Luna awoke with a start and sat up, peering about the darkened room. Reaper lay naked and sprawled in the chair by the cold fireplace, covered partially by a sheet. Luna furrowed her brow, slipped out of the bed and walked silently to the window. She looked down at the street below.
The cobblestone roadway was now a moonlit beach, and lying directly below the window was the body of a light-tan unicorn stallion, surrounded by empty wine bottles and zaka leaves, his legs draped over a sweat-soaked, blue-maned, pink mare.
Luna looked to the left and noticed a dark figure reclining on a chaise lounge. The figure looked up at the window and flashed a bright grin.
“Again I ask, True Sister: whose dream is this?”
Luna turned from the window and saw Nightmare Moon in her long, silvery sheath dress sitting on the edge of the bed.
“Reaper’s I assume. Is that you below as well, or simply an echo from his mind?”
“Yes, that is also me. I quite enjoyed watching him struggle with a host of memories, some as Gerrar, some as Reaper. You can see from the empty bottles and sticky, sated playmate how well he ultimately fared!”
Luna stepped over to Reaper and ran her hand across his hair: “The leaf and the beer must have taken their toll.”
Nightmare Moon raised an eyebrow: “On you both. You are not asleep.”
Luna withdrew her hand from Reaper with a shock: “By the stars! A waking dream!”
“A shame to have been pulled away, really. His was a wonderful, disjointed, drunken, sweaty, surreal romp. I pleasured myself as he pleasured Aloe. It was like the old days!”
Luna chewed her lip: “I do not remember any of this!”
She turned back towards her snoring companion: “Reaper--please wake up! I am experiencing a waking dream and need you to help me break out of it.”
Nightmare Moon walked to the window: “Here, allow me to assist…”
Luna stepped to the window and saw the dark form rise from the chaise lounge and approach the two ponies who were again entangled, groping and moaning. She glanced over her shoulder and saw Reaper stir in the fireside chair, his breath coming in rapid, shallow bursts.
She looked again out the window in time to see the dark form insert itself between Aloe and pony Reaper, embracing the thrusting stallion, and suddenly driving a shining, silver horn up beneath his jaw with a crunch and a spray of blood.
Luna turned from the window as Reaper cried out in his sleep, and stumbled up out of the chair: “By Celestia’s holy teats, what was that?!”
Luna looked around the room: “She is gone.”
Reaper staggered sideways, then sat down heavily in the chair: “Who? What?”
“Nightmare Moon was in your dream, and in this room.”
“I--I don’t understand…”
“Neither do I, to be perfectly honest.”
Luna crouched slowly, then knelt at the edge of the fireplace, and wincing, stirred the fire, exposing hot coals on which she laid fresh fuel.
Reaper ran a hand down his face, and reached for a half-empty cup of gardo: “How could she be in the room? I assume you mean she was in your dream, too.”
Luna gazed into the fire: “I was not asleep, yet she was here, conversing with me. We looked down upon you from the window, and saw you entangled with Aloe. We were clearly seeing your dream from an outsider’s reference point.”
Reaper furrowed his brow: “We’re starting to drift dangerously into that un-tethered, dream-within-a-dream territory you warned of, aren’t we?”
Luna chewed her lip: “Zaka. I must not use it again. It weakens my control over even my own dreams, and seems to empower the phantom Nightmare Moon who inhabits my memories.”
“Not just your memories…”
Luna glanced up at Reaper: “What do you mean?”
He swallowed and wiped the back of his hand across his mouth: “What? I didn’t say anything. What do I mean about what?”
Luna narrowed her eyes, looked back-and-forth over her shoulders and frowned: “Nothing. What do you recall of your dream?”
“Not much--it was mostly a jumble. Celestia was hosting some sort of garden party, and there was epic food and wine, lots of wine, and she was lounging on a couch watching, until she joined two of her 'Honored Consorts.'”
Luna raised an eyebrow: “So Celestia was in your dream. Interesting.”
“Yeah, and I was drinking and wondering where the zaka had come from, when the Ponyville spa mares showed up and came over to me at Celestia’s direction.”
“Yes, I saw a remnant of that. Were you aware you were on a beach at the end?”
“I wasn’t aware of anything toward the end! By that point I was so lost in a haze of zaka and mare musk and booze and chocolate and various warm, wet holes that you could have dropped the entire scene in the ocean and I’m not sure I’d have known the difference!”
Luna stood stiffly and shuffled back to the bed. She sat in the middle and wrapped herself in a quilt: “Did Celestia speak to you?”
“No, well, yes--sort of. She yelled encouraging words at me, if you will, while I was engaged with Aloe and Lotus.”
Luna brought a finger to her lips and chewed at a nail: “Did it sound like Celestia, or was it like somepony was imitating her?”
Reaper put another log on the fire and grabbed a lump of dark-brown bread: “Hmm. I guess it didn’t sound exactly like her, now that I think of it. But like I said, I wasn’t really focusing very well.”
“Why Celestia, I wonder?”
“Likely because I was talking with her about her consorts just before we left. Are you telling me Nightmare Moon was in my dream without you?”
“It was she who broke the dream at the end by impaling you with her horn.”
“I don’t understand. Isn’t she you? What does she--you--want?”
Luna chewed her lip and looked away: “I--I am not entirely sure. All I know is she is growing in my mind, and is finding ways of evading my control, even to the point of manifesting before my waking eyes!”
“And you think the zaka has something to do with that?”
“That, and the fatigue and stress and near-death experience. And of course, I do not possess my own native power, just the strength of my will, which is proving less up-to-the-task than I would like!”
Reaper wrapped up in the sheet and sat facing Luna, with his back to the fire: “What can we do?”
“Aside from completing this mission as soon as possible? I do not know. But I must avoid zaka from now on.”
Reaper nodded: “Hopefully your pain is tolerable, and we can get re-provisioned and on the road within a day or two.”
“I presume there are other suitable substances?”
“We’ll hit up the local herbalist in the morning. I assume they’ll have azal. That, and the occasional cup of beer should keep the pain down.”
Luna yawned and crawled back beneath the blankets: “It might also help if we deliberately dream together. This may cut down on the confusion and keep Nightmare Moon at bay.”
She heard a faint chuckle and held her breath, listening intently.
Reaper fed and adjusted the fire: “I figure we have another three hours or so before dawn. Let’s try to get as much sleep as we can.”
Luna propped herself up on an elbow: “Please join me in the bed. It will be easier to maintain the boundaries between dream and reality now if I can touch you directly.”
Reaper furrowed his brow as he reluctantly slid under the blankets and faced away from Luna: “I’m more concerned about a lack of other, more tangible boundaries in this case!”
Luna smiled and reached out to touch his shoulder: “I assure you, this is the lesser risk.”
“Sleep tight, Luna. I hope you’re right.”
Reaper and Luna’s breathing settled into slow, deep rhythms as sleep overtook them, and the firelight covered the bed with flickering shadows.
A dark form slowly filled the chair next to the fireplace, its piercing aqua eyes fixed unblinking on the sleeping pair as Larg’s light spilled in through the window.
“Sleep tight indeed, True Sister…”