Chapter Five: “Jumping Into Eternity”
Princess Luna, Princess Celestia, and Twilight all sat around Rarity staring at her for a fleeting moment before the discussions began.
Luna spoke first. “So let us make sure we understand the circumstances here. Miss Rarity has been put in an accelerated state of mind, is that correct?”
Twilight shook her head. “Not quite, she helped me slow our universe's speed down to match that of all of the other universes, but she is stuck at our old speed.”
Celestia frowned. “The details of it do no matter nearly as much as the simple fact that, to her, we are moving at a very slow speed.”
Twilight's head shied away. “I suppose that's true.”
Rarity, whom up to this point had been remarkably still, began looking around wildly. She snapped her head back to Celestia. “Paaapeeeerrrr.” She said in a very long drawn out fashion.
Shocked, everypony else in the room stared for several seconds. Before anypony could speak Rarity said it again. “Paapeerr.” Her speech was slurred, and had an unusual calmness to it despite the circumstances and the struggle to make even a simple word.
Celestia nodded and teleported away, and back again in an instant. She was levitating paper in front of her, on which she quickly wrote: “Here you go.”
Rarity snatched the quill and paper out of the air and furiously scrawled: “You can speak, I will write.”
The Princess and Twilight were all hovering around the paper reading what she was writing on the floor. Twilight looked at Rarity in the eyes. “You can understand us?”
Rarity wrote again. “Some, the rest I work out.”
Luna looked at her after reading. “Please describe to us just how slow we seem to you.”
Rarity paused for a second, and then began writing. “So slow I cant tell.”
Luna looked troubled. “This is most disconcerting. We have to deal with a similar problem at night while in dreams, as time moves slower than we do, but not nearly on this scale.”
Twilight looked at Luna curiously. “You mean how dreams are about one and half times faster than when we are awake?”
Luna paused to think. “That would be fairly close to the number, yes.”
“So you mean when you are in dreams you speed up to match the person dreaming?”
Celestia eyes widened. “Twilight that is a great idea!”
Luna nodded. “You want us to go into her dreams, but why?”
Twilight was getting excited. “You can talk to her normally, and we can get a good idea of the time difference!”
“Of course. Perhaps we can stay for what seems like an hour and see where we are at.”
Rarity began writing again. “Sleep, Its midday!”
Twilight nodded. “That's fine, we can simply cast a sleeping spell on you.”
Rarity nodded furiously, then wrote quickly. “Please now.”
Celestia stepped up. “Yes, lets begin.”
Celestia began to cast her spell, and almost immediately Rarity's eyes shut and she began to fall to the ground. Luna caught her in her hooves and lowered her gently. “We will enter her dreams now, what will happen we do not know.”
Celestia placed her hoof on Luna's back. “Please be careful sister.”
“We will sister.”
Luna's eyes closed for a few seconds, then opened again, shining with the radiant glow of her magic. Several seconds passed while Celestia and Twilight stared at the two lying on the ground. Twilight looked at Celestia worriedly. “Do you think they will be OK?”
Before she could answer, Luna's eyes opened again. “This may prove difficult, we are having trouble entering her dreams, she is not even close to the normal speed of dreams.”
Celestia looked concerned. “Is there anything you can do for her Luna?”
Luna got a serious look on her face. “Yes, there is a more powerful version of our spell that lets us enter dreams. However, it will force us into the dream with her, and we will not be able to wake up until the dream is over.”
Celestia shook her head. “No, we will try something else, I can not risk you being lost in her dream.”
Luna smiled. “No sister, we will willingly do this. We would be asleep now if not for this, so this will only feel like a longer slumber.”
Celestia lowered her head. “There is no way to talk you out of this, is there?”
Luna shook her head. “We have already put her to sleep, the least we can do is give her some company in her lonely world.”
Luna lowered her head and her horn began to glow. “We will be in our chamber.” She then teleported herself and Rarity to her bedroom, and gently laid her on the bed before laying by her side. She began to cast the dream spell, and after several seconds her eyes closed. She could almost feel time slowing down around her, or perhaps what she was feeling was herself speeding up.
After a minute the spell was almost complete, and she could no longer hear or see anything, she was getting very close to Rarity's mind. She slowly began to see blurring colors, the sun was rapidly rising and falling continuously in the distance. It quickly became apparent she was outside, as the only static thing in her view was trees. The sun and moon began to slow down, and finally the sun hung above her in the sky.
She blinked, taking in her surroundings. It seemed she had found herself in the middle of a vast forest. The sun was close to setting above her, it appeared to be somewhere around six o'clock in the afternoon. In the distance she could see a large hill, or perhaps a small mountain. To her left she could see a creek with water slowly trickling through the rocks.
She had only been looking at the beautiful scenery for a moment when she found herself suddenly face to face with Rarity. “Princess Luna! Where did you come from?”