//------------------------------//
// Plans, Partners, and Patience 
// Story: Dreams, Dimensions, and Dang it Yang 
// by otakufan217 
//------------------------------//

	“Miss Weiss Schnee? I have returned.”
The second meeting between Weiss and Luna was expected to proceed much more smoothly. After all, Luna had managed to get this far, and she refused to leave without at least one ambassador.  (In reality, however, as cruel as Luna knew it was, Weiss would likely become more of a lab rat than ambassador. Albeit an incredibly well treated lab rat, but still, in many senses of the phrase, a lab rat.)
The dreamscape looked exactly as it had the previous time, but with a faint breeze flowing through the area, occasionally bringing snowflakes. Weiss herself looked much the same as well, save for a small amount of blood dripping from her shoulder. Luna refrained from asking about it, as she knew that these dreams happened. Obviously they were a regular thing with this girl. Luna had realized that she was dealing with an iron-hearted being, one who wouldn’t be fazed at all by any of Equestria’s terrors.
Were she to agree, the princesses would be striking gold.
Weiss jerked back in surprise as she noticed Luna once more.
“Y-You’re back?! Wait, so that wasn’t just-”
Luna cut Weiss off.
“It wasn’t,” she explained, “I am the princess of the night, as I told you. Your lucid dreams are my powers at work. Obviously, this is essential to our plan.”
“I don’t trust you, you know,” Weiss replied, “Even if you helped me last time I heard you out. So, since you’re real and from somewhere else, why don’t you go back there and stop trying to recruit me into some hair brained scheme?”
“Listen to me, please. It may not seem like it will be any good for you,” Luna said, “But it will be a chance to test yourself. To train yourself harder. And furthermore, I could even bring your friends along if they so choose. Both of us will benefit from this, I am certain.”
“Really now,” Weiss said dryly, “Because from where I’m standing, you and your people seem to be the only ones who would benefit from this plan of yours.”
“Well…” Luna mused, “I thought anybody would leap at the chance for an adventure like this. Actually…”
Luna’s horn began to glow as she focused her magic into the entirety of the dream. Her eyes had shut in concentration at first, but eventually she opened her eyes ever so slightly at the sound of protests from the human. She had lifted Weiss into the air by now, which she assumed meant that she would now see just what this girl looked like as a pony.
With what she was planning with the spell, pony forms would be perfect.
“J-Just what are you even doing?!” she screamed, “Stop what you’re doing, this instant! I will fight back, you know!”
“I’m sorry for this...It won’t hurt, I promise,” Luna said, attempting to reassure Weiss in the final moments of the spell.
In one bright flash, the dream was a perfect recreation of the Everfree Forest. The smell of fresh rain filled Luna’s nostrils, combined with decaying leaves and moss. Huge-leafed plants surrounded the area, painting the land between the thick trees in deep russet and green. The ground beneath the princess sank slightly underneath her hooves, having been left soft from the rain. And, as it was the Everfree Forest, it was perpetually dark.
In front of Luna lay a pure white unicorn mare, lithe in build and delicate in her features. Her mane was, as expected, long, possibly long enough to reach the ground, and her tail was no better. Her cutie mark was a symbol closely resembling a snowflake. This, along with the scar above her eye, was one of her most defining features.
There was no mistaking it. This was Weiss, just as a pony.
“All right,” Weiss hissed, “Any deal you may have planned on proposing to me is off. Whatever you did, turn me back. NOW.”
“Wait,” Luna replied, “I must show you something. Please, try to stand. It may be hard at first, but at least try to.”
Weiss did so, begrudgingly, though her legs were visibly trembling. Her first attempt failed; her knees had given out on her almost instantly. However, she was not about to let a new form get the better of her, and she continued to attempt to stand until she finally managed to stabilize her own footing. Delicately, she began to walk. Though she was slow, she was clearly taking to this new form quicker than expected.
Luna led the way, stopping on occasion to let Weiss catch up with her. She knew she had focused part of her magic to one place in particular, and if she was right, perhaps Weiss could be convinced to go through with the plan.
A voice could be heard nearby.
“...What just...I…”
Weiss’s ears perked up immediately at the sound of this voice. It was one of the most familiar voices to her, one that she had to put up with on a daily basis. This voice was indeed the voice of her leader, the one known as Ruby Rose.
Luna smiled to herself. Exactly as she had planned.
“...Ru...Ruby?!” Weiss gasped, “L-Luna, was it? Get her out of my dreams! She’s not supposed to be here!”
“Weiss?! Wait, why are you here?! I thought this was my dream!”
Ruby clumsily dashed out from behind a few bushes, barely stopping herself from tripping. Luna wasted no time in taking a look at her. She was a thinly-built unicorn, certainly, but slightly larger than Weiss. Her mane was a deep maroon, marked with slightly brighter tips, and the rest of her coat had taken on a deep charcoal color. Though her mane and tail were both short and wispy, the style seemed to fit her perfectly. Her flank was branded with a rose-esque symbol in the same striking silver of her eyes. She looked on at both Weiss and Luna, giving them one of the most genuinely confused looks Luna had seen in her entire life.
“I apologize for leaving you so stunned,” Luna told Ruby, “But what I am about to say is important. We ponies are seeking ambassadors from other worlds, having discovered a means of travel between worlds. I will tell you now, you will only visit our world at night. It will feel much like this. By day, we shall return you home. Did you understand that?”
Ruby stared on in silence.
“Ahem. Let me explain this one. It’ll get through to her if I say it,” Weiss explained, though there was a hint of something else in her voice. Malice? No, it wasn’t that. Luna had figured it was a sort of begrudging hateful friendliness, the sort almost never seen back in Equestria. Truly, these two would at least be entertaining.
“So, Ruby. This pony calls herself Princess Luna, and she appeared in my dream recently. I thought nothing of it, of course, until she returned just a few moments ago. And now, we’re ponies thanks to her magic, or something. Listen, I’m not even sure what happened to us, but Luna has a plan, and she wants to take us to her world. There. That’s what she just said to you.”
Ruby had obviously understood Weiss’s explanation much more than she had Luna’s. It had come as less of a shock, Luna assumed, to hear this from her own partner.
“I understand this is quite a lot to take in at once, but-”
Luna was cut off by a question from Ruby.
“Will we be able to continue our life here as if nothing happened?” the red and black mare asked.
“Yes,” was Luna’s only answer.
“Will we still be ponies in your world?”
“Yes.”
“And most importantly...Even if I doubt they’ll work that well while we have hooves, will we get to keep our weapons?”
“I will try to arrange that.”
Ruby’s face curved into a smile.
“Well, I’m in on this!” she chirped, “Come on, Weiss, it’s not going to hurt our personal lives at all, right?”
“Wait, what if she’s lying, Ruby?!” Weiss argued, “What if we won’t actually come back?! Are you absolutely sure you want to trust her?! You just met her!”
“Listen, she’s with you, Weiss. Anybody who you willingly allow to travel with you automatically earns my trust,” Ruby replied.
“She does have a point,” Luna interrupted, “I can sense, even if you said you didn’t, that there is at least some trust in you towards myself.”
The snow-white mare sighed.
“F-Fine. I give in. Take me to your world when you’re ready, Luna,” she muttered.
“Absolutely,” Luna responded with a glowing horn and a gentle smile, “But before I do so, there are six others I must ask about this.”