Dream Whisper

by Dream Whisper

Chapter 7: The rescue

The morning went exactly as I had thought. I tried to learn teleportation, but it was completely useless. Even though I now knew how to effectively work with shields inside the dream, I still did not know how to work with time at all. After some minutes, a guardian pony came in and led me to the room with the round table. All the seven ponies were waiting for me. Celestia greeted me:
„Good morning, Dream Whisper. Princess Cadence will be meeting us this evening. Until then, we will discuss, what we are going to do about your situation. We have aknowledged the threat you are to Equestria and you will be held in a chamber for an undetermined time. When Princess Cadence has finally arrived, we will be able to judge your actions and determine a justified punishment. Do you have anything to comment about this plan?‟
She waited a couple of moments:
„No? Fine. You will be lead back to your chamber then.‟
I was quite surprised, that Twilight Sparkle was not saying anything. She had a grim face and looked like she wanted to burn me, but she did not say anything. She swallowed her own anger.

Back to my chamber, back to my training of shields and teleportation, and back to failure. After another eternity of trying and trying and trying, I stopped. It just made no sense. I would never be able to just sense time. Instead, I just started to concentrate on making perfect shields. If I really wanted to use my newly acquired knowledge, I should at least be able to use it properly. After some time, the same guardian pony came in again and lead me to the round table. This time though, Princess Cadence and Shining Armor, the two most admired ponies in all of Equestria were sitting next to Princess Celestia.
Celestia and Cadence were still speaking with each other when I entered.

Princess Cadence, always smiling in every photo you see, looked angrily at me. I was the fault for so much misunderstanding and anger.
„I have a plan.‟
These first words of mine made the room silent immediately. Exactly the effect I had wanted to achieve.
„There is a chance to get Luna back. It is dangerous, but I think it is worth it. Inside a dream, I can take one pony with me, out of the dream. It will require enough magic and is thus extremely dangerous. If and only if I would be allowed to do it, I would prefer to do it in the deepest dungeons somewhere away from the city. It will probably be bound to my complete exhaustion, but I am ready to do it.‟
Everypony was astounded. The room laid in extreme silence.
„Dream Whisper, please excuse us for a moment, we have to discuss this ... new information.‟
I stood up and went out of the door, but stopped right in front of it. I think I had their attention, but to be sure, I tried to catch parts of their sentences if they were loud enough:
„can do it?‟
„how would it even work?‟
„ridiculous idea‟
„we have to try‟
„probably just to escape‟
„we cannot allow her‟
„if it brings back luna‟
„She can't be that powerful!‟
This last sentence was yelled by Rainbow Dash.

„Dream Cry was that powerful; And so is she.‟
This was Celestia's voice, also tensed by the discussion. After another while in which I could hear nothing from inside, the door was finally opened again.
„Come in.‟
I followed the command, knowing it was an offer they would probably not refuse. Celestia was proceeding to talk:
„We have decided to let you try it. If anything goes wrong or you try to do something stupid, be warned for the worst punishment: Banishment.‟
Banishment really was the worst possible punishment. Some say, it was worse than death. Some ponies become insane, trying to commit suicide. They hear voices, they lose the sense of themselves, they lose the ability to speak and they lose their own character. After banishment every pony is just an empty body or insane.

Everypony started to stand up and made themselves ready for the next steps. The royal guard came and I followed them to a small carriage with iron bars instead of windows. I was handeled like a prisoner, understandable in these circumstances. The drive through the city was very boring; I just stared at my hooves for the whole time. I was not interested in seeing the faces of the city ponies staring at me. This was either my ride to success or my ride to banishment.

I hate the bureaucracy at judicial trials. The first meeting, the second meeting, a third meeting and now this 'transport of dangerous goods'. Everything so unnecessary, but somehow it is still required. To not endager other citizens with my appearance, I was kept in the carriage and the carriage could not be stopped during the ride. Not for me having a pee, not for me having a crap, not even if I would have died in the carriage. Well, probably then, but not being allowed to pee is just the worst thing. After the nearly a quarter day long journey, I was finally allowed to pee. Magnicificant relief.

Then, the journey went further by hoof, down under. The facility had a unusual entrance, a small concrete hill with a huge metal door on the front. Twilight Sparkle seemed as surprised about this 'facility' as every pony else. Celestia started to explain it to her:
„This facility was the place we tried to banish Dream Cry from, before he... killed himself. The walls are strong and thick, there is no chance to hurt citizens even when extreme amounts of magic are used. Furthermore, this is the training room for us, when we perform... uncontrollable tasks.‟
Most of the way to the destination was just downwards a giant stairway. I cannot even describe how far it went down. It got colder, darker and scarier. I wouldn't want to be alone in this dark, terrifying shaft. Furthermore, it was just going downwards, without words, just step for step. After a time that seemed like another eternity, we finally arrived at the bottom level. There was another huge metal door, that was so thick, that Celestia nearly couldn't open it with magic. As it swung open, the muggy air hit my face. As we passed the door, I noticed that it was about ten to eleven hooves thick. Behind us, it was closed again. The lights from Twilight and Celestia did not even fill this giant room. We walked further.

I coughed a couple of times, because the air was burning my lungs. In the middle of this giant hall were a couple of seats surrounding two beds in their mid. Every pony would watch me while I and another pony would sleep, which was a very very very creepy thought. I laid down on the bed. At least it was soft, almost as if it was regularly changed. Probably not though. The pony, that was lying down besides me, was Rainbow Dash. The only pony brave enough to try this.

It was actually easier to get to sleep than I had thought. It was quite an unusal task to sleep in front of people, but once I had closed my eyes, it was actually easy to blend them out. I was a bit tired anyway and the bed was quite comfortable. Furthermore, I could now sense the dream. The whispy lines appeared, without me having to do anything. As fast as they appeared, they disappeared again.

I woke up right next to the dream edge. I was standing at the end of a field of trees.
„Hello there. It seems you have found your way into my head.‟
Rainbow Dash had discovered me already. She slowly flew towards me. The dream edge was expanding further behind me, so Rainbow Dash herself would never see it. It was interesting how this worked, even though I had not really expected it to. I mean, wasn't it completely random where I appeared? Obviously, I must have subconsciously changed something. Rainbow Dash seemed quite relaxed in this situation.
„I reckon you don't do anything stupid. I don't have much patience.‟
Yeah, sure. I had not expected anything else. Where distrust is laid as seeds, it can grow without care.
„You will be fine. There are two things we will have to do: 1. We will have to find Princess Luna, but since it is your dream, it should be easy enough for you to get her here. 2. We will have to find some water‟

Hopefully, it was easy enough for her to get Princess Luna here, but as I was finishing that thought, the moon already started to get brighter and brighter. Then, a blinding light announced her appearance. She slowly descended from the moon, just like she had done it in Fluttershy's dream.
„There you go. Now do your dirty work.‟
Dirty work. I would probably not ever get their trust, even if I would bring them their every desire. It wasn't time to think about distrust though, it was time to bring Princess Luna back. I started to concentrate on Rainbow Dash. It was easy, because her colorful mane was something, you could get lost in.
„Your look is creepy. Stop it.‟
Well, staring at somepony really is creepy, but it is the easiest way.
„You will be fine. I thought you were brave enough to withstand the stare of your biggest enemy.‟
This had the desired impact. Her mien started to harden and was filled with that strong willpower I admired her for. I could never have such a willpower. I always thought about 'what if' and 'I can't'. She definitely had no such thoughts.

The wispy light blue lines appeared like an overlay above everything in this dream. Now it was time to surround Princess Luna with a shield. I started to cast a shield, but holy horseapples, it was difficult as hay. Sorry for the strong language at this point. Rainbow Dash had already arrived at a nearby river, ready to use the water.
“Okay, you have to wake up now. Just go inside the water.”

Rainbow Dash thought about it for a heartbeat, then said:
„Sure. As long as you don't destroy Canterlot from down here, everything is cool.‟
The wispy lines grew in size and opaqueness. I could almost do it. Now just a little bit more, before it worked. As I had understood Discord's lesson, I needed to have the full control over the shield. Princess Luna didn't move, so that was great. With the completed shield, I could start to slowly try to get her back out of the dream, but it was actually harder than I had thought. It almost felt like trying to pull the Canterlot Castle through a key hole.

My head was already aching from the magic I was casting, but I would need more to complete my task. I had to find another way to get her through. There was only one way, I knew, to make the connection between dream and reality easier: Using enough magic. It would be uncontrollably dangerous, but it could get Luna back. I started to do the thing, every unicorn pony is warned of: Creating things from nothing. You can transport things over great distances, or use the stuff in the air, but you should never create something from nothing. It will use amounts of energy, nopony can handle. This was not reality though, this was a dream. Here, dream logic would work in my favor. In addition to using obscene amounts of magic, I also created a little lightshow, showing Rainbow Dash how hard I worked. Luckily, dream logic did it's work. More and more magic was flowing through me. When too much magic flows through you, it is not the usual feeling of magic, it is more like a giant pain in all of your muscles. You clench and try to relax, but you cannot, and your head starts to ache incredibly. Every heartbeat I cringeg, but I had to continue. To use enough magic, this was probably the only way.

The 'Canterlot Castle', I was trying to pull through a lock hole, was getting lighter and lighter. Soon it felt like trying to pull a house, then it felt like trying to pull a stubborn donkey. After all, it was still not enough. Until, suddenly other whispy lines appeared. They were not light blue-ish in color, instead had a deep indigo. It reminded me of my mother's magic. Instead I could hear roaring. A drop of blood started to run from my nose.
The shield was so close to being strong enough. Suddenly, everything was ready. I did not even see anything around me anymore, just the ache in my head. I screamed 'NOW' as loud as possible. Immediately the dream started twisting and turning. It quickly receeded.

Then everything started to break apart. The shield broke apart and suddenly I began to fall down.
„All those years, now I have returned.”
The impact was 'crushing' - Yes, I am bad with puns, I know - It was crushing several rips, that is actually true. When I looked around, I found myself in complete darkness. Rainbow Dash was trying to recover from the unexpected conditions. She was floating somwhere up in the sky.
„Where are we?‟
I asked, knowing she would not be able to answer.