Brave Nocturne

by Eruantalon

New Dreams

The schoolhouse was vacant now. There were no students galloping down the halls, and no dragon to go to for advice. But even if Headmaster Spikendar was still curled up in his office, I hadn’t come here to ask him for more advice. I was here on other business.

I galloped down the empty school hallway, past all the closed classroom doors, to the dormer windows. Sure enough, there she was out in the meadow, coat as white as the fluffiest of clouds. Her pink mane seemed to blend with the blue sky above her, wings spread out over three of her friends.

"Celly!" I called out the windows.

She didn't look over. Instead, she leaned in to one of her friends - a yellow unicorn colt named Sunburst - to whisper something.

I narrowed my eyes. Was I just irritated at my sister, or was I starting to get a hornache again? Whatever; I wouldn't give up on my quest now. "Celly!" I yelled again. "Celly!"

Celly's other friends smiled as they joined in on the conversation; one of them even beat together some air into a small cloud. If I remembered correctly, that'd normally be impossible so close to the ground

As I watched for what seemed like just a couple minutes, the hallway around me began looking dingier and dingier. And it wasn't just a trick of the light - my horn was definitely starting to hurt now. "Celly!" I brayed once more, leaning out the window.

She glanced at me, shook her head, and turned back to her friends. Her wings were only covering Sunburst now.

I leaned back in and glanced around the hallway. It was decaying faster than I'd hoped; I couldn't even make out half the doors anymore beyond a mere suggestion in the fog. I tried to push the fog out; I'd done it before! But pain shot through my head; I lowered it.

No, I wouldn't give up now!

I set my forehooves on the windowsill, tested my strength - everything seemed good - and vaulted over. A moment later, I was in the meadow with a throbbing headache, and galloping down to my big sister.

"Celestia! Celestia!"

She looked up at me and gasped. Sunburst lowered his horn, but Celly glanced at him, and he raised it again and froze stiff.

A moment later - all three of her friends now stiff - Celestia stood and slowly stepped over to me.

I sank down on a small mound and rubbed at my horn.

"Lulu?" she asked, kneeling. "What's happening?"

"I... I wanted to see you? And now I'm here!"

"Lulu?" She threw a wing over me. "What's wrong?"

I rubbed my horn again, and my forehead too. The schoolhouse seemed swallowed up in mist now. "I've got a bad headache."

"Oh no!" She hugged me closer. "Maybe some unicorn could cast a healing spell, or let me get you some warm chocolate —"

"No, no!" I shook myself under her wing. "Not now. I could've had all the chocolate I wanted, but I got here all on my own magic, and I want to stay here, but —"

Celestia looked at me in sudden shock. "Luna, are you really —"

We were now almost sitting in a sea of mist. I grabbed her foreleg, exclaiming, "Remember, Brave Nocturne! When we both wake up - Brave Nocturne!"

I couldn't hear her response.

---

"Lulu?"

My head was throbbing. I ducked down in my nest of sheets.

"Lulu?" Celly's voice was as soft as her feathers. "I've got some willow tea, if you want it. It'll help your head."

I opened my eyes. Celly was holding a silver tray in her wings, with a steaming teacup. She offered it to me silently, her face beaming.

The first sip tasted like liquid fire. Suddenly shocked alert, I gulped down another mouthful - but no fire this time, just the smooth sweetness of honey. After another few swallows, my head was back to feeling just dull and heavy. I looked up at my sister. "Magic?" I asked.

"In the tea?" she said with a smile. "Of course. Some stored crystals. I wouldn't want your head hurting for another hour till the willow-bark does its work."

I didn't know what to say, so I settled for "Thank you," and levitating the cup back onto the tray.

She took it, set the tray - Grandfather's filigree dragon-and-crystal, I now saw - on my bureau, and sat down at the foot of my bed to start absentmindedly smoothing out the covers I'd rumpled up in my sleep again. "You're so amazing, Luna."

Celestia must have really felt it, I thought, to use my full name. But, with my head still spinning even if no longer aching, I could only say, "Thanks."

"I'm sure you know... but what would you say about the name 'Brave Nocturne'?"

It wasn't quite how I'd imagined the scene, but Celly could probably have given that smile even if the school really had been dissolving around us. I grinned. "It's the name of a very didactic play written three hundred years ago, probably by the Princess herself... but also, I told that name to you in my dream last night. Our dream."

"That’s so wonderful!" She leaned over to give me a warm embrace. "I don’t think any other pony’s even tried anything like that, but you did! How long did it take you?"

"Thank you!" I exclaimed, wriggling a little amid her effusive praise. "I've been trying this for six or seven moons now - periodically, I mean, not every night - I thought I'd caught some shadows of dreams before, but this was the first time I'd actually been able to walk around and talk with a dreamer -"

My babbling cut off as Celly released our embrace. "I was sure you've been working hard on this, Luna, and that just makes it even more marvelous."

"Thanks." I awkwardly swung out of bed, letting Celly finish smoothing my covers and give the hairbrush a quick swipe through my mane. "Uh, did you mention any of this to Mother and Father?"

"I said I'd be bringing you tea in bed. Anything more's yours to share."

"Uh..." I glanced at the pendulum-chimes; it was half-past-dawn. Still, thinking of the other things I'd meant to do today, I grimaced. "Could I wait to tell them? Till after school, I mean? I don't want to rush it..."

She peered at my face. "Of course. But they'll definitely be happy for you."

---

Celly disappeared into the kitchen to scrub the teacup and fetch some oats for breakfast, while I ran into our library. Father was there, sitting in front of several scrolls for his work in the Her Immortal Highness's Own Agricultural Magic Ministry. He looked up, pen and monocle held in his magic. "Here so early, Luna?"

"Yes! I just want to check a couple things before school -" I pulled down our copy of Minds and Magic.

Father frowned. "That's a heavy book for such a young filly to be looking at so early in the morning, without even having her cutie mark yet."

"It's for school. Well, sort of," I said without looking up as I flipped through the dense text. Where were those few passages on the differences between ponies' and dragons' minds? Unfortunately, all I found was the pamphlet about the Princess's Research Mages that I'd hidden in the book last week. I'd already done as much as I could in that direction so far, though — right now, what I needed was actual research. My plans would go faster if I could impress Headmaster Spikendar.

"And if I talked to your classmates, would they tell me they 'sort of' got assigned similar projects?" He leaned back and pulled another scroll from the stack. "Even your sister…”

I rolled my eyes and mouthed along with him: "...who, may I remind you, Luna, is several years your elder…"

He continued, pretending to ignore me. “...even she hasn’t mentioned any 'sort-of-assignments' like this.”

I didn't bother answering. After a few moments, I heard a sigh and the scratching of Father's pen again, and I went back to work. If I couldn't answer my questions, I could at least formalize them in a list for Spikendar.

---

It was both too long and too short before Celly and I were off to school. I was munching on two apples, as I hadn't taken the time to actually sit down to breakfast. For once, Celly didn't protest at all.

"... and you need to really fall asleep first, but set a trigger-spell inside your head, so you can recognize that you're dreaming and use your magic in the dream," I was explaining between bites.

Celly was listening quite eagerly. "But what sort of trigger-spell would that be?"

"Princess Twilight herself explained it, in that play I mentioned."

"Oh?"

I grinned. "It was Headmaster Spikendar who showed it to me in the school library. The Princess went into amazing detail there. I guess I can see why the common herd didn't like the play, but if you're studying it instead of watching it onstage, it's amazing!"

Cellly nodded slowly. "I suppose she would... If Twilight wasn't the Princess, I'm sure she'd make an amazing teacher."

"Amazing for somepony just as interested in the subject as she is." I snorted, imagining what somepony like Sunburst or Glitterhoof - or, sometimes, even Celly herself - would make of a lecture as detailed and relentless as Princess Twilight's writing. "I'd guess that's why she never lectures with her Research Mages."

"That means you've got a Princess's mind?"

I snorted again. "Thanks for the compliment! But I've got a lot more to learn today..."

"Don't put yourself down like that." Celly gave me a quick hug with a wing, tickling me with some of her feathers.

I darted ahead, tail waving behind me.

Celly took to the air to catch up. I flashed her the grin we used to tease one another with when we were both little fillies; she flashed back a benevolent smile. "You really are amazing, Lulu! Whatever Mother and Father say, whatever they want you to do, you already are."

I didn't reply.

---

As soon as we set foot in the schoolyard, two other fillies about Celestia’s age ambushed us and dragged her away with them, chattering about colts. She turned, as if to point me out to them, but I'd already slipped through the gates. I felt at my notes again; if I could do it before class...

Unfortunately, the large passageway to the Headmaster's office was already crowded with ponies, both teachers and students, mostly waving some paper or other in magic, or wings, or mouth. I shied back; I'd never get through that crowd! No matter how polite Spikendar was when we did talk...

Headmaster Spikendar's door opened. A pony slipped out, and the Headmaster's large lavender draconic face peered out behind him. "All right; anyone with particularly urgent business..." His eyes scanned the crowd before lighting on an Earth Pony filly not too far away from me, sporting a bruise on her muzzle. "Ah, Babs Seed. Yes, I'm sure it's important; I know that much from your face. Come right on in."

The door closed behind Babs, and I sat down against the wall, sighing. No matter how interested Spikendar was when we were actually talking about my explorations of dream magic, he never seemed to pick me out of a crowd and say that it was important. He'd rather talk to other ponies about fights or grades or tea parties or whatever...

---

The crowd had scarcely diminished by the time first bell rang. Unfortunately, it was Brightleaf's history class, with all the other fillies and colts my age who could hardly care less about actual studies. And for all the amazing reputation of Spikendar's Institute (starting from his having been the personal friend of the Princess herself), too many of the lower-level classes still catered to their students' ordinary tastes. If only anypony actually cared about anything important...

"Alright, fillies and colts!" Brightleaf trotted to the front of the room, book held high in her magic, face beaming.

I slumped forward on my desk. She was holding another thin book with pastel cover pictures, that would no doubt butter over all the important details like a Hearth's Warming Eve pageant...

"Today we're going to learn about alicorns. Can anyone tell me how many alicorns -" (I waved my hoof in the air) "- can anyone besides Luna tell me how many alicorns we know of? And why I ask 'how many we know of'?"

Two. Of course.

"One!" a pegasus exclaimed. "Princess Twilight Sparkle herself!"

Brightleaf shook her head. "No, Lightning Dust. There were -"

"Two!" another unicorn interrupted. "But there’s only one now, and the Princess’s the one who we care about!"

"But there were two alicorns, and that leads into our lesson for today."

She opened the simple pastel book. Everypony except me was listening eagerly. I let my head sink down on my desk. I'd read it all in a better book long ago; it wasn't like it related to anything important or challenging like performing dream-magic on a dragon. The other alicorn wasn't even around anymore...

She was reading from the book now, that simple pastel tale... "... there were two regal ponies, a brother and sister, who ruled together and created harmony for all the land. The sister used her alicorn powers to bring out the sun and moon at the morning and evening twilights; the brother used his to shield the land from all harms. Thus, the two maintained balance and harmony. And as time went on, the brother fell in love..."

A couple ponies made faces at that. I didn't bother, but just made a note to avoid walking into the dreams of anypony in love. It'd be far too mushy.

"... and he pleaded with his sister to make his true-love into an alicorn, so she could help them rule over Equestria forever..."
I rolled my eyes. The pastel picturebook had skipped over so much in that one sentence, including five years of their being married.

"...said sorrowfully that she could bring out the sun and moon, but the hearts of ponies were far beyond her; ponies must make themselves into alicorns; she could not do it for them. And, though she spoke true, her brother turned his back on her, and walked in the paths of dark magics while his sister wept..."

My eyes went wide as Brightleaf read of the sister's - Princess Twilight's - weeping. For all the picture-book language, somehow I hadn't thought of that before. Yes, if Celly turned to dark magic (dark tornadoes? Whatever it'd be for a pegasus) like Twilight's brother had... well, if I couldn't do anything about it, I’d feel horrible too.

"... and at long last she came upon him and his true-love in a cavern of crystals in the far north, while they were in the middle of a dark ritual. But she could only watch in horror as her brother’s beloved collapsed amid the ritual, her body shot through with holes. And her brother leaped to attack her in his madness, and by her alicorn powers she was forced to banish him into the crystal forever..."

---

There was one more class after that before break: mathematics, where the numbers demanded just enough of my attention that I couldn't let my mind wander. But then, as I galloped down the halls the moment the bell rang in hopes that I'd be able to get to Headmaster Spikendar's before everypony else, thoughts of Princess Twilight kept filling my head. It wasn't the textbook she'd thinly disguised in a play, nor even her Research Mage program that'd filled my thoughts for months; I was thinking of her standing, tears running down her cheeks, horn lowered at her brother...

A bookful of pastel hadn't been able to mask that image.

... and then she'd flown back to her castle and raised the sun and moon and led the Guard and Research Mages and done everything else all by herself ever after, for almost a thousand years.

What dreams must she be having?

Fortunately, the hallway was empty of waiting ponies this time. I galloped over to the Headmaster's dragon-sized door and knocked.

After a moment, Spikendar opened it and peered out. "Luna, how good to see you again! If you'll just wait a moment while Pudding Bowl and I finish up these budget figures?"

I nodded, of course, but I was sure he saw my impatience.

After some time that I was sure was far too short to finish any part of a budget, the door opened again, and Miss Pudding Bowl (a butter-colored earth pony) walked out, notebook in her mouth, with a polite nod to me as she passed.

"Ah, Luna," Spikendar purred as I sat down on the bench in front of his desk, notebook in front of me. It was the only seat in the office - as he'd always said, a dragon could rest in perfect comfort on just a rug. (Or on gold, if they wanted luxury — Spikendar had mentioned once the Royal Treasury had been quite comfortable, but he hadn’t minded giving it up when he'd left.) "What brings you here today?"

"Dreams." Daydreams of pictures — no, not that! "I was reading over Brave Nocturne very carefully, but even though the Princess gave so many useful details, I've still got some questions. I wondered if you could help? Especially since you used to work with her?"

A painful look passed over Spikendar's face. For a moment, my heart jumped, and I instinctively poised to run from the dangerous dragon — but I bit down on my instincts, and he collected himself after a moment. "Perhaps you should work with what you do understand first, and then go on to what you don't?"

I shrugged. Sometimes his prodding had set me on a better course, but sometimes he just seemed to try to discourage me for no reason I could see. "Why can't I do both at once?"

Spikendar exhaled two thin jets of smoke. "What sort of work are you doing?"

I smiled. "I walked into my sister's dream last night."

His eyebrows shot up. "Admirable!" he rumbled, reaching over the desk to shake my hoof in his great claws. "Well done, Luna. Perhaps you should try working with some of your classmates next?"

What would Babs' or Lightning Dust's dreams be like? I made a face. "I'll choose some other ponies, I think. Can we talk about my questions now?"

He frowned but nodded.

"So, the Princess writes a lot about how magic interacts with the surfaces of a pony's mind, but she doesn't describe how the surfaces themselves work." Spikendar nodded. I flipped back a few pages in my notebook. "I was looking in Minds and Magic about the differences between ponies' minds and other creatures', but they don't speak in any detail. I wondered if you could help?"

Spikendar let out several puffs of smoke before he answered. "Few ponies have bothered to study other creatures in such detail. Some of them even think bears are dumb beasts, just because they don't bother talking." He swept his tail across the back wall. "Their loss. But it makes me wonder... what makes you so interested in this topic?"

I stared the dragon in the eyes. "I want to do bigger and better things with dreams than any other pony ever!"

To his credit, he didn't laugh at me like my classmates, shoot me a disappointed look like Mother and Father, or even hug me like Celestia. He simply nodded approvingly. "Well resolved."

"I want to walk in buffalo's dreams, and cows' dreams, and even in dragons' dreams!"

He nodded again. "And that will be your project as a Research Mage, should you join them like you plan?"

I nodded.

"A worthy project. But will you just write it up in a monograph which might lead to further results in a century — like Small Hammer's work with teakettles — or will you yourself use it for those 'better things' you mentioned?"

I nodded hesitantly. Princess Twilight's play had mentioned that dreamwalkers could help with bad dreams. But that'd sound sort of weak if I brought it up here. I searched my mind — and two ideas quickly put themselves together into something that felt completely right to me. "Even before I try for the Research Mages,” I said, “I.. I want to..."

"Yes?"

I straightened up and looked him in the eyes once more. "I want to find Princess Twilight's dreams." I swallowed. "And I want to help her feel better now that her brother's gone."

Author's Note:

Thanks to BrokenImage321, OkemosBrony, and AShadowOfCygnus for beta-reading.
Thanks to BubblestormX for editing his excellent picture (which sparked the initial idea for this AU) into my cover picture.
And, as always, thanks to Lauren Faust and Hasbro for creating MLP.

Comments

[superfun]

This is certainly an interesting AU.
Though I do question the choices of some of Luna's classmates, but I'll roll with it.

[PegasusPotato]

woo

[PresentPerfect]

I haven't read an AU this deep in a long time and I have to say, that backstory for the Princess is

fan

tastic.