Jason woke up from the same dream he’d had off and on for years now. Well, not exactly the same. The conversation went a little different each time, he guessed, but the scene and purpose never did.
He rolled out of bed and went to take his shower. Saturday morning. He could watch that silly show about ponies when he finished.
Naw. He’d tried it once, but he couldn’t take it seriously. Not when it was just a handful of set plots that repeated over and over again, all in reruns. Nothing changed with it. Stagnant and dead. He couldn’t watch it like that because he knew…
In the mirror, some serious bedhead stared back at him. He tried smoothing it down, but it refused to cooperate, and once he got wet, it wouldn’t matter anyway. But yeah, he knew. He’d told his little sister, but she thought it was just a game. He’d told his parents one time, which resulted in having to tell the doctor as well. So needless to say, he’d never mentioned it again.
He knew that behind the glossy animation, the predictable story, the repetitive character design lay a grain of truth. Somewhere, it was real. Somewhere, they were alive.
Princess Luna told him when she visited his dreams. Every night at first, then only occasionally. But it had gotten more frequent again lately.
Jason stepped under the stream of water and held his breath as it washed over his face. His eyes closed and the water in his ears obscuring all sound, he could almost picture her. Shut away from any distraction, he could imagine her voice.
At first, she’d only introduced herself and made small talk. He’d easily written it off as the standard strange dream. But it kept happening. And then she’d started explaining everything about her world, Equestria. Everything. The history, the inhabitants, the culture. Night after night, until he felt like he knew all of them. The one she’d never talk about was herself, but inasmuch as someone is the sum of their attitudes and hopes, he’d gotten a pretty good read on her. In fact, he probably knew her better than anyone. A whole other world, floating around in his head.
All nice, but not especially useful. Until she said she’d chosen him for a reason. Well, not chosen. She was careful to make sure he understood that: she’d had no choice in the matter. It was closer to the truth to say they’d both been sought out.
But last night…
“Jason, the time for the prophecy draws nigh. I have had difficulty in setting the moon the past few nights. Another has it in its grip,” Luna said. She glanced over at him. “Are you afraid?”
He wondered if athletes felt this way. Or soldiers. They’d trained for a moment so long, and when it actually came, were they eager to prove themselves? Scared of failure? Both? For his part, it felt more like a release. Freedom from everything that had kept him from playing his part before now.
Jason shook his head. “When?”
“Tomorrow.” Her eyes practically glowed with the full moon’s light. “I will travel to the Crystal Empire today so that you may find me nearby when you emerge from the mirror.”
He nodded and watched the fireflies circling overhead. “Where is the portal on my end?”
For a long time, she didn’t answer. When he looked to see why, she had her brow knit. “It’s not your fault,” he said. “Really. You know how it works. I want to do this. If I didn’t, then we’d fail. You said so yourself, but I could tell anyway.”
“I know,” she replied, then fell back into silence. Finally, she let her wings sag and took a breath. “The statue of the rearing horse in your town square. In the pedestal.”
He couldn’t help laughing quietly to himself. She’d grilled him multiple times about his home, the surrounding streets and buildings, the entire town. Now it all made sense. She’d been looking for something using his eyes and memory. “I’ll be there.”
Luna had taught him a lot about dreams as well. One of her favorite subjects, no doubt, and she’d start expounding on it if she had nothing important to say on any given night. He knew what worked in dreams and what didn’t. And so his eyes shot open when she rolled over and hugged him.
Warm. Her coat felt warm against him, and her mane tingled like frost on his shoulder. If anyone could break the rules of a dream, he supposed she could. “Thank you,” she said. “I mean it. Not just from me, but from everypony.”
His one chance to touch her, to prove her reality to his own senses. He wouldn’t get to once he arrived in Equestria, of course. Not enough time.
Princess Luna dozed as much as she could. Princess Cadance had graciously provided her personal train, though she did ask what necessitated an unannounced royal visit to the Crystal Empire. Luna had waved it off as a day trip for a bit of recreation.
She watched the scenery roll by. Canterlot’s mountains disappearing into the distance, the surrounding green farmland next, the rivers and lakes. She didn’t know them like her sister did, and some of the names were different from what she remembered, from before, but no matter. Still beautiful, this land that she loved.
But soon she’d drifted off. Two or three times, she awoke to an unfamiliar countryside, only to fall back asleep. She needed to conserve her strength, but of course fate wouldn’t allow her any real rest today.
Upon waking yet another time, she gazed at the snowy tundra streaming past. Close now.
“Coffee, Your Highness?” the conductor asked.
“Not today, thank you,” she replied. “It upsets my stomach sometimes.” Especially on an empty stomach, and she didn’t feel like eating.
“Your Highness will be returning to Canterlot this evening, right?”
She didn’t answer immediately. But he showed no alarm. Just a scheduling uncertainty as far as he knew. For her part, though… The prophecy. The visions she’d had for years. If she didn’t trust them enough, then why had she invested so much?
“Yes,” she said. “I will.” She sank into her seat and rubbed at the bags under her eyes.
He smiled and spoke quietly. “We still have about an hour. I’ll wake Your Highness when we arrive.”
She grinned back, but turned her head to avoid staring at him. He’d wonder why. But lovely, kind ponies like him were precisely who would never know of tonight’s events, who should never know. One of the prices of good leadership had always been the burden of terrible knowledge. Unfortunately, she may have to let in a few others on this secret.
Princess Luna had picked at her salad for a while before excusing herself from the dinner table on pretense of a headache. She had to raise the moon anyway. Or at least go through the motions. She’d barely wrested it from its place in the sky this morning, and tonight, it would refuse to budge. Exactly as her vision had said.
Instead of looking for somewhere to lie down, she found the room with the mirror portal and sat on the floor in front of it. She stared at it. What would it feel like to see the prophecy fulfilled? After all these years…
She settled onto the floor and reached out with her magic—not time for the moon yet, but the lengthening shadows attested to the sun’s path. Far away, Celestia was performing her duty. So Luna felt for the moon, prepared to feel its weight and refreshing coolness. Nothing.
In fact, whatever had increasingly held the moon in its grip reached back.
Paralysis crept up her legs. Luna sucked in a quick breath and tried to still her heart. Calm! She had to remain calm. Nothing had happened that she hadn’t expected, but she hadn’t prepared herself for what it would feel like.
Breathe. Just breathe! In through the nose, and—she fought off another surge of panic, resisting the encroaching immobility. Both back legs, dead! No—still tensing at her command, but held by some barrier. One wing still free, straining toward the door, now locked in place as well. She took one last deep breath. Her shoulders, her head… Nothing left to do but trust in her vision.
As the last ray of sunlight winked out, nothing took its place. And an invisible claw grabbed Princess Luna by the neck and dragged her out the open window.
Twilight Sparkle staggered through the Crystal Empire street by street. All around her, ponies lay scattered and unconscious, and on some level, she knew it should alarm her, but all she wanted to do was sleep. Just sleep, and everything would turn out fine. By screaming “Find Luna!” in her mind, she’d managed to override the drive to lie down a little, but nothing more would fit. She leaned into the castle’s front door, which creaked open.
When the moon had… failed… she flew out from Ponyville to find out why. Even then, ponies had started dropping in the streets. Asleep.
Sleep sounded so good. She could just stop here, in the receiving room, on one of the soft cushions, and let her body give in.
“Find Luna!”
Twilight jerked her head away from the tempting bench. Stairs. She had to go up. But up meant tired. With a groan, she crawled up, up… to the banquet hall. Dinner. Luna was supposed to be at dinner. But on the way, a strange light, coming out of a different room.
“Find… Luna…”
Th-the mirror? The mirror portal? Glowing?
She braced herself against the doorframe and peered in. Somepony—somebody—tumbled out. Somebody like at Canterlot High, but a little different. He quickly looked around, ran to the open window.
“Princess Luna!” he shouted, then jumped out.
Twilight stumbled to see for herself, pull her head over the windowsill. She could just lay it there, go to sleep, only for a minute…
“Find Luna!”
She shook her head and peered into the dark garden below.
She’d shown Jason in his dreams. Luna had. She wouldn’t know what the statue would look like, of course, but she’d shown him how it would change when the portal opened.
He’d sneaked out after dinner, and now he sat there waiting, on the side with the broken streetlight, so he could see it better. Scared. He should be scared, but he instead felt like a runner in the starting blocks, anticipating the signal to go and do what gave him meaning. Rather like a cutie mark, he realized with a smile. Yeah, a destiny that he couldn’t help but embrace, where others might not see its value at all. Maybe some cutie marks worked that way.
And then it happened: a faint glow from the statue’s base, and a slight ripple running over its surface. His heart leapt. Now! Now was when he’d find the use he’d expected for so long. Now was when he had grave importance to something, somewhere, someone.
So, how did this work? Jason crept up to the statue and put his hand on it—it passed right through the stone surface. With a triumphant grin, he pulled his hand back out and flexed his fingers. None the worse for wear. All in, then. Luna needed his help.
Jason stepped through and emerged into an enormous room, seemingly made out of crystal. A palace—it would be the palace of the Crystal Empire, if everything had turned out as Luna planned. A different princess lived here, but he couldn’t remember her name at the moment. No, he didn’t have time.
Quickly, he glanced around the room. Bright colors, even in the muted light, furniture a bit on the small side for him, just all… cartoony. He hated to use the word, but really, that’s how it appeared. Except him. Just a normal human. He hadn’t changed color, size, shape, anything.
It almost disappointed him, but he shook his head. No. He wouldn’t have had the time to get used to a new form. He had to be ready for action now, and where had Luna gone?
He stood alone in the room, but—no, over by the door, a purple pony, moving very lethargically. Exactly as Luna had said. Any ponies he saw would be like this—they wouldn’t interfere. She stared wide-eyed at him and mouthed something he couldn’t hear.
“Find Luna!” he shouted inside his head. But where? He couldn’t search an entire palace! She said she’d stay nearby, so he wouldn’t have to look for her.
When his eyes had adjusted to the dim light—outside. More light out there that couldn’t have come from the mirror. He rushed to the window and looked into the shadowy garden beneath it. And there! Over by the fountain, a ball of shimmering light, and a silhouette inside. “Princess Luna!” he yelled.
Jason dropped about ten feet to a soft landing in a pea-gravel path and tore off to the princess’s side. He didn’t have long, but he gave it a hurried glance: Luna inside the sphere, which slowly contracted. If he didn’t get her out if there, it would crush her. Four glowing tendrils, anchoring it to the ground, and each surrounded by some sort of runes scratched into the dirt.
He smiled. He didn’t fully understand why, but only Luna could save this world. And only he could save her. All he had to do was break one of those beams. Just one.
His eyes fixed on the dark outline inside the ball of energy, he stepped into one of the buzzing rays. And the next thing he knew, he could barely breathe.
He lay on his back in the dirt, with a funny feeling in his chest, like it tickled, from the inside. He even laughed out loud, though it sounded like it came from a good distance away. Numb. Everything else numb.
Above him, a purple face pushed into his view. “...Alright?” it said. The pony from… from inside. She didn’t look tired anymore. But now he wanted to sleep.
“Can you hear me?” the pony said. It sounded like he had a pillow over his head, but… he nodded. Now she couldn’t figure out what to do. She pressed a hoof against his ribs, cried out toward the building, and shook her head. “Why?” Her voice trembled.
“My talent,” he rasped. He tried to point at himself, but his arms wouldn’t work. “Only I could.”
The light from Luna’s prison had faded, and she… Not Luna anymore. Something spread great black wings and shot into the sky like a rocket. Not Luna anymore, but she would be again. She would be.
The purple mouth opened and closed, the lips formed words in a torrent. But he couldn’t hear any of it. Jason smiled. Luna would be.
High above, the burial cloth laid over the sky tore in two, and the stars shone through. What a beautiful sight. Jason shut his eyes.
Twilight watched the boy run off to a strange glowing orb, with a dark outline inside—was that Luna? She tried to rub the fog from her bleary eyes. Had he done this?
If she could climb over the windowsill, fall down there, and—and stop him, somehow. But… no, he was walking all around it, looking from different angles. He didn’t know what it was either.
And then he dove into one of the light rays holding it to the ground. A bright flash blinded her, and when she could see again, the filament he’d touched lay severed on the ground. In fact, all four of them flickered and went out, leaving the sphere in the middle to roll free, and even it began to fade. The prisoner inside spread her wings.
Twilight’s heart leapt. Free! Maybe Luna could get free now! Her mind raced as well, and—no more drowsiness. She gave her wings a tentative flap, and she even heard some mumbled conversation from inside the palace. Whatever had caused it, everypony everywhere had started waking up again.
Twilight glided down to help Luna out of her confinement, but… where was the boy who’d helped her escape? She scanned the ground below, and over there! A short distance back down the path. He lay in the gravel, a wisp of smoke trailing up from his chest, and for some reason, he laughed. With a quick glance to make sure Luna’s prison had continued to dissipate, Twilight flew to his side and bent low over him.
“Are you alright?” she said. His unfocused eyes stared up at the sky, and now that Twilight looked as well, no stars or even a moon shone down. Completely black. Maybe she shouldn’t celebrate yet. She turned back to the figure on the ground. “Hey, are you alright?”
She shook his shoulder gently and checked him over for wounds. Nothing obvious, but the scorch mark on his chest didn’t bode well, and she couldn’t even be sure what first aid might be effective on him. “Can you hear me?”
His gaze slowly moved to her, and he nodded. Not just a burn… blood soaking through his shirt down by his ribs. “Help!” she called back toward the castle. “Somepony bring help!” All she knew to do was to keep pressure on it until somepony else came, but who knew what other injuries he might have?
What could have possessed him to do that? She’d never seen him before, much less with Princess Luna, but only a few minutes after showing up in Equestria, he felt the need to put himself in harm’s way for her? She pressed harder, but the bleeding wouldn’t stop, and she didn’t know what to do about it, and—
“Why?” she asked, her voice quavering.
“My talent,” he answered in a sandpapery voice. He couldn’t get enough breath to say any more. No, no, he must have a punctured lung!
“Help!” she yelled again toward the castle.
A serene smile crossed his face, and he rolled his head to see Princess Luna step out into the night. “Only I could,” he said with an ugly rale.
“Princess Luna, you have to—!” Twilight froze. What stood a short distance off bore little resemblance to Luna. Roughly the right shape and size, but with immense black wings and glowing yellow eyes above a mouthful of knife-like teeth. “L-Luna?”
“Do not fear, Twilight,” the… the thing mumbled, its voice unaccustomed to accommodating the fangs in its way. Twilight shied back as it spread the dark cloak of its wings, and with a mighty flap, it launched straight up. Twilight followed it until she couldn’t make it out against the sky anymore.
And then a last hiss of breath drew her eyes back down. She tried to pump Jason’s chest, force air into his lungs, anything! With her hooves, with her mouth, with her magic, it didn’t matter. Nothing worked, nothing! “Help!” she whimpered toward the building one more time, and then she sank to the ground beside him, her tears trickling over her cheeks. “Why? Why did you do it?”
Clear, pure starlight glittered over the Crystal Empire once again. Twilight still sat next to the prone body of someone she’d never met, and yet she was sure he’d just saved Equestria.
And the only pony who might have any answers had returned, in body at least. Maybe not even that.
A huge, dragon-like creature sat a few dozen paces away. Twilight had charged her horn when it came into view again, but as it alighted and settled its bulk among the bushes, it had stared at the boy’s body and wrinkled its brow. “Wait,” it croaked, “Twi-light.”
So she did. While it—Luna—panted, Twilight waited. Luna had grown even bigger wherever she went, but now, little by little, she shrank back closer to a familiar shape. Heavy, scaled wings reshuffled into light feathers, sallow eyes regained their frosty glint, and fangs receded. At long last, the Princess of the Night walked over, mostly herself again, except for the clawed feet.
“You must have questions,” Luna said, her voice still low and rough. “I will attempt to give you satisfactory responses.”
“What… What is this?” Twilight flung her hooves at the body, at Luna, at… everything.
A smirk on her face, Luna replied, “Perhaps I should start at the beginning.”
At least she sounded a little more feminine now. “While in exile, I began to feel a presence. Out there.” Luna jutted her chin toward the stars. “Something of the same substance as dreams, but very powerful. It sensed me as well, and it tested its strength against me. Over the years, it fought me for control of the moon, and I knew from the start that it was a losing battle.”
“Why didn’t you ask for help?” Twilight said. How could Luna even think of trying to do this alone?
Luna only shook her head and pursed her lips. “Its power is far-reaching. If others had known and attempted to resist, it would have merely destroyed them all with a thought instead of making everypony sleep. The same with me—I could not appear as a threat. So I had to lure it in, wait until it had drawn near enough that it could not react in time. It recognized me as skilled in the… darker arts, and thus less susceptible to its effects. That is why it sought to confine me in advance. It never knew of my full power, especially in the realm of dreams, so I could not act until I had the opportunity to attack it directly. From a distance, it outmatched me, but at hoof’s length…” She grinned wickedly, and the moonlight gleamed off a few of her still-sharp front teeth.
But her expression softened, and she ran a hoof—now that she had them once more—across the boy’s cheek. Twilight wondered when she’d get to that. “This poor creature,” Twilight said, a sneer marring her face. “Was he part of your plan?”
“Yes.” Luna let out a prolonged sigh. “This will be difficult for you to understand.”
“Try me.”
Luna’s eyes flicked back and forth between the boy and Twilight. “His name is Jason. I have visited his dreams for years now, ever since I had a vision. I knew all this would happen someday, and I knew how to stop it.” Luna leaned forward and took Twilight by the shoulders. “Dreams, Twilight, they are the key. They have been since the start.”
Twilight didn’t respond, but she raised an eyebrow.
“I explained everything to him: our world, the threat to it, the role he was meant to fulfill. He already knew, Twilight, the same way you did. That day, in the old castle, when you felt the spark of friendship and knew what you had to do.”
“But it’s not the same!” Twilight said. She gritted her teeth but held her tongue. Luna had once wielded the Elements, after all. But that didn’t excuse callousness.
“Please, Twilight.” Luna took a deep breath and blinked slowly. “You do not feel a compulsion to embody magic. It is simply a part of you. Applejack loves the truth, not because she must constantly force herself to, but because it is in her nature. Rarity shows generosity by reflex. Do you see?”
Twilight pounded a forehoof on the ground. “Princess Luna, someone has died! Forgive me for saying so, but you don’t seem to be taking this seriously!”
Luna’s faint smile faded. “I know all too well what we’ve lost. I invested so many years in getting to this point, and convincing myself was hardest of all. But he saw my vision almost as certainly as I did, and he ultimately made his own decision. You must understand—he is an Element, too.”
Her eyes widening, Twilight let out a gasp. “Another Element? But why wouldn’t we have heard of it before? Why wouldn’t we need it to work with the others?”
“Just like the rest of you, Jason exemplifies his Element not because he has to, but because he wants to. He could not even contemplate doing otherwise. But the nature of his Element makes it one that only manifests in times of need. Pinkie Pie indulges in laughter daily, but to ask someone to represent Jason’s Element repeatedly would…” Luna shook her head and grimaced.
“Twilight, Jason is the Element of Sacrifice. A noble concept, but a costly one.”
A shiver ran up Twilight’s spine. She understood. She understood the terrible feelings that Luna must have endured, and she understood why it had to happen this way. But she didn’t have to like it. She tried to fight off another surge of tears, but to no avail.
Still… how improbable. “An Element? From another world?”
“You know well that the Elements seek out their bearers. This time, the Element knew that nobody here would work. So it looked beyond our world.” The last remnants of her transformation gone, Luna folded her wings, smoothed her mane back, and knelt next to Twilight.
“My dreams reached there as well. But it could not detect me. It thought itself unique to the dream world.” That same steely glint returned to her eyes, and she gave a toothy grin. “As I said, if I could lure it close enough for a direct assault, it would find that I rule there. So I became something out of a nightmare to take the battle to it.”
She licked her lips and pricked her ears forward. “It did not put up much of a fight.” Twilight recoiled from that gleeful smile until Luna shook her head. “My apologies—my thoughts have not quite…”
“But why him?” Twilight said. “Why couldn’t someone else free you?”
“Everything here is magical.” Luna waved a hoof around at the sky, the ground, the castle. “Magic flows through you. If you had jumped into that magical stream, you wouldn’t have affected it at all. But magic does not exist in Jason’s world. Only his life energy could interrupt it.”
Twilight wrinkled her brow and looked at the boy again. Jason. “I still think you’re being a bit flippant about this,” she said. “He obviously cared about you a great deal.”
“Yes…” Luna’s mouth worked as if to say more, but she remained silent.
Twilight rubbed her nose and wiped her cheeks dry. “What happens to him now? A thank you and a good-bye? That hardly seems enough.”
“It will be.”
Before the sun dawned, a tall woman with midnight-blue hair and a young lady with purple locks emerged from the base of a statue and left Jason on a park bench nearby. They said nothing, and nobody saw them. The woman looked back before returning through the pedestal, though, then glanced up at the dark clouds.
That night, thousands of Equestrians attended a state funeral. They had no idea who had died, and the closed casket didn’t give them a chance to recognize the deceased. A few ponies knew. They knew that the casket was empty, and they glanced at the small stained glass window that had appeared overnight, tucked away at the end of the hall, easily missed. Only they could identify the strange creature pictured.
Near midnight, Twilight slipped away from the stragglers who had yet to find their way home. She had less than an hour before the portal closed. But based on the description Princess Luna had given her, she didn’t need that long.
She returned only fifteen minutes later and flew up to the private balcony where Luna kept her watch over the night. Twilight pulled a newspaper out of her saddlebag and read aloud.
“Local resident Jason Fisher, 17, was found dead in the city square this morning, an apparent victim of a lightning strike. A brief thunderstorm was known to have passed through last night, and the city coroner confirmed electrocution as the cause of death. No definite reason was known for his presence there, though his parents have volunteered that his last journal entry read, ‘I’m so happy! I’ll finally get to meet her!’ Police have not identified to whom the note refers or whether he might have been in the square to see her. Jason is survived by his mother, father, and younger sister.”
Luna rested her chin on the balustrade and rolled her eyes up to the stars. And there, with one of the few ponies in attendance whom she trusted enough to show vulnerability, she permitted herself to cry.
She felt a hoof on her shoulder, timid at first, then tightening into an embrace. Maybe forgiveness would come later, but right now, she just needed a friend. And who better than Twilight Sparkle?
Luna would have returned the gesture, but she didn’t know if it would be welcome. So she settled for a soft smile. “Thank you, Twilight.”