Chapter 2: Not
We gathered by Max's bedside, at first I alerted Tempora and she'd fetched Celestia and Luna while I went to find Discord. It had taken me a while to find Discord, in fact, it had taken a visit to the nearest Warning Tree to do so. After finding out what these 'trees' were for, I had loathed their very existence. Though I didn't like them but I had neither the magical power nor the right arguments to have them removed.
Tempora had reasoned that it was just a precaution, it wasn't as if they were a weapon to slay draconequus. The Warning Trees just tracked draconequus nearby and warned if there was any of their particular brand of magic affecting the landscape or the ponies nearby. If Discord was not destined to destroy the world, then apparently he nor I had nothing to fear from them.
I was angry and I still didn't like it, but one thing that Tempora never compromised on, for good or for worse, was the safety of her ponies. I suppose that she had the moral high ground in this argument, but I was beyond reason when it came to Discord. For the peace of mind of other ponies be damned, this was just another barrier between Discord and the rest of the ponies.
Discord knew of course, but it didn't make it any easier. Still in situations like this, at least it helped me find out where he was. When I found out though, I was a little surprised and a mite disturbed.
I entered the clearing with a not-so-subtle flash.
"Harmony," Discord greeted me with wistful smile. I spotted him sitting on a rock just outside his old home. If you could call the nest his home. I slowed as I approached the hunched over draconequus.
"Is everything alright?" I asked quietly. Discord gave me a weak smile.
"No," he admitted, tracing a claw down the side of the rock he sat on. "I was thinking about some things."
I hesitated briefly, then I carefully sat down beside him, wrapping an arm around my stiff friend. He felt a little cold.
"What's wrong?" I said finally, in the ensuing silence. Discord reached out and pulled at grass growing around the rock. He played with it for a while before turning to me giving a hapless shrug.
"I was thinking about my parents," he confessed, he tore the grass apart between his claws and his paws. "I don't know anything about them."
I sighed and gathered my wits about me. This was going to be a long conversation, but my Dad was on borrowed time.
I rubbed him affectionately on his head. "Discord, I don't know if we'll ever find out anything about your parents." I gave him a lop-sided smile. "But I promise you, if I find anything out about them, I'll let you know straight away."
Discord smiled at that and finally returned my hug.
"Thanks Harmony," he replied giving me a winning grin. "You're the only pony I can trust."
I snorted. "I'm not a pony," I shot back and the draconequus giggled.
"That's probably why I trust you," he commented. I felt a little sad at that.
"Discord, just remember that there are also good ponies out there," I reminded him.
Discord sighed and scuffed his hoof on the dirt as he got up from the rock. "Yeah I know," he said, taking a few steps away. "But it's getting harder and harder to see that everyday."
I gave him a playful punch. "Be the better pony, Discord. Better yet, be the better draconequus." I scooped him up in a surprise assault and put the heavy draconequus on my shoulders.
"Oof," I growled. "You've grown."
"Harmony!" he whined. "I'm not a foal anymore."
I chuckled at that. "You might not be a foal anymore," I said, shifting his weight around. "But you're always going to be my little brother."
Discord fell silent at that. I started out of the forest. It'd probably be best to tell him about my Dad when we were clear of the forest. Something about this forest always gave me the heebie jeebies at night.
"Do you mean that?" he asked suddenly after a couple of minutes.
I hummed an affirmative at that. "Of course," I enunciated more clearly. "You're family to me."
Though I couldn't see it, I imagine Discord was happy at that.
-----
As I clambered out the last stretch of the forest, I placed Discord gently on the ground. He padded halfway towards the front of my house before realising I hadn't followed him. He glanced back at me in worry.
"Harmony?" he called back to me. "Are you coming?"
"Discord, I hate to pile this on right now, but I need your help."
Discord's eyes widened at that and he scampered the remaining distance to crouch in front of me. He drew himself up. "Of course, anything," he offered. His tone carried a trace of uncertainty. "What's wrong?"
I almost laughed at that, inappropriate it was. It seemed like this whole day had been a slew of 'what's wrongs'. I shook my head to clear it of scattered ideas.
"It's my Dad, Discord. We're needed to help him recover. Can you come?"
Discord nodded eagerly. I held up a hand.
"I know Star Swirl wouldn't do anything underhoofed, but I can't help but feel that this will be a little dangerous. He was very serious about this." I paused. "You might be hurt. You don't have to come."
For the first time I had known Discord, I saw him angry. At me. He smacked me with his paw. I stared at him in shock.
He tapped a hoof on the ground, crossing his forelimbs as he regarded me. "Well?" he growled impatiently. "What are we waiting for?"
I grinned at that. Gees, I was being all kinds of stupid wasn't I? First I say he's family to me and then I tell him he didn't have to come.
"Thanks, Discord." I gave him a hug. I grasped his claw and snapped my fingers.
-----
Star Swirl was inscribing something on the floor. He didn't even look up as the aftermath of our teleportation flash blinded the occupants, excepting one person, of course. Tempora tilted her head in acknowledgement and I saw a sleepy Celestia and Luna yawn beside their mother. When they recognised us, Celestia and Luna skittered over to us.
"Hi Harmony!" Celestia greeted me enthusiastically. She grinned at Discord. "Hi Discord!"
Luna nodded at both of us. "Hi," she said in a more reserved voice. I gently patted the two alicorn sisters on their heads.
"Thank you both for coming," I said sincerely, I drew them into a hug. "I don't know what Star Swirl is planning but I think you both will play an important part."
"We'll try our best!" Celestia spoke up. Luna nodded furiously.
I grinned at the both of them. Then I turned to Tempora.
"So," I said. "What's the plan?"
Tempora gave me a strained smile. "Star Swirl has told me that what afflicts Max is a type of Dream Walking curse. When I gave him the letter- " she paused at this giving me a questioning look, I waved the issue away, my Dad was more important than the privacy of the letter " -he conjectured that Max found out something about the griffon royalty. They're erasing his memories from the dreamscape." Tempora took a deep breath. "Max won't die, of course, but we don't know how far this memory erasing could go. Or what it is even erasing."
I cocked my head in confusion. "So, how are going to fix this? Why do we need everypony here?"
Tempora shifted her hooves. "There are two reasons why we need everypony here. First, in most spells, there is a requirement of six ponies to create an amplification matrix. Five will gather around one and the one directs the power to execute the spell. The problem with this is Max is in an induced coma. Dream walking relies on the sleeper being in a form of deep sleep where dreams usually occur. When we step into Max's mind, it'll be more like his consciousness, and it'll be infinitely more dangerous."
Tempora had such a serious expression on, I felt like my next question didn't reflect the gravity of the situation. Still, I didn't know much about dream walking and this felt like a valid line of reasoning.
"How could dream walking be dangerous? We’re just observing things in my Dad's mind right? We can just find the source of the dream walker's link and dispel it."
Tempora nodded. "Conventionally that is true, but this spell appears to have buried itself very deep in Max's mind. If we try and dig around in Max's mind to scoop out the spell, we'll likely take a good portion of his memories with it. The problem is that in order to interact with the spell with finesse, we'll need to dive into the dreamscape and expose ourselves to get past the subsconscious shields that Max has put up in his mind."
"Subsconscious shields? I've never heard of that."
Tempora tapped a hoof impatiently. It seems like such things were common knowledge for magical users of her calibre. Probably didn't help that Tempora wasn't used to giving in depth explanations. Couldn't be helped though, I glanced back at Star Swirl. He was busy inscribing some more things on the floor. Occassionally a scraping sound preceded a levitation as he carved something that went under furniture in the room. I turned back to Tempora as she continued.
"Shielding is a form of mental defence against a class of mental spells. We call it psionics, but the griffons call it mentalism. Shielding is an effective way to protect your mind. Your father had been trained by some helpful griffons in his travels. Basically, shielding takes a particularly strong memory and reinforces that memory in the upper-most layer of the consciousness. It exists as a barrier to those that seek to gain access to core feelings, emotions, decisions and memories. Shielding is both your best strength and your greatest weakness. As it represents something that you feel the strongest about, you are essentially exposing your essence when you shield. There are ways around this, of course, but basic shielding can leave you vulnerable to attack psychologically for those that are not prepared."
"So the second reason we're all gathered together is…"
"Is because we're the closest ponies to Max at the moment so we have the best chance of breaching his shields."
"There is a third reason." We both turned in mild surprise to see Star Swirl leaning against the bed giving a small wave. "I'm done by the way if anypony cares."
I gave him a grateful smile. "Thanks."
"No problem," he answered, he gestured to Luna. "But you should be thanking her."
Tempora cocked her head in confusion. "My daughter will be part of the six, is that not why we have gathered everpony here?"
Star Swirl shook his head in amusement. "No, Your Majesty. Haven't you noticed your daughter's cutie mark?" Tempora cocked her head in puzzlement.
"That is simply conjecture. Her dominion of the night, doesn't extend that far." She lowered her voice. "Also, I've not told her about that yet."
Star Swirl rubbed his muzzle with his hoof. He sniffed. "Alright, but she should be the focus of the circle."
Tempora gaped at the unicorn. "Luna couldn't be the focus! It should be me! She barely knows anything about intermediate spell casting, let alone dream walking."
"But it is her special talent!" Star Swirl shot back in a hiss.
"I don't care! She's too young, we can't do this."
I looked at each pony in the back and forth that had ensued.
"I don't get it," I spoke up and both of them turned to me. I was taken aback by the intensity of their stares. "Aren't we all dream walking? Doesn't that mean the focus wouldn't really matter?"
Tempora sighed as she replied. "The greater the magical fidelity of the focus, admittedly, the better the chances of breaching the shielding and seeking out the problem."
"That's seems logical."
"It would be, if everypony here were trained professionals attempting a dream walk under controlled conditions. However, the focus is the most dangerous part of the circle. A fact Star Swirl should be well aware of. These conditions are not ideal and the focus of the circle has the most danger of magical backlash if something goes wrong."
"What could go wrong?" I winced, immediately regretted saying that. That's one for the foreshadowing record.
Tempora gave me a wry smile at that. "Any number of things could go wrong. Magical backlash from the focus losing the spell matrix cohesion. The shield repulsing us and causing feedback into the link. That one is the most likely out of all of these. The spell affecting Max to have some sort of defence mechanism to prevent dispelling or analysis. The lashing wouldn't spread to everypony in the five but the one, being the focus, will take the brunt of the counter-attack."
I drew my fingers through my hair as I thought about the situation.
"If only there were some way we could transfer the focus of the circle when we reached the spell," I mused out loud.
Tempora shook her head sadly. "No, transferring would disrupt the spell mid-way casting."
Star Swirl made to move but then paused.
"Or," he began thoughtfully. "Or, what if we co-focused?"
Tempora's eyes widened at that. She glanced at me, then to Discord before returning her gaze to Star Swirl. She cocked her head as she thought about it. “That hasn’t been field tested,” Tempora said slowly though she didn’t outright reject the notion. “It could work, but we would need a bond that is strong enough to withstand the link.”
“What kind of bond are you talking about?” I interjected quietly. Tempora and Star Swirl turned their attention to me. Tempora gestured at Star Swirl to explain. He nodded and delved into it.
“From what I know, and this is completely conjecture. Co-focussing is something that is theoretically possible but rarely occurs because it involves making yourself vulnerable across the link. When you co-focus you essentially become one entity even though physically, one of them becomes the focus and the other simply remains as a conduit. This was theory that you proved as fact when you dangerously demonstrated it after making ‘the Tree of Harmony’.”
“That was dangerous. We can’t try it here either,” I replied, pursing my lips.
Star Swirl shook his head at that. “While the spell you attempted was dangerous, the act of co-focussing wasn’t in itself, malicious or particularly dangerous. Both Discord and yourself were able to trust each other implicitly, which allowed for the link to establish strongly. Had the spell backlashed though, both of your would be bearing the load, although it would be lessened as it distributed between you two.”
“So, you’re proposing to co-focus somepony with Luna… but you don’t want it to be one of the other foals, because they share in the danger. So what’s wrong? Tempora, you can co-focus easily with Luna.”
Tempora bowed her head, her expression flickered briefly and I failed to catch whatever it was.
“I’m not sure my children have a strong enough bond to co-focus with me.”
I shrugged helplessly. “Of course they do,” I pushed. “They’re your foals, why wouldn’t they?”
Star Swirl pulled me aside. He glanced back at Tempora and affixed me with an intense stare.
“Unlike you, Harmony, Queen Tempora hasn’t proven her bond with her foals just yet. Discord and yourself, both of you cemented a solid relationship that transcends life and death. Co-focussing is on a level as deep as that. It’s very rare for anypony to achieve a state that profound. Even sisters, will have their arguments, brothers will have their grudges, family and friends will have differences that prevent a true co-focus.
"For Queen Tempora, this is not a simple matter of casting a spell, this is a test. A test that will determine whether Tempora has enough love between herself and her foals.”
I finally understood. I swallowed thickly. This wasn’t going to be easy. I chuckled at that. Well it was never easy from the start.