57 - A Challenge of Minds
Luna and Silver stood in the hallway of doors. Luna pushed open a new one and bade Silver to enter. The inside was identical to Luna's chambers. Luna moved to her familiar cushions and settled on them. "Now we train. I must see that your mind is hardened against the horrors that lurk beneath the sunshine that Celestia believes bathes her kingdom."
Silver moved to sit in front of her. "How bad could it be? Even deranged ponies don't seem quite as twisted as I could imagine."
Luna frowned a little. "I confess there were memories of yours I dared not commit to mine own, but... Let us test. First, a simple distraction."
Silver suddenly found herself covered in crawling insects. She shuddered powerfully, rising to her hooves and scrambling away without thought before she could marshal her willpower. She crunched her teeth together, grinding up the bugs in her mouth before she flared brightly with heat, roasting the rest and freeing herself of the infestation.
Luna nodded lightly. "Very good. I have seen some fall to tears. But you have a weakness."
Silver was suddenly covered again, but this time, bees. They were all bees! She went rigid and still, heart pounding wildly as the brightly-colored bees danced over her stunned form. She drew the magic to send out heat and suddenly pain exploded across her body. They were stinging her! Silver made a pitiful noise that turned into a strangled cry of pain as several crawled into her nose and began to sting her there. This was a true nightmare. Silver collapsed to the ground, weeping silently and defeated entirely by the swarm. Suddenly, they were gone.
"Hmmph." Luna made a dismissive wave of a hoof. "I thought you were made of tougher stuff."
Silver rolled onto her belly, grunting. "I could show you things."
Luna tilted her head. "How delightful! You would challenge me, in my domain? Very well, do your worst."
Silver wove a quick scene, and Luna suddenly grunted, then rolled over. "A little pain? Is this... the best you can conjure?" The pain pushed more specifically downwards and she bared her teeth. "You turn my thoughts against me? I have seen a troubled birth before. This is not new."
A human stepped into the room, garbed in the sterile whites of a doctor. He brandished a scalpel and advanced on Luna. "This is the only way to save your child." His words carried the weight of truth that dream words can have, and Luna felt a new strange terror gripping at her as the strange doctor began to cut her open, not to hurt her, but in some barbaric ritual to extract the child from her swollen womb. She howled and kicked her legs, but the cutting would not stop, but the methodical slices would not stop. Despite the pain, Luna knew it was being done out of kindness, and that somehow made it worse.
Luna suddenly waved the doctor away like a cloud, forcing her way to her hooves with an angry glint. "Enough! Your world's medicines are barbaric and cruel. It is enough to cry out in thanks that I am barren to such things." Luna trailed off as she was suddenly in a ditch. Explosions rained down around her. She couldn't see them, but she could feel them, and hear the deadly rattle of guns that would cut her down without her ever seeing her killer. Beside her, other ponies quivered in terror as one in charge barked orders, commanding them all to go up top and charge the enemy line. The first pony didn't even finish clearing the top before he collapsed to the ground, shot through the barrel. His death meant nothing to the commanding officer, who pressed for them to make a united charge. "Is this some dream of yours?"
Silver whispered in Luna's ears, "I was not there personally."
Luna conjured a sphere of protection and made the charge, confident that her magic could pave the way to victory. The bullets rained down on her. The bubble shattered after the first. The second pierced a wing, then a leg. She collapsed into the mud as she was torn apart almost instantly.
Luna and Silver woke up in the hallway, with Silver nursing a new headache. Luna scowled. "You... You impossible creature! You ejected me from mine own dream." She rose to her hooves. Suddenly they were back in Luna's chambers. "Impertinent little princess!" She pulled Silver in close and snorted, breath gusting over Silver's nose. "Your horrors are new, I grant, but not worse."
Silver was suddenly standing before a deep hole. She looked inside and saw the peaceful but still forms of her herd-mates. Luna kicked dirt onto their bodies. "Death is forever. You'll never get them back. You'll be alone for all eternity."
Silver recoiled away from the hole. "That's not even remotely funny..."
Luna sat herself beside the hole. "No. No it is not. We are not here to have fun. If you find my challenges vexxing, give up, go home, and forget dreamwalking ever again."
Silver sank a little. "Luna... I don't want to fight you for this. I want to help you."
Luna marched up to Silver with a frown. "Your help has done little but drive daggers through my heart, reminding me I am still alive by the merit of feeling those pains."
Silver drew in a slow breath. "The truth this time. Why did you write me off so quickly when Celestia and Twilight had me trapped?"
Luna waved a hoof, and suddenly they were in Celestia's waiting room. She and Luna were seated at the table.
Celestia smiled. "I think I can fix that human."
Luna raised a brow. "Fix? I have already mended him. He is well and happy in my care."
Celestia made a dismissive wave. "You say that, but he's unbalanced. Just one little tip." She made a pushing motion. "And he'll topple over."
Luna frowned and tapped the top of the table. "He will not. He is loyal and wonderful."
Celestia shook her head. "Very well, a wager. If he remains as good as you say for one month's time, I will reward him with a gift of your choosing. On the other hoof, if he fails, I do it my way."
The memory suddenly paused as Luna looked up from the meeting directly at Silver. "You failed. Celestia demanded her price."
Silver thumped down onto her haunches. "I... She was just waiting for me to fuck it up. She was waiting to take it away. What about Twilight? She saw some imbalance? Was that a lie?"
Luna shook her head. "I could not say, but one does not normally check for that which Twilight checked for. Methinks my sister knew what your energies were, and told Twilight to look for what looked most incriminating to make her assist in the process. You were in no danger from the energy inside you."
Silver let out a little breath. "O... Ok... So Twilight's probably innocent in this." She thumped the floor once. "Why does Celestia hate me so much?"
Luna snorted softly and half-lidded her eyes at Silver. "On the contrary, she loves you quite dearly, especially now. You are so submissive, it excites her, I think. You are a fine weapon that is willing to work where you are pointed, but will not be a threat to her precious little ponies."
Silver shrank back a bit, then flopped to her belly. "I'm sorry I ran away."
Luna reached forward, brushing Silver's cheek with a hoof. "I yelled and fumed at sister for days when you fled. She cost me dearly. When Cadance sent word that I was not to come after you, it was like..." She leaned in and kissed Silver, lips to lips. They stopped speaking and shared their hurt passion a moment before Luna drew back. "Enough. What is done is done. You have your herd. The night is young yet, there is much to teach you."
They turned away from personal subjects and focused on dreamwalking. How to enter, how to leave, and how to 'land' without being harmed when the dream ended. "For now, you are to look and listen. Hurting a dreamer is easy. I made many terrible mistakes when I was young. You will not repeat them. Look, listen. If you think a pony needs help, find me and tell me. You will learn over time, but not by leaping into nightmares, hooves flailing."
Silver bobbed her head quickly. "Look, listen, report, cooperate."
Luna tilted her head. "I do not recall saying the last one."
"Old joke." Silver smiled. "So, royally speaking, what is our relation? Twilight is quite happily Celestia's protege and student, even as a princess."
Luna stood at full height. "As you are mine, at least in matters of dreamwalking. We are both guardians of the night, though you are yet in training for the task. Does this bother you? Did you hope to be a student of love or the sun, or perhaps even young Twilight Sparkle?"
Silver frowned a little. "Unfair question..." The thought of being Twilight's junior princess tickled Silver. It was an adorable idea that made her smile thinking about it. "Twilight would be an awful teacher, I think."
Luna wobbled a hoof. "She has had some success in education, do not discount her. Your talent remains your own, and it does not involve dreams, even if your tie to me has dragged you here. You are stubborn for insisting on helping me, but do not let it limit you. Your talent will not express itself here."
Silver ruffled her new wings. "Do you want help or not?"
Luna turned away. "Only if you are offering it for some reason other than a desire to 'make up' or some other compulsion. If you surrender your evenings to me, so be it, but your days are your own. Do not waste them."
Silver glanced around a moment. "Am I going to be rested after all this?"
Luna tilted her head. "You will be mildly fatigued, as if you had slept half as long, give or take, but we are at an end of today's lessons. Sleep."
Luna's word was quite a command. Silver felt herself hit the ground, and she was banished to her own dreams for the rest of the evening.
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Typoception?
Typoception
Noun
A typo within another typo.
~Crystalline Electrostatic~
5892503 I think that word IS a typoception.
If you go deep enough you will have all that extra time to write more story, so go as deep as you like into the typoception.
5892509 Well I think YOUR FACE is a typoception.
~Crystalline Electrostatic~
"with Sliver nursing a new headache."
Silver, not Sliver.
And those were not the worst things we can do. Far from.
5892687 Fixed, like the chapter?
this is the kind of chapter that I love so much to think about.
this chapter is simple but yet strong. Silver is facing huge decisions and in the back ground she has to be thinking about what Twilight is trying to do.
in her own way Twilight is trying to comet her own death she know the charge's will bring.
is it her guilt or something much deeper?
if Silver was not informed in the dream world she would not know, 70% chance Twilight was not going to tell her herd mats, she was just going to walk in to the trial and put the rope around her own neck.
Harts Fire
sorta hoping silvers patrolling of the dreams and lunas rough lessons will make her less submissive
5893709 All fixed! I was bitten by a writing bug yesterday.
5893300 Yes. Interesting to see Silver slipping into her new role, and it definitely seems very fitting at this point in the story.
I'm a little surprised you didn't use the death/rebirth as the story end/start point. I guess there's no reason you -have- to have separate story names instead of just racking up the numbers on one, but you've already long since established the pattern and it's hard to imagine a more fitting break point coming up anytime soon.
The sunshine that Celestia believes "bathes" her kingdom.
Her heart pounded as the "brightly-colored" bees danced over her stunned form.
That last part of the sentence, "but they were methodical," doesn't flow very well, since the previous part also used a "but." I'd change that to "but the methodical cutting would not stop."
Capitalize the first letter of the first word of the sentence.
Don't capitalize the "It" in that sentence.
5894506 Fixed! Thank you for being an awesome editor.
5894528 I do what I can.
While this chapter was ostensibly Luna training Silver, it's pretty obvious that this was more about her working out some of her anger towards the lover who jilted her. She even admitted as much when she said that they should move on from personal matters. What was interesting to note wasn't that Luna was unprepared for the horrors that humans have visited upon themselves, even for mere entertainment, but that she seemed to have calmed down after she lost that contest. I wonder if Luna is reevaluating Silver in light of Silver's native culture. Is she thinking that anyone would be so broken if they came from a world of such horrors? That's a completely erroneous way of looking at Silver, however, so hopefully she won't be too preoccupied with it.
More notable was Luna and Celestia's little "bet" over whether or not Silver could "be good" for a month. It was good to see them get back to the most salient point about what happened to end their relationship. That part needs to be talked about more, if only so they can compare notes as to what that event meant for each of them. Of course, what we got wasn't quite that, but was instead a twist, one that highlights exactly what's wrong with the entire situation in Equestria, and I can't believe that Silver let that go so easily.
First was the entire presumption of what constitutes wrongdoing. Does Silver really need to be reminded that she didn't do anything wrong where killing that pegasus mare was concerned? She was attacked by four ponies, couldn't retreat (if I recall correctly), and defended herself using a weapon that she had no reasonable way of knowing she had. She was not culpable for that mare's death! But to Celestia's way of thinking, Silver should simply have surrendered, apparently to let the attackers do whatever they wanted to her, presumably in some sort of bass-ackwards philosophy that says that, when defeat is inevitable, you should simply take the path of least resistance so as to make things less painful for everypony involved. Apparently Luna agrees with that, since she didn't come running to help Silver when Celestia pronounced judgment...that despite Luna's being aroused by a "true warrior."
There's also the utter nonsense of two alicorns deciding another's fate with a bet over lunch. Forget due process, or even informing the other pony as to what's happening in their regard, this is apparently how major decisions are made - one autocrat to another. This only serves to highlight just how much is wrong with Equestria; there's no room for dissent from what Celestia and Luna consider to be proper, even if the fallout from that dissent isn't the dissenter's fault.
I can only expect that Silver will exercise her newfound status to challenge Celestia at Twilight's trial, which will doubtlessly be a watershed moment.
5894627 Luna has much emotion to express in her own way. I like to think they are developing something new, even if there is still old debris that could use sweeping away and tending to. Silver is not accepting 'no' as easily anymore, in others or herself. She's already died for her old ways, it's time to live for some new ones. If she's happened on a path of increasing complexity, she will walk it with head held up high. I thought it was a moment of great significance when Silver realized the crossroads when she stood before it, and made a decision, consciously, to face the greater challenge, when the option to turn away and seek peace was presented.
Silver, bees may be horrible, but be glad Luna does not know of the terror that is the Cazador.
Warning:The following image is that of a Cazador. To those of you who know it's terror, you already know the lesson this image teaches you.
cloud-4.steamusercontent.com/ugc/39726630850166667/02807A03DF6BD385781026F1B0952AEF75C08B81/
6165887 A cazador is a different kind of horror. It is one large terrible thing. Being covered in bees is a different trigger for the old psyche. Countless angry things that can hurt you and you can't get away from.
Yes. Enter my dreams and make me lucid. I can assure you that with what I can create and what I have seen, they won't leave intact, if at all.
6165887 Super-heated saturnite power gloves.
1.) "Hmmph." Luna made a dismissive wave of a hoof. "I thought you were made of tougher stuff."
Silver rolled onto her belly, grunting. "I could show you things."
Luna tilted her head. "How delightful! You would challenge me, in my domain? Very well, do your worst."
That does sound interesting.
#student-becomes-the-teacher
2.) His death meant nothing to the commanding officer, who pressed for them to make a united charge. "Is this some dream of yours?"
I'm gonna guess it's the World War reenacted by ponies.
3.) Luna sat herself beside the hole. "No. No it is not. We are not here to have fun. If you find my challenges vexxing, give up, go home, and forget dream walking ever again."
Misspelled:vexing and dream walking
4.) Methinks my sister knew what your energies were, and told Twilight to look for what looked most incriminating to make her assist in the process.
I believe a spacing error:between Me and thinks
5.) Silver bobbed her head quickly. "Look, listen, report, cooperate."
Instead of "stop, look, and listen" for Railroad crossings. Silver has "Look, listen, report, cooperate" for dream crossing.
6.) They turned away from personal subjects and focused on dreamwalking.
Misspelled:dream walking
5894627 You know, it would be interesting to get an Omake where Silver is confronted about what he did, and asking Celestia
"Ok, surrender when outnumbered? Violence is ALWAYS wrong?
Why doesn't Chrysalis run Canterlot now? No no, you can't use "Defending My Little Ponies," Violence is ALWAYS wrong, remember?"
It's very old, but I have this sudden terrible suspicion that Celestia arranged for the attack on Silver Lining so long ago specifically to cause Luna to lose the bet and have her way with Silver. She probably didn't expect the death, but fighting? That she could have predicted from Silver's past brushes with violence.
It's entirely within her past tendencies to manipulate others and get what she wants without regard to the cost to others. And she's a staggeringly huge hypocrite.