//------------------------------//
// Epilogue:  Out and About 
// Story: Brave Nocturne 
// by Eruantalon 
//------------------------------//

    The dream-grass tasted even better the next night, with my dream cutie mark.  And, when I set a hoof onto one of the paths into the mist, Father's cutie mark instantly appeared in front of me.

I smiled, turning to look at the seven or eight other paths leading off from my little meadow.  This would save me a lot of time.

The next path I came to showed Celly's cutie mark; the one after that, Mother's.  The next one (more mist-shrouded than the first three) showed Party Favor's.  I paused, tapping my hoof, as the question finally forced itself to my attention:  whose dream would I walk into next?  If not Party Favor's, or Mother's, then whose?

A swirling in the mist snapped back my attention.  It was swallowing up several whole paths!  A moment later, a new path — dry rocks, looking like pictures of the Badlands, with only a few sprigs of grass poking their way up — was revealed.  Surprised, I trotted over and tapped my hoof on the first rock.

A flame erupted in the mist.

I jumped back; the flame vanished just like the four cutie marks had.  I cocked my head; I didn't know anypony with a cutie mark of a flame!  Curious and eager, I stretched out my hoof and took the first step along that rocky path.

The mist suddenly drew back ahead of me to reveal a large lavender dragon.

I gasped.  "Headmaster Spikendar!"

He smiled a broad, toothy smile.  "Well done."

"Why'd you come -- how'd you possibly --"  Dragon's dreams were different, weren't they?  And even so, how come I'd reached him so quickly?  "Are you a dreamwalker too?"

He shook his head.  "No, but I know enough dream-magic to make my dreams visible.  Still, you are the first dreamwalker who can see anything except their closest friends' and family's dreams since..."  A hint of sadness passed over his face.  "Since before Twilight's brother left us."

"Almost a thousand years..."  My eyes went wide.  Learning to dreamwalk had been hard, very hard, but I hadn't guessed I'd already come further than any other pony!  "Then how -- why would Princess Twilight have written --"

"Perhaps just for fun.  She likes writing monographs."  Spikendar let out a slow stream of smoke; the mist receded to a mage-lit sitting room. I found myself sitting on a rich velvet couch, with Headmaster Spikendar on a gleaming silver couch next to me.  Around us, the walls were covered in vaguely-defined tapestries.  "Or perhaps she wrote that play to reach out,” the Headmaster continued, as if nothing had changed, “to try, to see if somepony would learn from it and find her in turn."

My eyes went even wider.  "The Princess was trying to find somepony like me!?"

The couch groaned as Spikendar shrugged.  "Perhaps.  In a way, I hope she is -- she wouldn't have tried to reach out to anypony like that before I left her."

"Why did you leave?"  The words slipped out of my mouth, almost unbidden; I had never dared ask in waking life.

"Ah... now that would be a story..."  He blinked back a tear from one eye.

I held my breath.

"... a story you could, perhaps, hear some other day."

I sighed and looked around the room.  Unfortunately, the tapestries were only vague blurs.  Even so, I thought some of those blurs looked like other alicorns — in white, in brown, and in several other colors that weren't the Princess's lavender.

But before I could ask Spikendar, he was speaking again.  "Congratulations on your near-unprecedented achievement, and on your cutie mark, and on your budding friendship with Sunburst.  As I hope you will soon see, such friendships will help you greatly in developing your new special talent."

I gave him a confused look.  "So, what now?"

"Continue practicing," he said simply.  "I trust you to develop a good plan of study, with your friends-to-be."

"But... aren't you going to help..."

He shook his head.  "In the future, but not at once.  For now, develop your own special talent, and, Harmony willing, in time you may even be able to walk into the Princess's own dreams."  He looked off at one of the tapestries.  "And, Harmony willing, you will come help Twilight before certain other problems find her..."

I followed his gaze to that tapestry, but I couldn't make out anything besides a lavender splotch and a white splotch.  They might've been two alicorns... maybe.

"But that's for the future."  He eased his draconic bulk off the silver couch.  "In the present, I believe you have more friends to visit than an old dragon?"

And, with that, he bowed and vanished.

The sitting-room hung around me, still stable for the moment.  I galloped over to the tapestry, but it was already fading into mist.  Whatever the Headmaster had been thinking was still locked up in his head.

But... he trusted me to plan how to study dreamwalking myself.  He trusted that I would be able to get to the Princess's dreams.[m]

And the first step?  Talk with my new friend.

Horn blazing, I set off through the mist towards Sunburst's dreams.