• Published 31st Mar 2014
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Project Sunflower: Harmony - Hoopy McGee



After the events of Project: Sunflower, Erin returns to Ponyville to study magic. Meanwhile, something is stirring on the newly-discovered world of Harmony.

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Chapter 04: Feathers and get-togethers

Before the conditioner could be applied, there had to be an initial grooming. Fluttershy had carefully worked a flat brush with tiny hooked bristles along each of Erin’s wings. This had caught on the waxy shoots that encased the new feathers, and had pulled a few dead feathers and broken vanes loose, dropping them on the floor of her bathroom.

Fluttershy had then wetted down Erin’s wings and carefully worked in the thick, almost solid conditioner into the feathers, where it foamed up to an alarming degree. Erin’s first attempt to follow the instructions on the bottle by holding her wings outstretched and level had led to a long moment of unresponsiveness, followed by a violent spasm that had flung foamy conditioner all over her walls and had just barely missed Fluttershy.

For now, Erin lay on her belly on the freshly-scrubbed tiles of her bathroom floor with her wings stretched out on either side of her. Having her wings supported by the floor itself just seemed the easier and safer option.

“You’ll have to get used to moving them eventually,” Fluttershy pointed out several minutes into the treatment.

Erin grimaced but nodded. “Yeah. I’m just having a really hard time with them right now, is all.”

“I understand,” Fluttershy said with a soft smile. “But you can’t fly until you can control them.”

Erin sighed and laid her muzzle on the floor between her forehooves. The smell of lemon-scented disinfectant stung her nostrils, both harsh and oddly comforting.

“How much longer until we can rinse this stuff off?” Erin asked.

Fluttershy picked up the bottle in her hooves and frowned at the instructions. “I think it’s been enough time with the conditioner in. We can rinse them off now.”

“Oh, thank goodness,” Erin replied, finally getting back on her hooves and stretching some kinks out.

Fluttershy offered her a sympathetic smile. “Don’t worry. You’ll get the hang of using your wings eventually.”

Erin frowned and shook her head. “I’d like to think so, but Malachite was able to fly right away after he’d built his body.”

“Maybe he did something differently?” Fluttershy turned on the water in the shower to let it warm up. “He knew more about pony biology than humans do, after all. Um. No offense.”

“None taken. He definitely did.” Erin tried to repress a habitual shudder at the thought of the creature that had once possessed her. She failed.

Fluttershy gave her a comforting pat on the shoulder before she took Erin’s detachable shower head in her mouth and began rinsing off her wings. The thick, sudsy foam sluiced off of her feathers and spiralled lazily down the drain, making her wings feel so much lighter, even with the water trapped between the feathers.

After a few minutes, Fluttershy was satisfied with the rinsing and turned off the faucet. Already Erin noticed a huge difference, though the wings being waterlogged probably had a little to do with that. The feathers were mostly lying flat now, meaning that they looked a little less like a haystack. Erin let out a relieved sigh as she noted that the itching was completely gone.

“You want to just pat gently with the towel,” Fluttershy said as she used one of Erin’s brand-new fluffy bath towels to dry a wing. “Don’t rub. You could break feathers if you rub.”

“Okay.” Erin looked her friend in the eye and smiled. “Fluttershy, thanks so much for doing this.”

Fluttershy smiled warmly back. “Oh, I’m happy to do it.”

Silence reigned while Erin’s wings were carefully dried, though they remained slightly damp towards the skin where the towel couldn’t quite reach.

“Try flapping them gently for a while,” Fluttershy suggested. “They’ll dry faster.”

“Uh, they haven’t exactly been cooperative.” Erin gave the wings a dubious look. “I can give it a shot, though.”

Erin, her face screwed up in concentration, tried with increasing frustration to get her wings to do what she wanted them to. They’d moved on their own before, but she simply couldn’t figure out how to make them move when she wanted them to.

Fluttershy was nothing but patient, offering only words of encouragement whenever Erin felt her frustration rising. When one wing finally twitched, apparently in response to her mental command, the surprise completely shattered Erin’s concentration, causing the wing to flop towards the floor.

“Hey, I moved it!” Erin grinned widely at her wing, which was starting to fold itself back up against her side, though she wasn’t sure if that was because she wanted it to or because it was just the natural resting position for wings.

“Congratulations,” Fluttershy responded softly with a gentle smile on her face.

Her excitement turned out to be counter-productive, and several minutes passed without Erin managing to get either one to do anything more than twitch slightly.

Eventually, Fluttershy took pity on her. “It’s okay. You can stop, now.”

Erin grumbled and let her twitching wings return to rest, then stared in fascination as the feathers ruffled themselves. She was going to ask Fluttershy if that was normal or not, but her friend had already gone over to the Feathermaster case and pulled something out of it.

“This is the loose comb.” Fluttershy held up a comb with wide gaps between serrated triangular teeth. The comb had a strap that went around Fluttershy’s hoof, holding it firmly in place. “It’s usually used just to get the feathers all lying in the same direction, like so.”

Ever so carefully, Fluttershy dragged the comb through Erin’s feathers, causing an involuntary squeak of pleasure to erupt from her throat. It felt incredibly good, which distracted Erin enough that she didn’t notice that her right wing slumped towards the floor.

Fluttershy giggled but didn’t stop combing. Long, practiced strokes of the loose comb made quick work out of grooming the feathers of Erin’s left wing. When Fluttershy finished, Erin glanced over and was amazed by how much the appearance of it had improved. Though not as glossy or well-groomed as Fluttershy’s wings, the feathers were clean and lying flat with the vanes all facing in the same direction.

“Why don’t you try to do the other one?” Fluttershy removed the strap from her hoof and passed it over.

“Okay,” Erin said doubtfully, attaching the brush strap to her own hoof. It took a few false starts, but eventually she managed to get the comb moving in a rough approximation of Fluttershy’s more graceful strokes.

Grooming her own wing was slightly surreal, Erin decided a minute or so into the process. Her brain had given up its protests for the most part, instead settling into a confused muttering regarding the new appendages, but it helped to link the sensations she was feeling with the action of the comb as she moved it through her feathers, guided by Fluttershy’s advice.

It took quite a bit longer than her left wing, but Erin finally had her right wing combed to Fluttershy’s satisfaction.

“And now the wax.” Fluttershy held up a jar and yet another comb, this one much smaller and finer-toothed than the previous one. “Usually, a pegasus can save a few bits and just use the preening glands under her wings, but your feathers are really dry at the moment and will take more than the glands can supply right now, so we might as well use this.”

“Preening glands?” Erin asked, nonplussed.

“Like this.” Fluttershy raised her right wing and tucked her head into the pit between her wing and shoulder, rubbing her muzzle. She came up a moment later with an oily-looking sheen on her nose, which she rubbed along a wing. When she was done, she took the bath towel and wiped the rest of the residue off of her face.

Erin realized her mouth was hanging open and closed it with a snap. “I have one of those?”

Fluttershy giggled. “Of course. There wasn’t always such a thing as feather wax, you know. We had to oil our wings somehow.”

Erin stared suspiciously at her left wing for a long moment before gently nudging her nose under it. Figuring she was more or less in the right spot, she gave her “wing pit” a little rub with her muzzle, almost immediately finding a slightly gelatinous lump. She drew back, caught between fascination and revulsion, and then cautiously went back and nudged it firmly with her nose.

A warm pulse of something shot out, and Erin shrieked in dismay as she yanked her head out from under her wing. “It went up my nose!,” she cried in disgusted panic.

Fluttershy was giggling softly into her hooves as Erin spat and snorted, trying to get the whatever-it-was off of her face and out of her sinuses. It dried quickly, leaving a dusty residue on her face, which Fluttershy wiped off with a towel.

“Now, now, it’s not going to hurt you. It’s to protect and waterproof your feathers. It’s good for you!”

“Sorry,” Erin mumbled. Then she realized something. “It doesn’t smell. I mean, it doesn’t smell like anything.”

Fluttershy shook her head. “No, it’s not supposed to. If it does, that means the gland is infected, and you should see a doctor.”

“Does that happen often?”

“Sometimes.” Fluttershy shrugged. “You’ll notice some pain under your wing long before it starts to smell bad, though, so you’ll have plenty of warning.”

Erin’s wings once again both felt and looked alien and strange to her. And just as I was getting used to them, came the wry thought.

Once again, Fluttershy led the way by example, showing Erin how to apply the wax to some of the feathers on her left wing and then having Erin do the rest. It was an incredibly tedious process, the comb only being large enough to do one feather with just the slightest amount of gelatinous oil from the jar at a time. In order to speed things up, Fluttershy got a second wax comb from the other Feathermaster case in order to work on Erin’s right wing.

“Oh, Fluttershy, don’t you want to return that?” Erin asked.

Fluttershy shook head. “I’ve always wanted one of these sets. My old comb set was passed down from my grandmother and is in pretty rough shape.”

“You’re sure?” Erin asked.

Fluttershy nodded. “Very sure. I’ll keep the one you bought, and you keep the one I bought, and that way it’s like we bought each other very nice presents. Okay?”

Erin couldn’t help but laugh. “You got it,” she said with a smile.

“And, next time I come over, I’ll show you how to use the rest of the brushes and combs and other things in there, okay?”

“Sounds good. Thanks, Fluttershy!”

“Of course! Now, let’s get those wings done, so you look nice for your party.”

It was only twenty minutes before Erin’s “Welcome Back to Ponyville!” party was scheduled to start when they finally wrapped up. Erin looked at her wings in mild dismay. The wax had dried into a filmy residue, making her wings look dull and dusty, with a greyish cast to them.

Fluttershy smiled at the look on her face. “Follow me,” she said, taking the bath towel and leaving the bathroom, leading Erin through her living room and out to her front yard. “You always want to do this part outside, okay?”

“Um, okay,” Erin said, shifting from hoof to hoof uncertainly. “What part?”

“Open your wings,” Fluttershy said, spreading her own wings in example, “and flap them as hard as you can.”

Erin blinked at her, confused. “What?”

“Go on!” Fluttershy gave her an encouraging nod. “Like this,” she said, suiting words to action as she pumped her own wings.

Erin shrugged, then scowled at her wings, willing them to do anything other than just lying there like lumps. The feathers ruffled again, causing a small cloud of silvery dust to float out of her feathers.

After a few minutes with no flapping, Erin let out a frustrated groan and stomped her right forehoof. To her surprise, her right wing flapped when she did so. She stomped again, but this time the wing ignored her.

She closed her eyes and raised her right leg, concentrating on the muscles she felt moving as she did so. Her wing moved, but as soon as Erin opened her eyes to look at it, it snapped shut again with another puff of dust. It was annoying, but at the same time, Erin felt more hope than she had all day.

“Okay, this is probably going to look silly,” she said to Fluttershy.

Erin started marching in place with her front legs, and, sure enough, her wings started flapping along, alternating in time with her hoof-stomps. Fluttershy gaped at her for a few seconds before she broke into giggles, which triggered Erin’s own giggle-reflex. The two of them stood there in Erin’s front yard with Erin stomping and her wings going up and down like semaphore flags while small clouds of dried-up wax dust puffed out.

When the dust eventually stopped billowing out, Fluttershy told her to stop the flapping. After a quick rub-down with the bath towel, Fluttershy pointed a hoof at her wings and said, “Look.”

Erin looked. Then she gasped, amazed. “They’re beautiful!”

“And they’re waterproof,” Fluttershy said with a satisfied nod. “You’ll want to do this once a week, if you use the wax in the jar. Or, you can just do a little bit each night, if you use the preening glands under your wings. You can use your hooves if you don’t want to use your muzzle. Just rub it on the dullest spots and flap it off like you just did.”

Erin shuddered. “I think I’ll use the wax, thanks.”

Fluttershy smiled sympathetically. “I understand. Non-pegasi sometimes find that to be a little creepy.” She shrugged, adding, “And some pegasi think they’re too good to use the natural stuff.”

“Is it better to use the wax?”

“It depends on what kind you buy,” Fluttershy said. “The Feathermaster brand is one of the better kinds. It’s the kind Rainbow Dash uses, and she wouldn’t ever put anything bad on her wings.” She blushed and added, “I usually just use the natural stuff.”

“Oh.” Erin considered it for a little while. “It’s not really all that creepy, I guess. It was just unexpected.”

She offered a weak smile to Fluttershy, who smiled gently back before saying, “Well, I think it’s time we head over to Sugarcube Corner, don’t you think?”

“Hold on,” Erin said. She stepped forward and gave Fluttershy a hug around the neck. “Thank you.”

Fluttershy hugged her back with a warm smile on her face. “You’re very welcome.”

“Okay,” Erin said, releasing her friend and dropping back to all four hooves. “Now we can go to that party!”

~~*~~

At long last, the streamers were hung, the balloons filled, and the party favors were displayed prominently next to the door of Sugar Cube Corner. Everything was perfect, and all that remained was for the guests to arrive.

On Snack Table Dulcia was a mountain of cupcakes, piled up in all colors of the rainbow, as well as cookies, brownies, and various shortbreads and other sugary baked goods. Snack Table Gustatio Prime held the less sweet but more filling snacks, the cheese and crackers, breads and rolls, chips and dips. It also held the large crystal punch bowl with the ultra-special super-secret punch formula passed down from Pie to Pie to Rockwell—Great-Granny Rockwell having changed her name for tax reasons—to a couple more Pies, and finally to Pinkie Pie herself.

The games were ready. The food was ready. The banner… was drooping a little, but it only took a moment of work with the stepladder to get it back where it belonged.

Pinkie looked around with pride, knowing she’d done everything—

“The music!” Pinkie cried and bolted out of the room, only to return a moment later with the Cake’s phonograph on a rolling table. She parked it in the corner and sighed with relief before picking up where she’d left off.

—knowing she’d done everything there was to do, and now all that was left was to wait until the guests arrived.

This was one of Pinkie Pie’s very most favorite of times: that moment of anticipation, right before a party started. The uncertainty of not knowing whether everypony would show up or not, though they almost always did. Not knowing if the party would go well, though she’d never thrown a dull party in her life. All of the emotions which made the butterflies go all flit-flittering around in her tummy and making her feel energetic, scared and a little bit sick, all at once.

In fact, it reminded her of hot-sauce cupcakes, all tasty sweet and spicily upsetting. All of that was rolled up into a tense little ball in her chest that almost made her want to explode. Then somepony knocked on the door and the tense little ball in her chest did explode. Pinkie couldn’t have stopped the grin on her muzzle even if she’d been silly enough to try.

Ponies had a tendency to show up early for Pinkie Pie Parties, a fact that Pinkie took into account by making sure that everything was ready at least half an hour before the scheduled start time. Which is why she wasn’t surprised, though maybe a little disappointed, that it wasn’t the guest of honor at the door. Instead, standing there with hopeful expressions, were three of the ponies who helped to make up the happy background of life in Ponyville.

She still welcomed them warmly, of course. A guest was a guest, even if they weren’t the guest of honor. After all, the party was for everypony, not just Sunflower. Still, there was a not-so-small part of her that was itching for Sunflower to just hurry up and get here.

“Welcome! Welcome!” Pinkie said as she ushered the smiling ponies inside. “Help yourself to any snacks, if you like, but leave the cake for now. It’s gotta wait until Sunflower shows up!”

“Is she really a human?” Flitter blurted out, wide-eyed, and Pinkie could tell that it had been on her mind for a while.

Cloudchaser, who had walked in with her, seemed just as eager for an answer. The third pony who had walked in, Pokey Pierce, had barely said “hello” before he made his way over to Snack Table Gustatio Prime. He was loading up a plate with cheese and crackers and seemingly uninterested in Sunflower’s potential human-ness, which Pinkie thought was kind of weird but also kind of a good thing at the same time.

“Yah-huh!” Pinkie replied, bobbing her head.

“That’s so weird!” Cloudchaser said. “I remember her from before. She looked just like a normal pony!”

“She looks like an alicorn, now,” Flitter said with a pinchy look on her face.

Pinkie waved a dismissive hoof. “Yeah, but it’s just pretend. She’s not an alicorn like the Princesses, she just kinda looks like one.”

That answer seemed to please the pair of them, because they both went “Huh” at the same time and wandered off to Snack Table Dulcia in order to peruse the goodies. Pinkie would have gone with them to direct them through their choices, but somepony else knocked on the door before she had the chance.

After that, it was a steady flood of ponies that came into the large main room of Sugarcube corner. Twilight showed up with Spike, who had brought some of his own scrumptious cookies to put on Snack Table Dulcia. Rarity and Applejack showed up at the same time, and Rainbow Dash somehow managed to sneak in when Pinkie’s back was turned and almost immediately started stuffing her muzzle with a cupcake or three. Or four.

It was a good thing, Pinkie decided, that she had so many spares still in the kitchen.

Even though she had to keep an eye on the guests and make the occasional kitchen run to be sure the food remained well-stocked, Pinkie managed to keep her other eye on the door. It was with no small amount of relief that she noticed Sunflower herself, with Fluttershy in tow, walking through the door just five minutes before the official start time, which was still plenty early but also close enough to being late to make sure the butterflies in Pinkie’s tummy had plenty of exercise.

As soon as Sunflower walked through the door, Pinkie jumped up on a nearby table, stood on her back hooves and shouted, “Okay, everypony! Just like I told you! Three, two, one…!”

And, just like magic, or friendship, or both, everypony in the room shouted very nearly at the same time, “Welcome to Ponyville!”

Sunflower smiled a happy smile, a #15, which was one of Pinkie’s personal favorites: surprise and joy and a happy warmth inside because she never thought that so many ponies would be so enthusiastic in welcoming her.

“Thank you, everypony!” Sunflower said, with the definitely-not-unhappy sort of tears in her eyes, and inside her heart Pinkie could hear the music soaring.

Pinkie did a happy little dance on her table while chanting, “Speech! Speech!”

Other ponies took up the chant, stamping their front hooves. Sunflower’s face got all panicky before shooting Pinkie a desperate and pleading look. Pinkie tipped her a wink as she hopped off of the table. Her friend might not be happy about giving a speech right now, but something told Pinkie that it would save a lot of bother later on.

Sunflower finally gave in to the inevitable, and the ponies in Sugarcube corner quieted down as she cleared her throat.

“I, um… Well, thank you so much for the welcome,” Sunflower said, her face getting a little on the red side. “I guess you’ve all heard by now that I used to be a human. Um…”

Her face scrunched up, and Pinkie made a “get on with it” motion with her hoof, which caused Sunflower to snort with laughter and shake her head.

“I know some ponies are upset because I was hiding that before.” Sunflower drooped her ears a little and rubbed a hoof on her foreleg. “I really am sorry about that. I wouldn’t have done it, but we were desperate.”

The crowd murmured, and several ponies shifted on their hooves. Not Dashie, though. She was ignoring the speech and was instead busily cramming cheese and crackers into her mouth as if it were a competition.

“I wanted to come back to Ponyville to study magic,” Sunflower continued. Her blush got a little redder. “It’s true that humans don’t have any magic of our own, which is why I look like this. I wanted to be able to study all types of pony magic at once.”

“What a great idea!” Pinkie said in a deeper-than-normal voice from the back of the crowd where she had planted herself. The other ponies started turning around to see who had said that, but Pinkie had already ducked down under a table and scooted away, unseen, only to pop up on the other side of the room, looking casual.

“The reason I picked Ponyville was… well, I’ve never met a kinder and more welcoming group of people than here,” Sunflower said with a shy smile. “I really hope we can all be friends.”

A silent few seconds passed. It got a little awkward. And then Sunflower said, “Um. I guess that’s it. Thanks!”

The cheering started up again, went on for long enough for Sunflower to cycle through another blushing phase, and finally it was time to get the party going.

Pinkie was in her element, dancing from pony to pony, group to group, getting everypony to play games, or eat, or dance to the music that she started playing on the phonograph. It took a few minutes for Sunflower to calm down enough after her speech to relax.

Mingling ensued. Pinkie, though she wasn’t eavesdropping intentionally, overheard a lot of conversations. Most of them were about Sunflower.

“I’m fine with it, honestly,” Roseluck at one point said to Daisy. “I mean, it’s kind of exciting! She’s an alien, a human, and an alicorn studying magic all in one!”

Daisy nodded. “She seemed nice enough before I knew she was a human. So, I’m okay with it, too.”

At a later time, she overheard Lucky saying to another pony, “She’s a good worker. Always did her job, and then some.”

Pinkie stopped and stared at the pony Lucky was talking to. She hadn’t invited the stallion to the party. She knew this for a fact, because she didn’t recognize him. The stallion was a grey earth pony with a reddish mane, wearing a flat-brimmed straw hat, a black vest and a bow tie. His cutie mark was a notepad and pencil which, combined with his wardrobe, set off some alarm bells in Pinkie’s mind.

This, Pinkie decided, required investigation, even though she’d left her investigating hat up in her bedroom. She sidled up next to the unknown stallion as Lucky walked away. He had produced a pencil from somewhere and held it in his teeth as he wrote busily in a tattered notebook.

“What’cha doooooin’?” Pinkie said loudly from right next to him.

The stallion jumped in the air and went “Gah!” before turning to look at her with scared eyes. “Where the heck did you come from?!”

Pinkie Pie blinked at him. “You mean just now, or originally?” When he just stared at her, she said, “I was born on a Tuesday on a rock farm a couple of hours away from Ponyville by train—”

“What? No!” He bent down and picked up his notepad from where he dropped it, then spat it out into his hoof. “I mean… Uh. Well, I was just writing, is all.”

“What, like a book or something?”

“Uh, something like that.”

The stallion flashed her a slightly greasy smile, one of Pinkie’s least-favorites, a #98: nervous and not-quite-lying and hoping she’d just go away and leave him alone.

Pinkie countered with a #74: vapid and clueless. “Wow. I wish I could write a book! What’s that like? Have you written many books? What’s it about? Is it a scary story? A funny story? Or maybe it’s an adventure story? Do you write it all in that notebook? How does it get from your notebook to a regular book? What newspaper do you write for?”

The reporter, because obviously that’s what he was, looked a little dazed. “Canterlot Times,” he said automatically. “Wait! No, I mean…”

“It’s okay,” Pinkie said. “I don’t mind you being here.” Then she frowned. “But you shouldn’t be pretending you’re not a reporter. That’s not nice. Are you trying to get somepony to say something mean about Sunflower?”

The reporter frowned. “My sources say her name is ‘Erin’.”

“Your sources are wrong and not at the same time.” Pinkie treated him to a wink. “I like Sunflower better, so that’s what I call her.”

“Oh…”

“So, are you printing a nice article or a mean article?” Pinkie asked. “Only we had this problem a while ago with a gossip columnist who hurt everypony’s feelings, and I’d hate to see that happen to a friend of mine.”

“It’s going to be an honest article!” The reporter was looking all offended, now.

“Okay, that’s good. But if it’s going to be honest, maybe you should do your reporting honestly?”

“Ponies tend to hide what they know from reporters. I’d rather they speak candidly.”

“Okay, I understand… um, what’s your name? I can’t keep thinking of you as ‘the reporter’.”

“The name is Typeset,” he said as he tipped his cap.

“Nice to meet you, Typeset,” Pinkie said with a smile that slowly faded away. “Please, don’t hurt my friend.”

Typeset frowned at that. “I’m not going to hurt her.”

“Words can hurt,” Pinkie said softly, for once disregarding a party that was still in full swing around her. “They can hurt more than just about anything. Just… please, remember that.”

“I… I will,” he said, looking a little shaken.

Pinkie smiled at him again and started walking away. Then she stopped and looked back. “Oh, and make sure to try the punch! It’s a special recipe!”

Typeset smiled hesitantly back. “I’ll do that,” he said.

~~*~~

Contrary to what many ponies may have believed, Princess Luna’s Night Court didn’t actually take place overnight, when most ponies were asleep. Instead, it convened after the end of Luna’s dinner in the early evening, and wrapped up shortly before it was time to raise the moon.

Luna had other duties for the actual night. Duties that she began shortly after she finished raising the moon over the darkened landscape of Equestria. It was with a sense of satisfaction that she watched her charge rise beyond the horizon, brightening the night. It had taken months after she’d returned from her banishment for her to regain enough strength to once again perform the Lunar Rites, and now, every time she did so, it felt like a little victory.

Now that the moon was set on its proper course, Luna looked down from her balcony to the lights of Canterlot. The city in a small way mirrored the sky, twinkling below as the stars did above. So many ponies staying up late, enjoying the quiet of the night. She allowed herself a small and contented smile. Things were so very different, these days.

Luna stepped back into her sitting room and crossed over to her chaise lounge, which was upholstered in burgundy velvet. She lay down, tucking her long dark legs underneath her. The clockwork sky that ranged across her domed ceiling, a relic of a long-dead earth pony clockmaker, now showed the moon ascendant.

Luna’s horn flared, dimming the lights and sinking the room into shadow. The fewer distractions she had, the better. She left the clockwork ticking along, though; she found the tick-tock to be soothing.

The Night Princess began to regulate her breathing, drawing her focus ever deeper inward. Soon, nothing remained but the steady, constant rhythm of her breathing and the ever more distant sound of clockwork. And then, even that faded away as she left her body behind.

When she opened her eyes, she found herself looking at an entirely different starscape, scattered like chips of diamond far beneath her hooves. Spreading ethereal wings, Luna launched herself deeper into the Dreamrealms, soaring over the lights below.

Unlike the true stars, these lights were clustered oddly. In her immediate vicinity, they were so dense that she had a hard time making them out individually. Further out, they became more scarce, with long stretches of darkness between the distant clusters of lights.

All of these lights, each and every one, was somepony’s dream.

The concerns of the day slipped away as Luna found herself becoming calmer and more at peace now that she was in her own element. The realm of the dreaming, a garden of minds that she tended very carefully, keeping the predators away. For the most part, the lights were a shimmering white, indicating normal dreams that would be quickly forgotten upon waking. Here and there, the lights were different: yellows and blues and even the occasional green.

She noted these last dreams with a blush, remembering when, in a long-past fit of curiosity, she had peeked in on those dreams. Some things, she had learned, were best left unseen. She ignored the shimmering green dreams and kept looking.

A dream, angry red, pulsed in the black velvet of the Dreamrealms. Luna angled towards it and soared in to inspect it closely. A nightmare, and a vivid one, if the color was any indication. Luna closed her eyes and pressed herself gently against the outer edge of the dream. She asked a simple question, one that the dreamer wouldn’t consciously be aware that she’d even asked.

”Would you like my assistance?”

Luna felt the shifting sensation of entering a dream as the mind of the dreaming pony drew her in, seeking any aid that it could find.

The dreamscape was hazy and twisted quite badly, the colors oversaturated with reds and greens. Desperate muttering was coming from somewhere ahead, amidst twisting hallways and rooms that Luna decided were likely to be where the pony in question had once gone to school.

She moved, not willing to waste any time. The fear of the dreamer drew her like a magnet, and she found him huddled in the corner of a classroom, whimpering silently as he crouched down behind a desk.

The dreamer looked like a foal, pale blue with a black mane, but that didn’t mean anything. In a dream of fear, a pony would often imagine themselves as a child. The pony was pressed against the floor, no doubt in order to avoid being noticed by the thing hovering by a blackboard covered in unintelligible scrawls.

The manifestation that was so frightening the colt was a black hooded robe. That was all, simply a black robe with a hood, and empty, though retaining its shape as if an invisible pony were standing inside of it.

Luna studied the apparition for a moment and then disregarded it. Whatever it meant was momentarily beyond her ability to puzzle out. Instead, she knelt softly by the quivering child and lay a wing across his back.

He didn’t seem to notice her at first, but that was often the way of dreams. Luna leaned towards his ear and whispered, “What is it that you fear, my little pony?”

The colt didn’t answer at first, instead staring into the robe, his gaze fixed on where the eyes of the wearer would be if it were being worn. Finally, he spoke, in a voice trembling with fear.

“It’s there,” he said, barely whispering. “If I move, it will get me.”

“And what will happen to you if it does?”

“I…” the colt blinked slowly several times. “I don’t know. Something bad.”

“Something bad?” Luna prompted.

“Yes. I think…” The colt blinked again and then looked around. “What is this?” he asked, his voice suddenly sounding much older. His image wavered as he stood, becoming taller, broader, and much, much older. The mane turned grey, and lines appeared on his muzzle. He regarded the floating robe with a scowl. “This again, I see.”

“This?” Luna asked, rising to stand next to him.

“I’ve had this dream off and on since I was a colt,” he replied, an uneasy frown on his features as he walked slowly towards the floating robe, which rotated to continue facing him. “It’s been years since the last time, though.”

“What do you believe it means?” Luna asked.

The dreamer, now a stallion, remained silent for a long moment before speaking.

“I’m going to die one day,” he said. “Sooner now than ever. And, when I do, what will be left of me?”

“I can’t say,” Luna replied carefully, “for I have never died. Do you have children?”

The stallion snorted. “Never any time. And now I’m too old.”

“And there is nothing else that you will leave behind?” Luna asked.

“I have some friends,” the stallion replied thoughtfully. “I suppose they’ll miss me. Maybe my co-workers.” He stared thoughtfully at the robe for a while. “My wife left me years ago, met somepony new.”

“So, you feel as if you have built nothing that will remain, should you be removed from this world,” Luna said.

The stallion grimaced. “That about sums it up, yes.”

“Then why not start building now?”

Another angry snort. “I’m too old. What do you think I can do that will make any difference now?”

“I know for a fact that the Canterlot Royal Orphanage could never have enough hooves to care for the children. You may not have your own foals, but that doesn’t mean you can’t have an impact on the life of somepony else’s.”

He was looking at her curiously, now, though without recognition. Such was often the way of dreams.

“It is up to you to make your life matter in a way you find to be important,” Luna said gently. “Don’t simply wait for death. Go out every day, and try to make somepony’s life a little better. Those ponies will learn from you, just as you will learn from them. And what they learn they will pass along to others. The ripples of your actions will last for as long as there are ponies.”

“I… see,” the dreamer said, looking away from her and at his hooves.

Luna stood silently, giving him time to think it over.

“Alright, I’ll do it,” he said after a minute or two. Then he scowled at the robe. “And I think that’s enough of you.”

He jabbed a hoof at the robe, which collapsed into mere fabric onto the floor. He smirked at it in a satisfied sort of way before turning back to Luna.

“I can never thank you enough,” he said. “That dream has been haunting me my whole life. Oh! I never introduced myself. I’m Net Yield, an accountant by trade.”

He held out his hoof. Luna smiled and touched it with her own.

“I am Luna, princess by trade and warden of the night.”

His smile fossilized on his face as whatever it was he thought he was seeing in his dream resolved itself into Luna’s form. He gasped, and the dream shook and shivered.

“Remember this upon waking,” Luna said, touching her horn to his head.

“I will,” Net Yield said, gulping, “Princess!”

The dream shattered as the dreamer woke, and Luna found herself once again gliding on the sea of stars. She allowed herself a smile of satisfaction. Net Yield was only the first of what would surely be many nightmares she would visit tonight, and not all of them would be as easy to help.

Still, it was a good way to begin. One nightmare hopefully never to return, and one pony now determined to make a positive difference with his life. With a sense of serene satisfaction, Luna flew on, examining the Dreamrealms for another pony in need of her help.

It was, she reflected, wonderful to feel needed.

~~*~~

At long last, and far past her bedtime, Erin staggered back to her little cottage and let herself inside. She still hadn’t found the time to buy an actual bed, but her new sofa, reading chair and end tables were crammed into her small living room across from all of the boxes she still had to unpack.

Erin removed her saddlebags, which were filled to bursting with leftover party foods, and set them on the kitchen counter. Then, stifling a yawn, she went into the bathroom and brushed her teeth.

It was a short while later that Erin snuggled up on her new dark green sofa, using a large and fluffy green bath towel as a blanket. She poked her hoof at a cushion to fluff it up, lay her head down and closed her eyes.

What a wonderful day this was, she thought. Moments later, she fell asleep for the first time in her new home.