Fifteen days after first contact.
"Hello? Are you there? Can you hear me?"
Luna walked alone through the darkness, listening. All around her, far in the distance, she could hear the quiet murmur of voices whispering to each other, but she pushed them to the back of her mind. She searched the void, not listening for just any voice as she normally would, but looking for one specific one.
Yet when she focussed on where it should have been, when she called out to it, all she found was silence. Nothing was resisting her presence or drowning it out; there just wasn't anything there to hear.
"Sister?" came another, familiar voice, echoing into the dreamworld from outside. Luna sighed. Deciding she had been trying at this for long enough, she opened her eyes.
A hospital room materialised around her. There was a single bed in front of her, and on it lay the mysterious creature, its eyes still closed, and its chest slowly rising and falling as it breathed. An IV drip had been fixed under one of the scales on its foreleg to feed it a mix of basic nutrients, and to the doctors' immense relief this seemed to be sustaining it.
She looked to her side and found Celestia standing there.
"Is it evening already?"
"Yes," Celestia replied. "I will need to lower the sun in a quarter of an hour. Have you had any luck?"
"No," Luna said, shaking her head. "I am beginning to wonder if it is even capable of dreaming."
"Maybe it's just too far under," Celestia mused. "It's been like this for weeks."
"Perhaps," Luna said, studying its strange form. "Or perhaps it is just too different from us. We know nothing about its species, and what the doctors have been able to work out barely makes sense."
Celestia raised her eyebrows, curious. "Have they found anything since my last visit?" she asked. Luna nodded.
"I talked to the doctors when I arrived this afternoon," she said. "They have been attempting to measure its brain activity, but…" She thought for a moment, trying to remember what they had told her. "But they said they could not isolate any thought patterns. They were detecting signals, but they looked distorted, as if there were something else interfering."
Celestia walked forward and stood over the creature, watching it sleep.
"I only wish we could speak to it," she said. "There's so much I want to know. Where is it from? Why did it come here? Why now?"
She sat down, resting a hoof on the edge of the bed. "Would you even be able to understand us?" she said. "Will we ever be able to communicate?"
No response came. The creature just lay there, completely unresponsive, as it had done for two weeks now. The doctors had managed to clean up its wounds when it was brought in, but none of them had been willing to try doing anything to wake it up. Given how little they knew about its biology, there was a chance that they'd just end up hurting, or even killing it.
"I hate this uncertainty," Luna said. "We have no idea what its motives are."
Celestia stood again. "You fear that it may be hostile?" Luna shrugged.
"I do not know," she said. "This does not seem like an attack. But why come all this way, alone, just to crash and die on an alien world? And then there is the timing of it all. This all just seems… suspicious."
"I see your concern, sister," Celestia said, her eyes still fixed in contemplation on the creature. "But I hope you are wrong."
"As do I."
There was a sound of commotion outside the ward, cutting the conversation short. Celestia stared at the door in confusion, and Luna let out a sigh.
"Starburst," she explained. "He has been here all day, trying to persuade the doctors to allow him in here." She paused, then added, "He is not in a good state."
"I suppose we should talk to him," Celestia said. She returned to the door and pulled it open, and the two of them stepped through, nodding to the guards stationed at the door as they passed. Starburst was standing at the nurses' station down the corridor, a pot of pens strewn across the floor round him, waving a hoof at a pair of completely bewildered nurses. As soon as he saw the two princesses appear he turned and galloped over to them, trying to get a glimpse through the door as they closed it. He skidded to a halt, nearly falling over at their hooves on the tiled floor.
"Princesses," he stuttered, picking himself up again. "I've been trying to get in there all week, just so that I can have a look, and they keep telling me that you've ordered them to keep me out! Half of them don't even know what I'm talking about! Why are you keeping me away from my discovery?"
"Starburst," Luna said, "please understand—"
"No!" Starburst shouted, slamming a hoof down on the ground. "I'm fed up of this! I want to help! I want to know what's going on! Why are you hiding it from me?"
Celestia was becoming very conscious of the fact that nurses and passers-by were stopping and staring at them now.
"Please, Starburst," she said. "May we discuss this somewhere more private?"
He looked behind himself, and jumped as he realised how many were looking at him. He nodded, and Celestia directed him round the corner to the next ward, which was being kept empty to avoid any patients overhearing what was going on next door. The three of them entered and Celestia shut the door behind them.
"Now will you tell me what's going on?" Starburst said.
"First," Celestia said as she turned to face him, "I want you to understand that we're not hiding this from you specifically. We're trying to keep this as quiet as possible for the time being, and that means telling only those who need to know."
Starburst looked sceptical. "Why should we hide this?" he asked. "The rest of Equestria have a right to know about this!"
"And one day they will," Luna said. "But imagine what would happen if we told them now."
"Everypony would want to see," Celestia said. "The hospital would be overrun with visitors, and it would become impossible for them to care for their patients."
"So, what," Starburst said, "you're doing this to protect it?" He looked round at the wall, behind which the creature lay sprawled out on its bed. "Is letting one more pony in there going to cause that much damage?"
Celestia walked round and knelt down on the ground so she was at eye level with the astronomer, and rested a hoof on his shoulder.
"You tell me," she said. "We're worried about you as well. How much have you slept in the last two weeks?"
Starburst opened his mouth to respond, but then sighed and closed it again, falling backwards into a sitting position. He massaged his temple with his hoof.
"I'm trying," he said. "But do you have any idea how hard it is? There's a creature from another world in this building! Another world! I've been dreaming about this since I was a colt!" He stared longingly at the wall. "I need to see it. I feel like I've been waiting for this my whole life, and I don't think I'll be able to think about anything else until I have."
Celestia felt sorry for him. His dream had come true and it was crushing him. She wanted to help him, but at this point there really was only one thing she could give him that would make any difference.
"Okay," she sighed. "We'll let you see him."
"You will?" he said, suddenly looking excited again.
"On one condition," Celestia continued, raising a hoof. "Go home and get some rest. Please. Ask the doctors for something if you think you need help. But try to have just one night where you don't think about this, and then I'll let you in tomorrow. Can you do that?"
Starburst sighed. "Okay," he said. "You're right. I should really try harder to…"
He stopped, rubbed his eyes, then stood up and walked unsteadily toward the door. He put his hoof on the handle, then paused and looked back at the princesses. "And you promise you'll let me see it?" he said.
"We promise," Luna replied.
"Thank you," he said. Then, with a yawn, he pushed the door open and walked back out into the corridor.
Luna turned to her sister after he had left. "On the subject of matters we have been hiding," she said, "I have been wondering whether we should inform him of the problems concerning the sun and moon as well."
Celestia raised an eyebrow, standing up and facing her sister. "I think he has enough to deal with already," she said.
"I know," Luna said, pacing back and forth across the room. "But it has occurred to me that, as an astronomer, he knows a lot more than most about the heavens. Perhaps he has some knowledge which would help shed light on what is happening."
Celestia smiled, but shook her head. "Sister, none know more about the sun and moon than us," she said, "and we have not been able to figure it out. I'm not sure to what extent he would be able to help."
Luna sighed. "You are right," she said. "Perhaps I am just growing tired of hiding this. But if it reaches the point where we are no longer able to control the sun and moon, we will not be able to hide it at all. Perhaps it would still be wise to try and take more proactive steps in remedying it before that happens."
Celestia walked over to the ward's window and looked up into the dimming evening sky. "Is the ship causing this, do you think?" she said. "Or even the creature itself? As you said, this does not seem like an attack, but it could be that its presence is inadvertently interfering with the planet's magic."
"I do not believe so," Luna said, walking over to stand next to her sister. "I spent some time today meditating on the matter, and I sense no strong magic emanating either from the creature or from anywhere in orbit. Besides which, this began long before the ship ever appeared. It would explain a lot for these two events to be linked, but it would also raise too many new questions. I have to say, I remain unconvinced."
Celestia nodded, glad to hear that she was not alone in her indecision. Blaming this creature for their problems was by far the simplest option, but the only solution it suggested was to destroy the ship and the creature and hope that this restored the heavens to their natural rhythm. She was willing to admit that she shared some of Starburst's excitement, and she didn't want to ruin the possibility of peaceful first contact with an alien species out of baseless paranoia.
"While we are on the topic," Luna added, "perhaps it is time."
"Indeed," Celestia said, staring at the sky. The sunset was fast approaching. Together they closed their eyes, and their horns lit up with magic.
She reached out, and she found the sun exactly where it should be; sitting just above the western horizon waiting for her command. Through force of habit she tried simply willing it to move first, but in response received the strange feeling of vertigo she was becoming accustomed to as the spell rebounded on her. Taking a deep breath and spreading her hooves wide on the ground, she tried to picture the correct motion of the heavenly spheres as they moved around each other, and focussed all of her magic into pushing the sun down across the horizon. It started to fight back, the mass of the planet resisting the command to continue turning, but she gave a second push and it relented.
She opened her eyes, collapsing to her knees and pulling in a sharp, deep breath. Moments later her sister did the same, and the two stood up again and watched as the sky went dark and stars began to appear. Celestia's brow was cold with sweat, and she wiped it clear with her hoof.
"It does feel as though it is getting easier," she commented.
"Indeed," Luna replied, "or perhaps we are merely growing accustomed to it."
The two of them turned and made their way to the door. "There may still be hope that this will resolve itself on its own," Celestia said.
"We can certainly hope so," Luna said as she pushed the door open again. The two of them walked out into the corridor and made their way toward the exit, neither of them noticing Starburst, hiding behind the open door, his eyes wide with shock.