//------------------------------//
// Chapter 3 - Escaping the Past 
// Story: Dreamlocked Chronicles 
// by Prane 
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I despise you, sister.

“SHINING! NO!”

I’m wiggling, shaking back and forth, but all my efforts to get up are in vain. There seems to be a hoof placed atop my chest, right over my rapidly beating heart, though I’m pretty sure that neither the hoof nor the rest of the blurred form kneeling by my side belong to Shining Armor.

“Stay,” Sunset says. “If you’re not used to it, the transition between the Dreamworld and reality can be a bit nauseating. Give yourself a moment before you spring out, and try to relax.”

Relax? Ugh, good one.

The world around me keeps spinning like a gyroscope, but I force myself to stare at the ceiling. I don’t want to close my eyes. I fear that if I do, the monster to the creation of which I contributed will haunt me again. I knew that Shining was going through a hard time, and what did I do? I ran away! I abandoned my brother when he needed me the most! Maybe if I’d stayed in Canterlot the events would have taken a different turn, and maybe then I wouldn’t have to face my fears in my sleep.

Come to think of it, it was just a matter of time. Every hour of the night the ponies of Equestria are dealing with nightmares of their own, so why should I have it any easier? The fact that I haven’t had a bad dream in months—until today, that is—was a mere statistical fortuity, just as I suspected.

Sunset puts a flexible mass under my head, making the hard floor and my life a bit more bearable. Perhaps hiding in a pillow can’t solve all the problems, but since being drenched in a cold sweat, with your heart hammering like crazy, and the rest of your body still quivering is hardly a state to which anyone would like to awake, I’ll gladly take anything I can get.

At least I’m safe now.

“You were right. He really was a nightmare in disguise. But why did he attack me?”

“Nightmares, in their twisted nature, are scavengers,” Sunset replies. “They disassemble whatever we have built in our dreams and feed on it. Up until recently they would wait for us to wake up, but after the Nocturnal Empress took over the reins, they have grown stronger, and become much more destructive. They might even try to consume your dream with you still inside. But the worst thing is,” Sunset takes her hoof away, “that they will try to mess with your head.”

She pauses for a moment to let the words sink in.

“Listen, about the form he assumed—”

“Yeah, thanks for taking him out.”

I turn to the side and bury my head deeper, but at the same time Sunset moves around, not letting me escape that easily. She takes a moment to speak up, and out of the corner of my eye I see that her mouth is opening and closing as if she was looking for the appropriate wording. And now she’s rubbing her neck. Why does she look so embarrassed?

“What I meant was… I mean, normally I wouldn’t even ask, mostly because I’m terrible at this, but if… uh, if you want to talk, or something, then… then I’m here. I guess.”

So that’s where we are right now? Roommates for less than a day, we know close to nothing when it comes to our favorites, we’ve only managed to share one flavorless meal, yet she expects me to talk about my secrets and fears? Surely she realizes that partaking in a spell induced dream trip does not make us friends!

Or does it? It’s not every day when two ponies can go on such trip together. Besides, Sunset’s probably just trying to help, and while I can’t say I’m too eager to share details of my past with her, I could definitely use somepony willing to listen to what’s on my mind. 

I lean my back against the bed. I think I can start making my way up into a more respectable position with no risk of collapsing in the process.

“Shining Armor.”

“Huh?”

“That’s his name, Shining Armor, and he is my brother,” I say. “When the Nocturnal Empress arrived at the gates of Canterlot with her army of thestrals, Shining found himself face to face with her. He tried to fight back, stupid, but was forced into submission in the end.”

“Ouch.”

“Not so much, thankfully,” I reply, then allow myself to a slight chuckle. “It’s almost funny, you know. All his life he aspired to become somepony important within the ranks of the Equestrian military. And soon after the Empress usurped the throne, Shining was offered the rank of captain in the newly formed Imperial Guard, as he was supposedly displaying great potential to become one. So he took it. Not to work his way up the ladder, but to do something good for his fellow guardsponies. My brother chose to become a buffer between them and the wrath of the Empress.”

“Sounds like a decent guy, this Shining. What happened next?”

“He couldn’t resist her. When she discovered that he’s incorruptible by the power she vested in him, she started to affect him through his dreams. At least that’s what I think, because at some point, every time he’d wake up he was either sad or resentful, or didn’t want to talk to me or our parents. He became convinced that he’s the captain that Equestria needs to survive. Shining… well, it was only downhill from there.” I turn to Sunset. “Whatever happened to him, happened inside his mind. Inside his dreams.”

“So that’s why you want to learn how to dreamwalk. You want to help your brother out.”

I simply nod, leaving the silence to tell Sunset how I feel. I want to believe that my brother’s downfall wasn’t of his choice, but that he was manipulated by the Empress. I want to believe that he wouldn’t denounce Cadance and brand her as the enemy of Equestria if it weren’t for the dark forces which clouded his judgment. I want to believe that there is still good in him. But, after seeing him again as a nightmarish shadow of his former self, I don’t know if I remember what the name Shining Armor really stands for.

Sunset gives me a while to be alone with my thoughts, then sits by me, closer than before but still at a certain safe, comfortable for both parties distance. “I know it’s not easy,” she says. “Just… just try to remember that whatever you’ve heard in your dream wasn’t actually your brother speaking. It was one of the nightmares which knew very well what to say, and what shape to take in order to break your spirit, just like they did with countless other ponies to make them obey the Empress.”

“So they adapt to a dreamer. Interesting. I wonder how do they look to others.”

I take a poorly timed, needlessly prolonged glance at Sunset. Before I can realize how nosy asking about someone’s greatest fear actually is, Sunset’s eyes go wide. For a fraction of a second she seems distressed, but that’s all I can get. She turns away and climbs up on the edge of the bed.

“I-I’m sorry. That was inappropriate. I didn’t mean to sound intrusive.”

There’s something different about Sunset now, as if her character became smaller all of a sudden. She’s keeping her hind legs clenched together while securing her chest with the fore ones. Her eyes are obscured by a fringe of her forelock, and her mouth is opening only enough to let out a single whisper.

“Thank you.” 

I take a mental note to ponder on that sudden change in Sunset’s demeanor sometime later, because she immediately regains her easygoing posture, clears her throat, and throws the excess of her mane out of her face. “Well, our little escapade was meant to show you the Dreamworld so we could practice the spell now,” she says. “But we can leave it for later if you want.”

“You’re right, I don’t feel like coming back there anytime soon. However, I think it’s about time I worked for my scholarship. How do you propose we begin our search for the Elements of Harmony?”

“Well, we need to do two things. Find out where they are, and what they do,” Sunset says. “As you know, there aren’t many reliable treatises with systematic approach that we could use. So we’re left with researching myths and legends, regardless of how vague they may seem. Every time there’s a powerful magic involved there’s a chance they’re actually talking about what we know today as the Elements.”

“Myths and legends, got it. Any particular period?”

Sunset chuckles. “All of them. You can try with going over my notes, see if I missed anything. In the meantime,” she trots across the room to a massive chest where I’m keeping my books, “I’d like to break into your little library here,” she says, already half-submerged in the pond of knowledge. “Nice collection. I see positions I’ve never read before. Ah, and you also have the classics!”

I glance at the hovering book. That’s Predictions and Prophecies, the foundation of my collection and the only book I had when I moved to Manehattan. With no other things to read, I immediately went on a shopping frenzy, obviously disregarding my basic needs and expanding my study instead.

I was lucky. The vendor pony said he intended to donate his books to charity, but he dropped the idea when I dropped the bits on his counter. It occurred to me later that I probably denied the joy of lecture to some young fillies, assuming that he wanted to support a school or an orphanage, but at the time I decided that me staying sane was more important. I still feel guilty about it, and if I ever get a chance, I shall make it up to them by giving away my entire Daring Do saga. That’s twelve tomes from the original print, hardback edition. Worth more than this entire flat. Or not. How should I know, I did not pay for either.

It doesn’t take us long to rearrange my bedroom. Perhaps one day, when this is all over, I’ll be living at the Castle again with all the workspace I need, but for now I’ve ordained compulsory trips for any and all useful furniture. Kitchen table gets outfitted with blank parchments, a couple of old quills, and a half-empty bottle of turquoise ink. Sunset brings her notes, or at least the pages she’s willing to share, because she’s keeping her notebook close to herself. I honestly don’t care about its contents now, I have work to do! I already feel invigorated by the dry smell of paper and dusty old covers, and however conflicting it may sound, it’s like a breath of fresh air!

I take a copy of Not So Monstrous and pass it to Sunset. “Check this one out. The part marked with the yellow bookmark is an old legend about Harmonica, a six-headed hydra who allied herself with the pony race to save the kingdom from great evil. I always considered it a metaphor, and now that I know there’s exactly six Elements in existence… well, it’s a good start as any.”

“Sounds fun. Let’s get to work!”

From what I can gather of Sunset’s notes, the Elements of Harmony are usually depicted as orbs of various colors, placed on massive pedestals or as parts in orrery-like models. There’s also a single sketch in which they are hanging from a tree, but this one is surrounded with more question marks than I can count. It’s also difficult to keep track of how many different methods Sunset has utilized to determine the missing Element. She hasn’t been very successful so far, but the sheer amount of collected data is impressive.

My journey across the ages of magical advancement starts with an ancient sorcerer called Prospearo, the alleged inventor of the atmosphere altering magic. Hmm, it seems that at some point, Prospearo called upon the power of the Elements to create a devastating tempest and sink a passing by ship. But wait, Sunset’s addendum here says that the author probably meant ‘elements’ as ‘forces of nature’, not the actual Elements of Harmony. On the top of that, Prospearo drowned his notes when the pegasi tribe learned to control the weather, so I’m not going to learn much from his tale anyway. Dead end.

Then there’s Gancalf, a wizard whose proper sobriquet is still a subject of debate among historians. Both ‘Gray’ and ‘White’ are correct, by the way, and the Equestrian Archivist Society would find out why if they had read any of my twenty-three letters I’ve sent last year about glaring inconsistencies in the Summer issue of their Archivist Quarterly! Anyway, Gancalf theorized that a fellowship of ponies is required to bear the Elements. It makes sense. While Princess Celestia used all of them at once to defeat Nightmare Moon, she’s an alicorn, so non-alicorns would have to work together to control such power. 

Unfortunately, Gancalf was notoriously inconsistent about the exact number of ponies needed. He sometimes wrote about three Elements of Harmony, about seven, or even nine, but sometimes about just one! Now we know it’s six, but that doesn’t match his theories. Unless we treat six as five plus one, which would then fit the one-three-five-seven-nine sequence of odd numbers. But wait, does it mean there are different sets of the Elements consisting of three, seven, and nine pieces?

Questions, questions. Onto the next.

Ah, this is where fantasy meets history. Marelin, called the Princess of Enchanters by some, was a mighty sorceress who aided Unicornia numerous times during the prosperous reign of King Argentus. From driving away dragons and moving colossal stones across the land, to foretelling the inevitable future of the tribes, the girl’s done it all. Interestingly enough, in all of these stories Marelin is drawing her power from a necklace of six glowing beads. Coincidence? I think not!

Marelin left Unicornia shortly after Argentus’ son, Prince Aurum—the father of Princess Platinum, the famous unicorn leader—was crowned. Quote: through the southern gate, and down the valley of bloodied oaks, Marelin, never to be heard or spoken of again, left us with tears. End quote. Gosh, I do hope that it’s just a poetic way of describing the Red Oak Valley and concerned citizens saying their goodbyes.

Phew! Hours have passed, and I’m not even at Star Swirl the Bearded, surrounded by myths and legends instead. Who knows, perhaps there’s a grain of truth to them? I myself was convinced that the Elements of Harmony were just an old ponies’ tale, yet there they are, turning more and more real with every line I read. To sum up, I still have no idea where to look for them, or how exactly do they work, but at least I’ve soaked up enough stories to formulate my own theories.

“I’ve been thinking about that sixth Element.”

Sunset’s tearing through Experimental Magic, vol. III: Go Ancient or Go Home, with only her horn protruding from behind the greenish cover. “Well, what did you come up with?”

“At first I thought it would be another quality to follow the pattern. Loyalty, Honesty, and so on, they all represent certain virtues, so I asked myself what others can a pony posses. Off the top of my head, the sixth Element could be Creativity. Or Vigilance. Courage, even.”

“There’s a... wait.” Sunset searches the table for a piece of yellowed paper. “Right here. I once made a list of about hundred possible traits. Go ahead and check it out, you’ll see that literally anything fits.”

“That’s exactly my point! There’s too many words for positive qualities in our language. You can’t just pick creativity over vigilance. You can’t choose, say,” I skim through the list, “determination over humility, or freedom over integrity. They are all equally important.”

“Go on.”

“Then I remembered what Princess Celestia told you: ‘when the five are gathered, the sixth will be revealed’. What if the sixth isn’t anything specific, but something that binds the remaining five and makes them all complete? What if it’s something pointing at their connection from one to another?”

A heartfelt smile appears on Sunset’s lips. “Heh. ‘From one to another, another to one…’”

“Hmm? What’s that?”

“Pfft, beats me. Celestia used to tease me with word puzzles like this one. You know, it was one of those tasks in which she wouldn’t give you any instructions, but counted on you to find the solution by yourself. I never really like those, to be honest.” Sunset puts away the book, then gets up to stretch her limbs. “Hey, it finally stopped raining. About time. Now I can go get us some foodstuffs.”

“You really don’t have to.”

She grabs her notebook and puts it into her saddlebag. “No, no, it’s only fair. You’re earning your scholarship, I’m earning my rent. You want something specific for dinner?” She waves her hoof in a dismissive fashion. “Nah, don’t answer, I know exactly what your fridge needs.”

“Please use the door on your way back, will you?”

Sunset trots outside, giving me that smirk again. I don’t know why, but I really like the way she smiles. I mean, I like it in a totally objective and non-emotional way. I just find that slightly skewed expression… charming. Well, I said it. But don’t you get any ideas!

I’m back at the table, towering over the sea of parchment. There’s a book archipelago on one side, guarded with pointy quills sticking out like palm trees. On the other, an armada of scrolls sails towards the turquoise treasure hidden at the heart of the island. But I’m not sailing with them. My thoughts are elsewhere.

It is true that Sunset impressed me with her knowledge and magical prowess, but more importantly, she gave me hope. I mean, I was never really taking the Elements of Harmony at face value, and if anything, I considered them symbols or ideas, not actual means to fight the Nocturnal Empress. I fear her, of course I do, and so does everypony in Equestria. But as a poet William Coltgreave once said, fear comes from uncertainty. And while I’m not certain whether this two-mare war is winnable, I am certain that it is my duty to at least try solving this mess. That’s what Princess Celestia would expect from the last of her students.

My attention to the sea of knowledge reawakens with fishing out a page from Sunset’s notes. It is unlike the rest she gave me, folded in half and as slightly yellowed as her list of virtues. Let’s see. Is that September twelfth, or seventeenth? It’s impossible to tell, and I can’t read the year either through the smudged greenish ink.

It looks like a misplaced journal entry. As I read it, my heart starts pounding.



I’m done with Canterlot.

I can’t stand this city, the students who will never match my level of aptitude, and my so-called “teacher”. The teacher who can’t see the potential I possess! The teacher who limits my progress because she is scared of how much I can accomplish! If the Elements of Harmony “aren’t what I should be interested in right now”, then there’s no use in staying here. I could count only on myself before I enrolled (enrolled, good one, as if I had a choice) this stupid school, and I should have known that it’ll end like this.

So I’ll go by myself. I will find the Elements of Harmony and I will surpass Celestia.

I DESERVE IT