirrors?” the night princess softly flew between them. She gazed into one, expecting to see herself looking back, but instead saw a pony she recognized to be one of the maids, sitting on a throne being fed grapes. Luna backed up, were these portals to other worlds? She looked about “I’ll check another.” She muttered as she drifted to one closer to her body. She gazed in and this time was greeted by the image of Celestia sitting on the very top of a giant cake grazing happily on the frosting. Luna tilted her head “Tia? On a giant cake?” she snorted. “In her dreams” she laughed, stopping mid laugh “Dreams….. Dreams! What if these mirrors are looking glasses into the dreams of ponies!” she looked back into the mirror that held Celestia, who was now frolicking in a never ending field of cakes. Luna’s face became rather stolid “Yep, she’s dreaming alright.” She muttered as she flew away from it. She drifted about the different mirrors looking in on all the happy dreams. “Help! Somepony Help meeeeee!” came a distant cry. Luna’s gaze shot in the direction of the cry. She flew fast, expecting to see another pony in this strange dream world; she instead came face to face with another mirror. It looked far different than any of the other mirrors she had seen. The floating mirrors frame was tarnished and the glass had cracks running through it. She looked into the mirror to see a light pink filly being chased by what looked to be a skeletal pony. The fillies’ distress saddened Luna and she placed a hoof on the glass “I have to help her… but how!?” she looked over at her hoof and saw that it was sinking into the glass. She leaped back causing the mirror to ripple. She looked from her hoof to the mirror then back to her hoof. “I wonder… Can I enter these dreams?” She walked back to the mirror, placed her hooves upon its surface and pressed. To her surprise she stumbled through the mirror and into the fillies dream. She looked back to see the mirror and sighed happily “Good, I can leave as well.” She turned her attention back to the dream world. The once open field was shifting and warping into a bleak forest of dead trees. She weaved in and out of the trees searching for the pink filly. The little ones scream of terror put her on the right track and she galloped through the trees. She breathed deep and stepped slightly out of the shadows. The filly sniffled and looked at Luna quizzically “Pwincess?” she mumbled. Luna nodded and spoke softly “Why do you run little one?” she asked softly. The filly little sniffed back more tears and pointed toward the skeleton that was shambling towards them. “A skeleton, little one?” she stood taller and smiled softly. “It can do you no harm, tis just bones animated by your fear. If you can fear it not, then it cannot harm you” she said softly as she backed into the shadows to watch. The filly turned to the skeletal pony, her little legs shaking. “I-I’m not afraid of you!” she stammered over and over. Each time more of the skeleton fell apart, till just the skull scurried at her on the legs of a rabbit. Her giggles slowly changed the nightmarish world into a field of cute little bunnies. Before she was seen again, Luna flew back to the mirror and left the dream. Once she was back among the mirrors she turned back to look at the one she had just left. It made her happy to see the little filly hopping about with the bunnies. She examined the mirror is self and saw the glass renewed and the frame once again shining. “So that’s what a nightmare looks like” she made a mental not and flew up to examine more mirrors. Many dreams did she watch, but all too soon, the mirrors began to disappear. She spun around as she tried to figure out why. “The mirrors are dreams, so the ponies they are linked to must be asleep. No mirror…. No sleeping pony… no sleeping ponies means….” She gasped in alarm as she hurried back to her body. “Means that they are waking up! I have no idea how long it’s been!” she panicked “What if I missed breakfast? Or somepony needed me?” she gently lowered herself back to her body and closed her eyes once more. Luna leapt to her feet and spun about. She was still on the floor, so nopony had come to check on her. She walked over towards her window and allowed herself a small smile. She could see Celestia flying up in the blaze of the morning sun as she raised it into the sky. She still wished that she could join her sister as a keeper of the sky, but she could wait now. She had something all her own that she doubted even her father could do. She could walk in the dreams of other ponies, she bring them joy in their darkest moments of sleep. “Should I tell Tia?” she asked herself before giggling and walking to the door “Of course I will! She will be ever so jealous” with that happy thought, Luna left her room and skipped off to the dining hall giggling to herself.