Shining Armor, Twilight, and Enigma sat in age order at a table in Doughnut Joes. All of them had been reduced to approximately one third of their real ages leaving Shining Armor about twelve, Twilight seven, but still had the cutie-mark she wouldn’t get until she was eight, and Enigma four; sitting in a diaper on a high chair. Luna was relieved that at least their minds seemed intact and continued sewing the fragile dream more closely together before trying to enter it herself, least her mass rip the dream apart.
Little Twilight stared intently at the menu, trying to make heads or tails of what seemed to be pure numbers. Occasionally she glanced up at Enigma on the other side of the table like she was waiting for him to say something, but overall she seemed relaxed and happy about being there. Shining Armor on the other hoof sat heavily, occasionally staring at his reflection in the mirror or running his hooves over his cheek and neck; intermittent with long periods of inaction before leaning over and nudging Twilight on shoulder; “…Am I dead?”
Twilight looked up at him bemusedly, “Why would you say that?”
Shining Armor looked at himself and then at Enigma drooling on his napkins, “I feel like I’m dead. Why else would I be here?”
“… You were hungry?”
“Twily look around you!”
Twilight did so; it was the diner Shining Armor had worked as a teenager, mostly clean, dim light coming in from the windows though no street view in sight. Twilight waved at Derpy who was eating burgers and chips across the room; Derpy waved back and then returned to her very animated, but completely silent conversation with Vinyl Scratch. Smartypants didn't have any food and walked from table to table, wishing she had a waitress and a stomach. “Everything seems all right.”
“Twily, Canterlot was burning! I was about to get eaten, and then suddenly I’m here.”
“How could Canterlot burn?” Twilight scoffed, “It’s underwater. Enigma took us to see its lost ruins in his submarine after we found the pirate’s treasure and then we were hungry and so we came here.”
“...That doesn’t make any sense.”
“We’re in Enigma’s dream.” Reminded Twilight, “It doesn’t have to make sense.”
“Enigma passed Shining Armor a napkin with the memory of Twilight's brief telepathic contact with him on it. He stared at the napkin for a long time, as if he was trying to recall a dream from long ago. He looked at his reflection one more time in the mirror, then looked back to his sister, “I’d say my body is about twelve right now. That means you shouldn’t be born yet, or be an infant; and he shouldn’t be here for another nine or ten years.”
“Well maybe Enigma feels bad that he never saw us when we were foals and so he’s turning us all back to be the same age.” Suggested Twilight like it should have been obvious.
Shining Armor looked like he was going to protest again, but at that moment the food they hadn’t ordered yet arrived. The waitress gave them one burger each, then pulled an unmarked bottle from under the floorboards and then squirted a small amount of sauce onto Shining Armor’s burger, a slightly larger squeeze onto Twilight’s, then held the bottle over Enigma’s burger and squeezed hard, completely smothering it until the burger overflowed and was buried underneath the torrent of pinkish sauce. The waitress popped the cap back onto the bottle, tied her white and pink mane back into a bun and trotted away.
Luna tried to enter the dream, but the door to the diner was locked.
The sauce on Shining Armor’s burger absorbed into the meat causing it to grow wider and thicker. Twilight’s burger also absorbed the sauce; it didn't grow as big as Shining Armor's did, but the taste was far more intense. Twilight invited Smartypants to watch her eat it and imagine she was eating a burger of her own; which Smartypants accepted. Enigma’s burger grew expedientially until it was bigger than he was; struggling to accommodate the seasoning that had been heaped on it. Enigma stared hungrily at his plate which was more sauce than anything else, then pulled it closer to himself.
Shining Armor and Twilight both bit hungrily into their burgers; not caring that the patties were made of raw pony meat. Shining Armor enjoyed his at an easy pace, while Twilight attacked hers ravenously, while staring jealously at both of her brothers, and anyone else she thought had more food than she did. Luna tried calling Smartypants to unlock the door from the inside, but the doll couldn't hear her over the happy laughter that was coming from the kitchen.
Enigma took one small bite of his burger, and winced his face as the overwhelming magnitude of sauce overwhelmed every other flavor. He crunched loudly several times, drawing the attention of the other patrons of the diner, before managing to swallow then opened his mouth for another bite when the waitress came running back from kitchen. Without saying a word, she scooped up Enigma with his plate and carried him into the back room where he could finish his meal alone.
Twilight stared after the waitress with her mouth open, comprehension just starting to creep into her face when Luna braced her shoulder against the door and forced it open, parrying her attention at the risk of shattering the shared dream and needing to gather the two unicorns all over again. Luna walked across the floor, folding up the dream as she went and hurling it into the nether, leaving only the bare essentials to keep her, Shining Armor and Twilight in the same place. Twilight looked around herself furiously, then turned on Luna, “Where did Enigma go? Bring him back!”
“It's nice to see you too Twilight, your concern is touching.” said Luna, trying to distract her, “Enigma was never there; he was another projection from your own mind.”
“Are you OK Princess?” asked Shining Armor, reflexively standing to attention like a good little soldier.
“I've been better, but I'm alright and am quite ready to leave. I'll need both of you to focus if I'm going to make an exit for us all.”
“Princess wait.” swallowed Shining Armor nervously, “... What happened? I remember being in your room with the doctors after you fell into a coma, and then Canterlot was being attacked by thesterals with...” he trailed off, “and then suddenly I'm here.”
Twilight rolled her eyes irritatingly, “I sent you a letter explaining what was happening right before we got here.”
“I never received it.”
“But you wrote back! You completely ignored me saying that I was minutes away from death, and asked me to do a series of tests on him which would have taken hours.”
“Actually Twilight,” explained Luna, “He didn't. You never sent Shining Armor a letter, and he never responded. You dreamed both.”
Twilight's ears perked forwards, “You mean I was already inside Enigma's head?”
“No. But you were dreaming; or hallucination, or in a trance, or falling victim to illusions. Before my exile there were thirteen words for seeing that which is not, all with extremely specific connotations; now Celestia has allowed the language on the matter to become impossibly jumbled. You never left Enigma's cell, but if you had he could not have bent the tylithium hallway to bring you back to him, and neither could he have broken the roof. You've been lying unconscious on Enigma's floor ever since he looked you in the eyes.”
“So Enigma gave me an illusion of getting stuck in his room and the door disappearing?”
“No.” corrected Luna, “I did.”
Twilight's face fell, “... Why?”
Shining Armor cleared his throat expectantly and Luna turned her attention towards him, “Shining Armor, tonight I attempted to visit Enigma's dreams and got more than I bargained for. His mind is like nothing I've seen before; like a maze that stretches in nine dimensions instead of just three which I could not escape by myself.
I knew I could dilute the potency of his madness by adding more aether to the dream, by adding more dreamers; and so I tried to get a message out by triggering Enigma's vocal cords, causing him to scream.”
“What!?” yelled Twilight, her mane almost breaking into a mana burn of her own. “Enigma's been yelling in agony like he's being eaten alive and you're telling me you did that to him?”
Luna grit her teeth irritably, “If your brother was in terrible pain, it would never occur to him to scream because of it. I merely triggered a response that should have been linked to pain but never was, in order to give my position, and it worked.”
“You made him bleed.” hissed Twilight quietly. “Whatever you've done in here has made him hit himself until he was spurting blood.”
“A bloody muzzle?” scoffed Luna, “I've been torn apart and eaten, multiple times by-”
“My brother's mind is not your play pen. What gives you the right to come in here and hurt him?”
“I was trying to help him.” said Luna softly, “That's why I came, I knew his parents had died, and I hoped that I might be able to reach him and comfort a grief which no one else could.” Those were both lies of course, but Luna needed to ease Twilight's anger and justify her presence here.
Twilight looked like she was going to cry, “Is Enigma upset that his parents are dead? Does he even know?”
“Yes to both.” Luna lied again, “But I've already done anything I could do to comfort him.” She turned back to Shining Armor, “After Twilight entered Enigma's cell, I spun an illusion around her to plant the idea of calling for more help; and then managed to use some of Enigma's magic to allow her to establish a link with you. Then the mass of my greater link with Enigma drew you and Twilight into a four person dream. Now that the two of you are here, our minds outnumber Enigma three to one and the laws of physics of a typical dream are restoring themselves. With your focus I will be able to form an exit and we can escape, leaving Enigma none the worse for us being here.”
Shining Armor nodded slowly, “So... if this is a dream, “Who are they?”
Luna looked behind her to where Shining Armor was pointing and saw Derpy, Vinyl Scratch, and Smartypants standing in a line, staring at them intently. “They... are projections of Enigma's mind that he sent to gather us together. I think he wants us to leave.”
“... But why do they look like... that?”
Luna said the first thing that came to her mind, “Those were the last people who's dreams I touched before coming here.”
“And Smartypants?”
“... I also visited one of Celestia's proteges.”
“... Alright then.” Nodded Shining warily, “How do we escape?”
“Firstly we need to envision our bodies where they are in the physical world. Where am I?”
“You're in your bedroom.” Answered Shining Armor, “Surrounded by your doctors and thesteral bodyguards.”
“Which doctors and bodyguards.” interjected Luna, “Be specific.”
His pronunciations of the thesteral names were terrible, but despite not knowing every one of their names, he was able to list at least twenty other ponies in the room, including descriptions and the positioning of equipment the doctors had moved into her chamber. It was more than enough. “The last thing I remember,” finished Shining Armor, “I was standing by your bedside. None of us were sure what to do to help you, and then you sprang out of bed and leaped on me.”
“Well then, I suppose you're lying on the floor of my bedroom, with me on top of you, and my doctors and thesteral bodyguards are standing around us wondering what they should do.” Shining Armor's face turned a conspicuous shade of pink.
“What about me?” asked Twilight anxiously, “When I was in Enigma's cell, my magic was running out, and if I didn't escape soon, Enigma's fire would kill me. How long do I have left?”
“That is one thing we don't need to fear.” smiled Luna, “By now, our four magics are combined, and though you and I have used a great deal of our reserves, you will have magic to maintain your heat shield for as long as Enigma has energy to burn; but that doesn't mean we have time to tarry. I need both of you to envision your bodies, unconscious, where they lay. Think of the floors under you, the smells that surround you, the sounds of Enigma and the hushed doctors. Imagine a doorway separating you from your bodies, and-.”
“Wait!” shrieked Twilight suddenly, causing Luna to tense, “You said Enigma wanted to gather us?”
“Yes.”
“And with us together, the language of the aether is more universal. We can understand each other better, but it could also work two ways! Enigma can understand us more clearly, and we can understand Enigma!”
“It's... highly unlikely.”
“But it's possible!” shrieked Twilight, bubbling over with excitement, and running straight to Derpy and yelling in her face, “Enigma! Can you hear me! Raise your right hoof if you can understand!”
Derpy did nothing, causing Luna slight disappointment and immense relief; “Twilight.” she said evenly, “I know this is hard to accept, but I've spent hours in here, which has become days in the dream scape; and I do not not believe that Enigma has the ability or even the desire to communicate.” This was mostly true; but staying here was dangerous, and Luna had other places she needed to be.
Twilight looked up at her defiantly, “You said yourself you didn't understand what you'd seen; Enigma could just want communication, but not know how to say it. This is the best chance we have ever had of communicating with him. You've already been in here for three days so what's a few more hours if it means we could-”
“Three days!” bellowed Luna, “I've been in here for three days!?!”
“It's Friday morning,” informed Shining Armor, “a few minutes past midnight, at least it was when I got taken here.” Luna's wings flared behind her in their own private temper tantrum. “Don't worry, there wasn't anything on your schedule that couldn't be delegated or moved to a later date. State affairs are running fine and your orchestra has been rehearsing in your absence.”
Impudent fool. He knew nothing about her schedule except what she had told him. He had a general inkling of what she did when she was awake but, figuratively speaking, Luna spent more time on the astral plane than she did in the physical world, and during her time there, she was accountable to no one. “We need to leave.” Luna hissed. “Now!”
“Why?” asked Twilight resistantly.
“Because we do!” answered Luna angrily, “Envision your unconscious bodies. Think of the floors under you, the smells that surround you, the sounds of Enigma and the hushed doctors. Imagine a doorway separating you from your bodies, and-.”
“But why?” Twilight argued. “Is there only so long you can be in a dream before getting trapped forever?”
Luna tensed, inhaling sharply; "Don't say those words.”
Twilight rebutted with another stubborn question, but it was too late. Luna was already trying very hard not to think of the location of her missed appointment. The fact that Luna had dwelt for a thousand years, believing she would most likely be 'Trapped There Forever,' made those words the final nail in a coffin.
By the time Twilight's careless question had pole-vaulted itself out of her mouth, the scene around them was already changing to an all too familiar gray; stretching solemly towards four desolate horizons; each dropping off into the blackness of space as the earth spun endlessly through the sky above them, self-absorbed in its own troubles.
They were not alone.