Twilight sat up with a start, gasping for air, her horn glowing brightly, throwing deep shadows across the floor of Luna’s half-lit royal quarters. She looked at Luna’s slumbering form and Reaper’s still, semi-opaque body with concern.
“Luna--wake up!” she cried, shaking the Princess by shoulders. Luna’s eyes fluttered and half-opened.
“Wha--where?” she stammered, blinking dully, trying to focus on Twilight’s face.
“Oh, thank Celestia you’re alright!” Twilight cried in relief, turning toward Reaper.
She slowly reached out a hoof and gingerly poked at Reaper’s shoulder. Her hoof appeared to pass through his cloak and hide, leaving a faint ripple.
Twilight grimaced and drew back quickly: “Ugh! That was weird!”
Reaper smiled and glanced up at Twilight’s startled expression: “Well, considering at any given moment I’m not really even here, I’m sure it did feel odd. I don’t think even I could tell you what you just prodded!”
“How--or why did we end up back here and not in your dreamscape base?” Twilight asked Luna, pouring a chalice of cider for herself and her fellow Princess.
“I’m not entirely sure,” Luna replied, groggily. “It may be because the dream collapsed so suddenly and precipitously without my ever having any real control over it.”
Reaper nodded: “That’s certainly how it looked to me, too--you appeared to be stuck in the dream like a normal pony participant, not above and outside it as you usually are. Was the vision or dream Luna actually more in control than you?”
“That is possible,” Luna conceded. “I had at least one conversation with Starswirl very much like the one you saw portrayed in that dream. It is possible that the Luna we saw was almost “real,” in a sense. I was so imprinted on Starswirl, that when he had this dream, and I observed it, I became a living part of it.”
Luna stood and stretched, then bit her lip: “I believe it is now my turn to use the facilities--excuse me.” She trotted off briskly across the marble floor toward the bathroom, her hooves ringing brightly as she went.
Twilight watched Luna withdraw, and turned to Reaper: “But why wasn’t I affected? Why could I hover above it and get close?”
“Excellent question,” Reaper replied, “why could you? Luna’s the only one who has freedom to maneuver in dreams. That I was stuck having to run against the wind, is normal. You shouldn’t have been able to fly.”
Twilight drained her cup: “And why weren’t we together? I watched a couple of minutes before you two showed up.”
Luna approached: “Much better!” She sighed and sat back down amidst her cushions.
“I believe I may have an answer,” she continued. “You have endured great and awesome trials, the likes of which no pony has ever experienced. You have undergone the rarest of transformations, your innate skill is magic itself, and you were briefly the vessel for an almost unimaginable reservoir of primal power."
Luna leveled her intense gaze at Twilight: “You may end up the most powerful magic wielder since Starswirl himself!”
Reaper raised his eyebrows: “If you aren’t already!”
He looked at Luna and furrowed his brow: “You may be onto something, Princess. Twilight may, indeed, transcend many of the normal boundaries. Some of the old rules just may not entirely apply to her anymore.”
Twilight looked away and stammered, “Quit--quit it, you two! You’re embarrassing me!”
Reaper grinned: “Fine--prove us right: did you see anything that might help us suss out our mystery unicorn’s identity?”
“Maybe, Twilight said. “I saw a lot of very strange stuff, but I do recall one figure standing out right at the end. He shouted something…”
“That sounds like as good a lead as any, Kiddo!” Reaper replied, settling back on his pillows.
He nodded toward Luna: “Take us away, Princess!”
They found themselves again directly below the portal-banner in Luna’s dream quarters.
Luna began to rise toward the glowing opening, saying, “This time, Twilight, we should drop in right at the end of the dream, and we will maintain contact, all three of us, as we step through. Hopefully we will not be separated this time.”
Reaper nodded as he, too, rose toward the flickering images: “And you’ll be the focal point this time. Luna and I will touch our horns to your temples.”
Twilight swallowed hard as the three ponied linked forelegs and slipped through the banner, emerging over Starswirl and Dream Luna in the wrecked coliseum.
“Why are you here?!” Starswirl shouted at the various applauding creatures and ponies that had not yet been taken up into the funnel.
Twilight drifted lower as Luna and Reaper touched their horns to her head, and turned their attention to the remaining ponies, now pointing up at the dark, growing figure of Luna, enrobed by the black-banded whirlwind.
Starswirl lashed out, destroying figure after figure: “But this is my world!”
Luna’s face was lined with pain, and her gaze was fixed on her dream self. But Twilight and Reaper’s eyes now fell on the lone, gray unicorn, who smirked and replied, “Not for long!”
The dream dissolved away less violently this time, and Twilight caught a glimpse of the unknown unicorn stepping in the path of the whirlwind as it bore down on the dejected figure of Starswirl.
“Brier.” Luna said.
“What?”
“Brier. His cutie mark appeared to be twisted branches of thorny brier,” Luna explained.
Twilight nodded: “OK, brier. So do you recognize him? Did he have any dreams? When did he die? Was he real, or just a dream character?”
Luna shook her head: “I do not recall any dreams of a pony who looked like him. A name might help, if he truly did exist.”
Reaper shrugged: “If he was real, he never died--which would certainly fit our hypothesis.”
“So how do we unravel this piece of the mystery?” Twilight asked.
“I suspect you may hold the key to this phase,” said Luna. “If he was real, and was known by Starswirl enough to appear prominently in a dream, he must be in the old scholar’s notes somewhere.”
Twilight brightened: “That’s true! Now I can take the lead for a bit, and hopefully let my nerves calm down a little. To the library!”
Reaper rolled his eyes, and Luna smiled as the three companions faded out.